Chapter Text
It was almost exactly nine moons from her wedding day that the newly crowned Queen Cersei Baratheon found herself in the birthing bed for the first time. Nine months from the day her husband, the Usurper King Robert took her to wife and moaned a dead woman’s name in her ear. Cersei bit back a dozen curses as another contraction rocked her body. Her golden hair was tangled, stuck to her sweat soaked brow while blood and birthing fluid slicked her thighs. The room was filled with a dozen women clamoring about, junior midwives, attendants, and maids all under the direction of a stern-faced matron midwife, but Cersei had never felt so alone as she did in the moment. As soon as her water had broken, King Robert had declared a hunt, abandoning Cersei to labor alone while she delivered their firstborn child. Even Jaime, her golden twin, had been shooed from her room once the contractions began in earnest.
“I can almost see the head, my Queen. In just a moment you will need to begin pushing,” the midwife declared, her gaze unwavering from her task.
Cersei grit her teeth, groaning as another wave of pressure pulsed through her torso. She had long since lost the faith to pray to the Seven, but vindictively she hoped the child in her womb was Jaime’s rather than her oaf of a husband’s. Jaime, her lion who swept her from her feet once her water had broken and carried her to her rooms, refusing to set her down until they had reached the birthing bed. Jaime, who now stood pacing outside the door while her husband was out spearing some creature to death for sport rather than greet his child once it entered the world. She sobbed as the strongest contraction yet ripped through her, an unbearable pressure that felt as if it would split her in two. She barely registered the midwife’s encouraging words, her eyes watering as she felt something within her split.
“Now. You must push now!” the midwife ordered, pushing Cersei’s legs further apart.
The queen cried out, the pressure was nigh unbearable and hot blood began to pour from her anew. She pushed with all the strength left in her exhausted body, trembling as inch by agonizing inch she felt the child slip free from her womb. Cersei collapsed as she felt the midwife pull the babe free, boneless from the exertion of laboring from dawn until the hour of the wolf. She paid no mind to the cacophony of movement from her attendants and the soft cries of a newborn, closing her eyes to gain a brief respite from her trials. A few moments passed before a hand was placed on her knee. “Your Grace?” the midwife said. Cersei opened her eyes, meeting the woman’s concerned gaze.
“Give me my babe,” she ordered, her voice hoarse. The midwife nodded, taking a bundle from the nearest attendant and placing it against Cersei’s chest.
“A girl,” the midwife murmured.
Cersei glanced down, taking her first look at the babe she had carried for nine moons. Cerulean blue eyes met her own as mother and daughter embraced for the first time. A distant part of Cersei’s mind was disappointed to note the babe’s dark locks and the flecks of deep blue in her eyes, almost identical to Robert’s. “Beautiful,” she murmured, lifting a hand to brush a damp curl from the babe’s face. And she was, though her coloring was all Robert, Cersei could see herself in the set of the babe’s cheeks, the shape of her eyes, and a face that was round with baby fat but would eventually come to resemble Cersei’s own. A Baratheon child for certain, but the lion's blood was strong. She shifted the babe, pressing a kiss to the babe's little brow. "My daughter," she whispered, "you might be a stag in name but in every other way my little lioness."
When Robert eventually returned to the Red Keep, drunk as could be, it had taken the combined effort of Jon Arryn and half the Kingsguard to prevent Cersei from rising from the birthing bed and strangling her husband with her bare hands. The drunken fool had taken one look at the dark haired babe in his arms and declared her the spitting image of Lyanna Stark, even going as far as suggesting he name Cersei’s daughter after his dead wolf maid. Only the intervention of Jon Arryn prevented the royal couple’s argument from coming to blows, and on his advice the babe was titled the Princess Cassana Baratheon, the firstborn daughter of King Robert Baratheon and Queen Cersei Lannister.