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Chapter Text

The first time that Jaime Lannister saw a ghost, it was in the bowels of Casterly Rock.

The fact that there was a ghost in the Rock wasn’t a surprise, Jaime had grown up hearing tales about how Lann the Clever had tricked the Casterlys into believing that their home was haunted and stole their home, sigil, and wealth. His cousins were always certain to also add the part that supposedly Lann the Clever still haunts the halls of the Rock as a ghost, scaring away intruders and smothering Lannisters unworthy of his name.

The fact that was surprising was that he barely noticed that it was a ghost.

“What are you doing so far from the light, little kitten?” A golden-haired man said, green feline eyes watching Jaime’s small form as his chubby little fingers reached for a door that he should not open. 

Jaime blinked up at what was probably one of his many older cousins, “I wanna see wha’s in there.”

The man looked surprised to be answered, like he was truly believing that he would be just ignored. As if Jaime would do that, his mama taught him that it’s rude to ignore people, especially family. 

“Oh?” The man recovered quickly, cocking his head to the side to look Jaime up and down. “Are you curious?”

“Uh-huh,” Jaime nodded. “I wanna see.”

The man knelt down so that they were at a height, “Is that so? Are you a curious little kitten?”

Jaime puffed up at that, not unlike an angry kitten. “I’m a lion! Mama and Father say so!”

The man faltered, “A lion? What is your name, little kitten?”

“Jaime Lannister,” He did think it slightly strange that his relative did not recognize him. Most of them often greeted him by saying they met him as a babe and commented on how much he has grown. “Wha’s yours?”

“Oh dear,” The man said. “I must have fallen asleep again. What year is it, cub prince?”

Jaime wrinkled his nose, “I’m not a prince!”

“You’re not?” The man startled. “Are you a cousin to the royal family then?”

This man was rather strange, “No. I’m a lion , not a dragon. I’m the son of Tywin Lannister, and he’s the lord pa-ra-mow-t of the West and the Hand of the King.”

The man blinked rapidly, “Dragons? The Valyrians?”

“Uh-huh,” Jaime said, happy to know more than an adult for once. “The Tar-gar-ee-ans came on dragons and burned a lotta of lords who used to have crowns and it scared my an-ces-ter Low-en and he gave the dragons his crown. We haveta bend the knee to the dragon king now! Bu’ Father is a twus-ted sew-vant of the crown and we get pwi-va-leg-es. I dunno what that word means but Cersei says it is good. Cersei is my twin and she is very smart.”

The man smiled, but it was weak and barely reached his eyes, “She may be smart, but you are clever , little cub. I can tell.”

“How?” Jaime cocked his head to the side, just like the man had done when confused. It didn’t seem to make anything clearer, but it did show him that the man had a dimple.

“You can see me,” The man said simply.

That didn’t make sense, “And who are you?”

“Can’t you recognize your own ancestor, little cub?” The man’s eyes sparkled with mirth. 

Huh? What did that mean…? Wait.

“LANN THE CLEVER?!” Jaime shouted, voice bouncing and echoing through the dark caves of the Rock.

The legendary hero smirked, “Who else?”

Jaime gaped, “Father said you weren’t real!”

“Obviously, he was wrong,” The man seemed very smug, though a small furrow appeared between his brow. “Tell me, do many of my descendants think of me as only a story? I appear to have fallen asleep for quite a while. Last I heard, from little cub prince Tyton, the West was preparing for war against the children of my cousin, Bran, for the stealing of the princess Tyta as a bride.”

“Prince Tyton?” Jaime’s eyes were so wide they almost fell out of his head. “Tha’ musta been over four thou-s-and years ago!”

He had heard of the story of Prince Tyton from his cousin Cleos. Tyton was the Lannister who claimed to see ghosts and visions from the gods, and was bold enough to ride a lion to battle against the North. Tyton fell in love with Princess Sanya Stark, who rode her own direwolf out to meet him in battle, and, once he convinced Sanya to sneak him into Winterfell in a dress after stealing her maidenhead and determined his sister was quite happy with her marriage, declared that he would take Sanya as his wife and settle the debt between their families. Tyton ran away with Sanya, they said that they disappeared into the Flint’s cliffs, accepted into House Flint of the Mountain Clans, when the pair had supposedly left Winterfell but never arrived at Casterly Rock. Maester Creylen said that they know that Tyton and Sanya became Flints because occasionally a Flint was born with golden streaks in their brown-black hair or with green eyes.

“A very long sleep,” Lann agreed. “But that is my task: haunt this home so none other dare to haunt it as traitors.”

“Oh. Tha’s good,” He said, then thought about it a bit more. “Tha’s kinda boring.”

Lann laughed, loud and proud. “It can be, which is why I sleep often and do not expect anyone to respond when I talk.”

“Why are you awake?”

Lann looked at him, “Perhaps, because you are. Is it not late for you to be sneaking down to the lowest kitchens?”

“You snuck around too!” Jaime defended himself hotly, “Uncle Gerry told me!”

“Yes, well, I was bigger than you when I did so,” He said. “And my mother, Florys, taught me how to sneak around under my grandfather’s sight so he would never know that she bore a bastard. The Casterlys were easy to trick and sneak past.”

“Oh,” Jaime thought about it. “I don’t think mama will teach me how to sneak. Can you?”

“If I am awake,” Lann promised. “Now, I do believe it is time for you to sleep. Come along, little cub prince.”

Jaime grabbed his hand, as he did with any family member when they said they were leading him somewhere.

Lann froze, shock overriding his features as he looked at their interlocking hands. “ Oh .”

“You’re a special little cub prince, aren’t you?” Lann said, peering at him. He looked sort of sad to Jaime.

“I’m not a prince,” Jaime reminded the ancient king once again. “Bu’ maybe one day I’ll be a knight.”

“What is a knight?” Lann said the word like it was completely foreign to him.

“You don’t know wha’ knight is?” Jaime gasped in horror, and decided to spend the whole way back to the nursery explaining what knights are, and then who and what the Seven were, though that was badly since neither of his parents were very faithful. 

Lann seemed to be going through a whole mountain of emotions as Jaime spoke, but he decided that it must be some strange adult thing, like when his uncles cry laughing when Jaime asks ‘why’ until his aunt is red in the face. He seemed mainly sad, which is a strange thing to be when hearing about noble knights, though he flickered through anger, disgust, grief, and bittersweet happiness.

“Well, it seems that I have been remiss in my duties,” Lann said finally, tucking Jaime into his cot. Cersei seemed to sleep right through it all. “I have overslept, and our family has strayed away from our blood and our faith.”

“Huh?” Jaime yawned, a bit too tired to question his many greats grandfather on what he was talking about.

“Sleep, little cub prince,” Lann soothed. “Your dreams will guide you.”

When Jaime awoke the next morning, he ran to his family where they broke their fast and told them all that he had met Lann the Clever while exploring. 

They all laughed at him, and Father scolded him for telling tales.

“No! I did!” He protested, shrieking his truth. “He called me ‘little cub prince’ and said he was going to teach me how to sneak around and play tricks!”

Mama blanched when he called himself a prince, and his father looked angry. “That is enough , Jaime. You had a dream. That is all. Now sit down or you will break your fast alone in your room.”

Jaime sat down, fuming. Why wouldn’t they believe him?

Lann sat on the dining table before him, crossing his legs and laughing loudly, in full view of his family and yet with no acknowledgment.

“ Because, little cub prince, they are not clever enough to listen and see. ”

Chapter Text

Jaime had grown used to seeing Lann often.

Ghosts were not beings that enjoyed seeing the world in a very chronological view, as it tended to remind them how long they have been dead. Of course, they were usually forced to, as that is the nature of time, but they could resist it, due to their nature of being dead.

Some ghosts, like the little drowned boy who raged and wailed at Jaime’s father, only appeared once a year. Others, like Lann, had homes and descendants they still watched over, resisting the supposed ‘sleep’ or the ‘call beyond’ that all dead had.

Lann did not care for sleep or the beyond. Lann wished only to tell tales, play tricks, and teach Jaime how he did his own clever tricks. Sometimes, however, his smile became tight and his eyes hard as he spoke of what has become of his family.

“My father was an Andal,” Lann told Jaime once, as he showed him the crack deep in the Rock, small enough that a seven year old Jaime had eyed the opening and understood why skinny, tall Lann had to cover himself in butter and pray to the gods of stone to squeeze through. 

“His hair was of beaten hay, a pale yellow-brown that I had too. My mother, Florys the Fox, thought that I should not have such plain hair, and so she taught me to pray to the gods of the sun. I prayed and prayed, but they did not answer. My aunt, Rowan, said that she would help me with a trick if I helped bless her brown hair with gold too. So, when I was your age, I tricked the sun gods. Rowan stole my aunt Maris’ gold bangles, of which were the prettiest gold known by men, and I rubbed oil on it and lit it afire. I told the sun gods that I had stolen part of their flames, and I would return it if they turned by curls gold, so I, my aunt Rowan, and all my blood would show our worth as my aunt did with her golden jewellry. They did, and when they discovered my trick, they laughed and agreed that perhaps they should not have ignored my prayers so, and returned the bangles to me. Now, when I pray to them, they listen, for they do not wish to be deceived once more.”

When Jaime asked him why he never prayed to the Seven, Lann had scoffed and declared: “I pray to the gods of my mother, not to those that have never shown their faces like my father. The Seven are false, and they have never shown themselves, not even to call us who dwell in between to the beyond. Yet, I have seen my gods by my own eyes. Pray to the old gods, little cub prince, for they know our blood and they know not to ignore those who wear their golden light in their hair.”

Jaime had never taken such pride of his golden hair before then, braiding it every day and taking care of it with oils and ribbons.

That was, until Lann poured dye into his shampoo one day.

“Why would you do such a thing!” Jaime cried, distraught to see his golden curls brown and plain. His father would not take such a prank lightly, and likely blame a servant or a jealous cousin. “You gave me this hair, why would you take it away?”

“Because you have been given it,” Lann said, unimpressed with his little tantrum. “A reminder that while you have gold given from the sun gods, your body is of Man, and your life is a paltry one. Be humble, little cub prince, and you will learn much.”

Jaime felt humiliated when he attended dinner that night with hair the color of mud, and from his lady mother’s gasp and his lord father’s rage, it was well deserved. 

For several weeks, Jaime got repeatedly mistaken for a servant. It got to be so often, that when one of the visiting Lannisters of Lannisport asked him to carry his things down to the bathing chamber, he did, out of boredom and curiosity if nothing else. The boy was rude and demanding, and hit Jaime for walking too quickly so he was at pace with him, so when the boy entered the water, Jaime stole his clothes.

It’s not like the annoying boy could do anything about it. What was he going to do? Go complaining to Jaime’s father that a servant boy with brown hair and green eyes stole his clothes? There was no servant boy his age that matches his description. Besides, maybe he’ll learn to be a bit kinder to servants.

Though, from the way the boy’s eyes widen and he goes pale in shock and fear when his father finally gets around to introducing Jaime and Cersei to him, he will probably end up learning to be paranoid that anyone could be a hidden highborn.

“Not the lesson I was trying to teach, but a good lesson nonetheless,” Lann commented idly, watching the boy scramble away.

Jaime flicked his eyes over to the spirit before looking back at his sister. He might have gotten away with claiming an imaginary friend when he got caught talking to air by his mother when he was younger, but at 7 name days, he was far too old for such a thing. It was alright, Lann was very good at reading the quick looks that Jaime sent him.

“A lion has expectations placed upon them, and so they shall roar and all shall hear,” Lann said. “However, dye that lion and shave the mane it will be expected to act like a tiger or a puma, and none will hear the lion’s roar.”

Lann, like father, was very fond of metaphors. Jaime disliked it, and found the speech to be too much and difficult to understand. Great speeches are alright for a knight or a general or a king, but not when you’re just trying to have a normal conversation. The flowery speech was just there to confuse and trick you, and Jaime has never been clever in that way.

Jaime’s eyes flickered upwards to where the chandelier was before returning to pretending to listen to Cersei complain about something or other their inspid cousins had done in the sewing circle.

“There hasn’t been a singular Lannister born without golden hair whose other parent’s line does not also have a strong magical bloodline. A Lannister and a Dayne, for example, shall always have a child with hair as white as Dawn itself, as the sunshine in our hair reflects the sunrise of Dawn. However, a Hightower and a Lannister will always have golden hair due to the golden bracelets of my aunt that helped give this color to my curls. A Stark and a Lannister is always a flip of a coin, as Bran used to like gloating, their hair is ashen from the flames that killed the dead and, rarely, red like the blood of his lady mother’s lake.”

Bran, who Lann refers to oh-so-casually, is Brandon the Builder, the father of House Stark. It was strange to consider that Lann and Brandon were cousins and supposedly quite close, from Lann’s fond way of referring to him, but it was true. Then again, nobody really remembered that House Lannister was founded by the blood of the first men and only intermarried with Andals for the first time since Lann in the past three and a half thousand years. To be honest, Jaime was pretty sure that his father forgot that fact a long time ago.

“To shed your gold is an advantage, Jaime. You do not appear like the descendant of mine or one with magic blood, but an average man, and they will overlook and underestimate you for it. I wanted you to learn that your gold is a privilege that I won for you so you would never have to hide or be overlooked by others who think they are better than you just because they have beauty or coin or power. Though, I do suppose you learned that lesson in a way. You did not enjoy playing servant, I am assuming?” Lann finished off his little smirk, the one that he gets when he knows that he has backed you into a corner. Jaime has seen that one often, though most recently when he made Uncle Tygett start swearing that there’s a ghost in the keep after none of his goblets would stay upright on a table for weeks.

Jaime glared at his many-great grandfather. A scathing reply was on his tongue, but he stayed it.

“Jaime! Are you even listening to me?” Cersei demanded.

“Uh, Melara said she had the prettiest stitching?” Jaime guessed. He definitely heard all of those words, but probably not in that sentence or in that order.

She glared at him, “Fat Jeyne said she would do the prettiest border stitches which is ridiculous because she has such ugly stubby fingers, she could never be better than me.”

Cersei didn’t even like sewing, she found it horridly boring and a task for a seamstress, but his sister has always been competitive, just like Jaime. Her stitches were neat, and Jaime was always sure to tell her that they were perfect in his eyes.

“Of course,” He agreed without second thought. “You’re perfect.”

She was, in his eyes. She was his other half, the second part of his soul and body, and so she could have no flaw.

She preened, happy to see that someone else knew her true worth.

Then, she shrieked.

Lann smirked as he watched the wine seep its way into her beautiful dress, finger positioned right where the goblet once stood on a servant’s tray. “Oops,” He said, completely unapologetic. 

“Argh!” Cersei fumed, and, before Jaime could step in, she slapped the servant. “How dare you be so incompetent you wre–!”

Jaime pulled his sister off the servant, holding tight her wrists so she could slap the poor innocent woman again like she was clearly going to. “Cersei! No!”

“Cersei!” Their mother cried, pulling his sister away and out from Jaime’s hold. “Your dress! I’ll dock her pay for this, no need to hit her. We need to buy you a new one now.”

“Mother!” Cersei whimpered, “She ruined it!”

Their father watched with cold eyes as his wife ushered their daughter away so she could get her out of the wet dress. Jaime would have escorted his sister, but their mother has been making them stay apart more often for some strange reason, so he moved instead to help the shaking servant.

Jaime reached down to grab the fallen goblet, and, silently, slipped two gold dragons from his boot purse into the cup as he knelt, handing it back to the woman. She flinched away from him.

“It was an accident,” He said softly, pressing the goblet to her hand. “How about you return to the kitchens? You must be tired to let the tray slip.”

The woman stuttered out an apology and a thanks in the same disjointed sentence before fleeing in fear.

“Servants are people too,” Lann said, sitting in the chair that Cersei left free. He was good at knocking over goblets and rattling chains, but he couldn’t touch a living person or move objects bigger than a cup. “You would never get beaten for dropping a cup or tripping over, so why should they? I am a bastard, little cub prince, and yet I have gained a crown. Did you enjoy getting shoved or yelled at by that little entitled boy? No? What is the difference between you and her?”

“I can fight back,” Jaime muttered. It’s not like Cersei knew that it wasn’t her fault, and she was very upset about her new dress. She had hit Jaime a few times when she got upset at him, much like his father had taken him across his knee a handful of times, so it wasn’t like she was wrong for reacting the way she did.

Lann sighed, “Yes, you can fight back. Don’t think I don’t see that stubborn set in your eyes, my wife was the same way. Circe was Casterly kindness, always trying to see the best in people, and you managed to inherit that. You may keep your kindness, but not your naivety, not if you want to be cleverer than them.”

“What’s the use ?” Jaime mumbled and stood up, looking at his father and saying that he was tired and wished to sleep, letting himself be dismissed without a word.

He didn’t understand why Lann wanted him to learn all these histories and lessons that didn’t even make sense. Jaime just wanted to be a knight, yet his own ancestor despised the idea of knighthood and claimed that all oaths are just the opportunity for a lie. And when he played the role of heir and took pride in his lessons, Lann would strip his hair of his gold and insult his family. He could never seem to understand the ghost and what he wanted.

Maybe he’s truly like the stories: spirits only exist to drive sane men mad.

“You’ll learn,” Lann said.

Jaime didn’t think that he would, “I’m more stubborn than my father and I have proved that. Why do you think you would win this?”

“Because you inherited my stubbornness.”

Chapter Text

Ghosts can be cruel just as much as they are kind.

Lann enjoyed mocking many of his descendants, often laughing when Cersei shrieked or when Kevan pulled his hair in frustration. Sometimes, he showed mercy, subtly stopping Gerion’s goblet from drunkenly spilling or terrorizing Emmon Frey on Genna’s behalf. Mostly, however, he torments Jaime by following him around, attempting to pass on nonsensical lessons.

Lann liked his lessons; how to sneak around unnoticed and how to knock down an opponent that was bigger than you. Those were the useful lessons. Then there were the annoying ones like family history from long before knights were a thing. Those were the lessons that tended to be boring or distracting. Then, there were the cruel lessons, the ones of death.

It had taken a day for the denial to fade.

Jaime lives surrounded by ghosts, there are days that he speaks more to the dead than to the living, and yet he has never truly faced the concept of death.

For the first day of Tyrion’s life, Jaime spoke to his mother’s ghost right in front of his family.

Her lower half was covered in blood, slimy and sticky, yet she didn’t even notice it. She kept humming to herself, a lullaby that Jaime had favoured when he was younger, and would try and fail to stroke her children’s hair.

He begged her to look at him, to talk to him, to stop singing…

Lann sat on the window sill, shaking his head in pity.

Jaime only stopped pleading when his father slapped him and told him to wake up. Aunt Genna screamed at Father that he was just a boy who didn’t understand what was happening, but Jaime understood. His mother was now one of the many shades haunting Casterly Rock.

“Death is hard for her far more than you,” Lann said. Jaime’s room was silent, the darkness muffling the world.

Jaime was tempted to throw things at him like Cersei had thrown plates and vases at the servants all day, but after watching his sister grow red in the face and not tire, he knew it wouldn’t help. “How?”

“Well,” Lann drawled. “She died, painfully and without comfort, not knowing what would happen to her children. She wants to still raise you, but she’s dead, and it’ll take a while for her to understand that.”

Sniffling, he rubbed his nose. “And I lost my mama.”

“So did I, once,” Lann said, sitting down on Jaime’s bed. “Everyone dies, and you are lucky enough that you can see them still, everywhere.”

“I don’t feel lucky.”

“Neither did I when my mother and wife died, or when my children and grandchildren passed before me. It’ll take you some time, but you’ll understand.”

Jaime’s jaw clenched. Turning under his sheets, he pulled the covers over his head. Under here, in the dark, he could pretend that his mother wasn’t still humming in the nursery.

Lann sighed, a deep and weary thing that moved his whole body. “Goodnight, little cub Prince.”

Just like his mother, Jaime refused to answer.

Things weren’t better in the morning.

Tyrion wouldn’t stop crying, Cersei wouldn’t stop screaming, Aunt Genna kept choking up, and Father had locked himself in his rooms.

Mother kept humming.

“Are the Seven Hells real?” Jaime asked out loud as they broke their fast.

Cersei actually stopped yelling at the servants for being incompetent to stare at him with unbridled fury. “You think mama went to the Hells?”

“No,” He stared blankly back at his twin. “I think we’re in the Hells now.”

Uncle Kevan blanched, “Don’t speak like that!”

“Why?” There were five ghosts in the room. Three were dead ancestors, one was a maid that had cracked her head on the floor, and one was a food taster with their face bloated and swollen. Their corpses were ghastly and horrid. This felt like the Seven Hells.

Uncle Gerion pushed his chair back and came to kneel before Jaime, kindness in his eyes. “Jaime, lad, I know that everything feels like it’s bad and it won’t get better, but I promise it will. This isn’t the Hells.”

“There are no Hells,” Lann added. The ghost was sitting on the table again, watching them all with pale green eyes. “There is Life, and then there is Death. We live in Life, and when we die, we linger or move on and place our trust in the Gods of Old. Ghosts are memories, and we are made of memories.”

“Will mama forget me?” He asked, not looking either up at Lann nor down at Gerion. “I won’t forget her.”

“Oh sweetling,” Aunt Genna cooed. “She can never forget you.”

But she did.

“Memories are forever,” Lann said. “Forgetting is temporary. She’ll remember soon enough.”

“May I be excused?” He asked with a small voice.

His uncles were quick to let him leave, ushering him back to his room. Cersei started yelling very soon after, demanding comfort for herself.

Tyrion was still crying in the nursery.

“Do things stop when you die?” Everything kept going. Mama was dead, and he still got up to break his fast. Tyrion kept crying. Cersei kept screaming. Jaime still kept breathing.

Lann walked by him, footsteps silent. “Do things stop when you live?”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

“People are alive,” His fingers curled into fists, then straightened, over and over. “Right?”

“Brandon Nighteyes was a greenseer so powerful that he raised the dead and marched them on the rest of the realm. Do you think the dead were alive then?” He asked, curious.

He didn’t know. He said as much in response.

“I do not know the answer either,” Lann sighed. “Some things have no answers.”

Jaime wished that he would never find out that answer, and that he would know the answers to all the questions. 

He rarely gets his wishes answered.

Chapter Text

There was a ghost in the nursery, and it wasn’t his mother.

She had the Northerner pale skin that browned easily, the type that came from generations adapted to long winters and snow-glare. Her hair was a slick black, thick and straight, knotted to create a bun that was held in place by a bone pin. Face round and eyes small, she looked like one of the merchant women from White Harbour. The only thing that gave away the fact that she was dead was her blue lips and milky eyes.

Drowned.

“You should keep your sister out of here,” She spoke straight at Jaime, a rareity among spirits that spoke of her long-dead status. “She’s been making him cry on purpose.”

Tyrion had stopped wailing once Jaimed had kicked Cersei out of the room and picked his little brother up. He was a quiet babe whenever someone was with him, yet he would be found screaming at all hours of the day. “Where’s the nursemaid?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

Called him cursed,” She sniffed in disgust. “Incompetent thing; the only cursed child here is you.”

Jaime gave her a flat look, copied straight from Aunt Gemma and his five-times great-grandmother from his mother’s side, the one that always paced the staircase up to the guest rooms and could barely speak. “Thanks.”

“It’s true,” Her milky eyes showed no movement, yet he could feel her assessing him, looking him up and down. “Lann told you it’s because you’re clever, and that’s only partially true. Your father killed so many kin, innocents; he got damned so many times… you were born with death in your eyes.”

“So it’s father’s fault I’m haunted? Great.” This sort of situation isn’t new. Because of his father, he can’t be a knight, Cersei can’t use a sword, Tyrion has to be hidden away, and many people are dead. “Why can’t Cersei see you?”

“She’s arrogant and doesn’t want to see the world through other’s eyes. No curiosity or wit to her. To be clever is to understand others; that’s what separates a Casterly and a Lannister,” She flicked her wet hair over her shoulder. “Your father and sister think they’re Casterlys. Your mother thought she was a weak Andal. You have the potential to be a true Lannister.”

“And Tyrion?”

“Maybe if he learns that wit needs empathy,” She shrugged. “He’ll never see the dead, however, unless wights rise again.”

Jaime placed his soothed baby brother back into his crib. “How do you know this?”

She grinned back at him with the teeth of a lioness, “I’m Circe Casterly, wife of Lann. I’m also the woman who set free all the lions in the Rock to eat my siblings. Well, met, Jaime Lannister.”

He rocked back on his heels, eyes narrowing. “Well met.”

“Lann did tell me you were more like me than him,” She continued on as if her tale of kinslaying was irrelevant. “I can see it.”

“I cannot,” He answered curtly. “Why did you kill your siblings?”

It was a cursed action, to kinslay. Dishonourable, every god he knew of condemned it.

“What do you know of my family?” She replied, amused at his righteousness.

“The Casterlys held the Rock for six hundred years before Lann decided he wanted it for himself. They were paranoid and suspicious and believed that it was haunted and turned on each other. Lann killed all but one, you.” He recalled the sparse tales he could tell were true, cobbled together from asides by Lann and scary stories from his cousins.

“Lann doesn’t speak of it, does he?” Her eyes softened when she mentioned her husband. “He wouldn’t, he enjoys mischief and tricks, not killing. Yes, my family ruled the Rock for six centuries, but we weren’t kind people. Those who lived in the shadow of the Rock were taxed heavily, and the punishments for broken laws were worse. My family thrived from excess, accumulating our gold and never giving back to our people. It was cruelty, the low-born starved and died, plagues festered and crime bred, we were not good lords.”

Jaime frowned, “So what happened?”

“Lann happened,” She smiled, fond. “He had just been passing through the town when we crossed paths. The people were rioting, crying out for bread, and my siblings threw me into the lot as a sacrifice. I would’ve been raped and murdered if it wasn’t for clever Lann. He drew himself up with the attitude of a lord, and flicked his hair around so it caught the sun, and he appeared to be aflame, and the crowd scattered, fearful of the fire. He walked me home, and I told him the truth of my family. So, we hatched a plan. We snuck into the Rock, I dressed as one of my father’s many bastard sons, and Lann as one of his base-born daughters, and sowed paranoia. I moved my siblings’ things and my clever Lann summoned spirits, allowing my family to briefly see the ghosts of these halls, and all too soon they had turned on each other.”

“And then you released the lions,” Jaime concluded.

“It wasn’t in Lann’s plan,” She set her shoulders. “But I knew that simply driving them out wouldn’t keep them away. So, for our grand finale, Lann had dressed as me and was to convince them he was my ghost, and then I was to come in and drive them off, revealing that I lived. Instead, while he had them cornered, I freed the lions and led them to the throne room. It was my family’s fault, you know, if they had fed the lions, then they wouldn’t have eaten them.”

“And then Lann married you?” He frowned, “Why?”

“Because I tricked him,” She said simply. “I tricked the trickster godling, and, in the tradition of old, we had stolen each other. We respected each other, and our strengths played both together and apart. We were a good marriage as, in time, we came to love each other.”

“And then you died.”

“I gave him ten sons and ten daughters, and then our first grandson grew angry at our lack of aging when his father grew weak, never to inherit our seat. He knew he couldn’t overpower Lann, so he came to me, asked me to convince Lann to abdicate. I refused, of course, my children knew that they would not rule, but they failed to teach their own children this. So he threw me off the cliffs.”

Jaime liked to jump the cliffs, not that he would ever allow Father to catch wind of this activity. It was thrilling to have your blood pumping as you fell, the massive splash when you landed, the way that your breath would be stolen away and your skin turned red and raw from impact, how you had to struggle and fight to swim upwards… and Lann hated it whenever he jumped.

Now he knew why.

“I used to jump the cliffs too,” She sighed. Then, she wiped her hands on her skirts, despite the fact she hadn’t been corporal for millennia, as if she was wiping her hands of the entire mess. “Well, you have Lann’s empathy, but my sense of justice. If your vows and duties conflict, well, then obviously, we have to go for the greater good, yes?”

“Protect the innocent,” Jaime muttered. “Like a true knight.”

She snorted, “Doubt there’s many of those around, every man has an agenda. Andals particularly.”

His nose twitched, but he was very used to hearing Lann’s insults towards Andals and knights. “You look like a Northerner.”

“I look like the Blood of the First Men,” She corrected. “Because us Casterlys were some of the First Men to settle here, following our First King.”

“And who was that?”

Her eyes twinkled, “Wouldn’t you like to know, little prince?”

She laughed at his pout, voice high and twinkling, like mother’s used to be. 

He thinks, perhaps, there are times when the ends justify the means, and kinslayers aren’t so cursed as the stories say.