AN :
In the Game of Stones, you either win or you wait. The more Power Stones you offer, the faster the chapters come.
...
"W-wait, but I'm supposed to marry Prince Rhaegar,-oh, and you're supposed to Marry Princess Elia!" she felt panicked, sweat beading on her forehead as she grabbed Callum's arm. "They can't do things like that."
...
Callum turned back towards her, his gaze meeting hers, his typically cute face looking an awful lot like their father's for a moment. "I think it's unlikely that they're doing anything untoward," Callum said quietly. "They may not even be together, but I also see neither of them here, so I can't help but worry."
Cersei cringed, imagining her future husband being stolen away from her… and how it would hurt Callum too. They even had a betrothal contract and everything! Who did that woman think she was mistreating him? Cersei raised her hand to her mouth and bit her fist, her heart pumping fast. "If she does that to you." She tightened her grip on Callum's arm. "Then I'll kill her." It'd feel good too, Prince Rhaegar was supposed to be Cersei's husband. Princess Elia seemed like a reasonable woman, she ought to know better than something like that.
"If she does that to me she'll be the most foolish woman in the Seven Kingdoms," Callum said, turning his gaze back towards the field. "You'd probably have to beat Father to it though, I know he noticed last night as well." Callum frowned.
"Of course, it only matters if something comes of it, and I can't hold it against her just for looking-" Oh, Cersei certainly could, she could pluck the Princess' eyes out for looking at Prince Rhaegar like- "after all, she's betrothed to a child. It's probably a good thing she's not attracted to me."
Cersei was about to spit blood and thunder about how Rhaegar should only be looking at her, but something in Callum's words made her stop. She looked at her brother for a long moment, with his thick red lips, his clever green eyes above his freckled cheeks, that burnished gold hair (darker than hers or Jaimes), and his soft features so much like their mother's, and she pulled him into a hug.
"Oh Callum, you're perfectly attractive, beautiful even." She giggled, squeezing him tight as she felt him stiffen within her embrace. It was a little quirk of his, he always did that when she hugged him. "Any woman would find you attractive, so obviously it's not that." Cersei continued, not really noticing as Callum did his level best to escape the hug, looking slightly panicked. "She must just want the throne, that power-hungry witch."
"Er. Cersei, I'm a- no, never mind." Callum sighed, relaxing as she let him go. "This is all just conjecture. We have no idea if Elia will even do anything wrong. That's why father hasn't done anything either. We have to let him handle this kind of thing."
"But…" Cersei looked at her brother for a moment and frowned, her blood cooling but still hotter than his. "But I want to do something about it," she said.
"Don't, Cersei, not until we have proof or a reason to." Callum whirled back to look over at her, then tilted his head towards the tourney field. "Besides, they're starting, don't you want to watch Jaime win?"
"I-" Cersei started, but then stopped, closing her mouth. "Fine," she said, moving up beside Callum on the railing to watch the Melee start, all the young squires were being sent to the edges of the field while Ser Barristan Selmy started up on a big speech about honorable conduct and decency, but Cersei couldn't squash the squirming urge in her heart to go find Princess Elia and find out what was really going on? Was her brother's betrothed really trying to steal Prince Rhaegar from her? Was she plotting with her family against House Lannister?
The more she thought about it, the more she began to worry, fidgeting back and forth as she waited for the stupid boring speech to finish already. Was Princess Elia just taking advantage of her brother's forgiving personality? Perhaps she had sensed his womanly heart when he'd gone to see her a week prior and decided to take it as an opportunity.
She'd heard rumors that Dornishwomen played that sort of trick, marrying men whom they didn't love just to sleep with all of their friends. She couldn't imagine poor little Callum trapped in a marriage like that. He probably wouldn't even beat her for it, so soft was his heart.
Cersei glanced over at her little brother and felt the urge once again to hold him tight. She would make sure that nothing like that happened to him, he might be forgiving but Cersei would take action!
She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of a hunting horn, signaling the start of the melee, and she frowned as she had still not seen Jaime. Already worked up, she felt impatience build. There surely weren't that many squires! Why could she not see her brother?
As the young men all rushed to fight, she could see Mace Tyrell, out across the field, knock a boy on his ass with a single blow, laughing uproariously. The boy was on the older end for the Prince's tourney at fourteen, and quite muscular. He looked more like a knight than a squire in his fine rose-patterned gambeson. He dispatched a second boy just as quickly, using his weight to defeat his foes.
While the other young men squabbled and battered at each other with padded swords, there was a bit of a hubbub across the field, as a young boy wearing a long cloak with the hood up took another lad off his feet with a single sweep of the blade, before returning to- "That's Jaime!" Cersei said excitedly, bouncing up and down.
"Eh?" Callum asked, looking over at her. "Where?"
"Over there, it's him in the hood! See how he moves?" Cersei pointed out. It was self-evident that it was Jaime, because she moved the exact same way, and knew every strike he delivered to the other brats around him, cutting through them like a scythe through wheat.
"How he moves?" Callum questioned, and she could hear the confusion in his voice.
"Of course, you wouldn't get it." Cersei snorted. Naturally, Callum couldn't understand anything when it came to martial pursuits. "You're basically a girl when it comes to swords."
"H-hey!" Callum protested. "No, I'm not! I just started training late."
"I-Jaime was already better than you when he was eight." Cersei caught herself just in time. It was possible that Callum knew about her pretending to be Jaime, but she didn't know for sure.
Callum blinked and then frowned, and Cersei knew she'd caught him dead to rights. "That's not fair…" he grumbled. "Jaime's special, look at him go."
And go he did, the hooded boy knocked over boys bigger than him by stepping around them and taking advantage of their thrusts, whacking them around their backs with his padded blade. Cersei felt elation run through her as she caught a flash of his golden hair under the hood, caught a glimpse of his emerald eyes glancing up at their box. She felt doubly elated when she realized why he was doing it. "Ah, he's showing off," Cersei said eagerly. "When the trumpet sounds he'll throw that cloak off and-"
Cersei blinked as the trumpet did in fact sound, just as she finished speaking.
"That's the end of the first round, only a hundred or so boys are left." one of the men set to riling up the crowd shouted, and, in a dashing display of daring, her Jaime spun about near the center of the tourney field, throwing his heavy cloak off to the side and revealing his proud Lannister colors, having taken down no less than six other boys, mostly older than him.
At once there was a great cheer from the crowd, and of course, Cersei was cheering loudest of all. Well, loudest save perhaps Aunt Genna, who was whooping and hollering and pumping her fist.
Beside her, Callum giggled as he clapped, shaking his head. "That's so cheesy…" he said to himself, but Cersei heard it. She wondered what exactly Jaime's victory had to do with cheese, but since he was clapping too it must be a good thing. Probably some strangeness of Callum.
She reached over and patted her little brother's head, grinning broadly as she waved to Jaime with her other hand.
If this was what they were like, then Cersei Lannister decided that she loved Tourneys.
=======================
If you'd like to support my work, or get early access to chapters before public release you can join my P atreon
Link to join my p treon :
[email protected]/moonlight10