Prelude: The Disgraced Kingsguard

283 AC

It wasn't right.

No, it wasn't right at all that the lords of Westeros spat on his name for killing the Mad King. He had done it to save thousands, tens of thousands even, not that they knew that. Yet, their attitude towards his oathbreaking was something he understood. He was living with the consequences of his actions, something that he had control over. He hated it, but he understood. Now they spat at his name because of his father. Tywin "The Kingmaker" Lannister had removed him from the kingsguard and ordered him back to Casterly Rock, to serve both as castilian and as Warden of the West.

I would have taken the Black.

I should have taken the Black.

Yet, instead of being punished, he was being rewarded. He had tried to tell his father. He had tried to make him understand what the other families would say, but his lordly father had simply reiterated what he had long believed.

"A lion cares nothing for the opinions of sheep."

Yet he wasn't the lion that was having his name uttered as if it were an insult. He wasn't the one going back to Casterly Rock. He would remain in King's Landing ruling in the name of the infant king, Aegon VI.

No one would spit upon the name Tywin Lannister, not when he was Warden of the West and certainly not now that he was Hand of the King and head of a regency council for a boy that was barely a year past his name day.

As Jaime thought about the challenges to come, his thoughts couldn't help but drift to Cersei. He'd joined the Kingsguard to be with her, but Rhaegar and she had not been wed and so it was that they were separated. Now she would be wed to the boy Viserys and shipped off to Dragonstone while he was on the other side of the continent in Casterly Rock.

She'll be wed to a dragon princeling, just as father had originally intended.

If his father continued to get his way, then Jaime would find himself betrothed to either Rhaenys or Daenerys. They were but swaddling babes, with Daenerys just weeks old, but already his lordly father was attempting to design their fate. Whether the Tyrells and the Martells allowed that to happen was something else entirely.

Then there came a knock at the door that roused Ser Jaime from his thoughts. Cautiously, his hand clenching the hilt of his sword in preparation for an attack that he didn't really think was coming, he opened the door. Standing before him, dressed in the clothes of a serving girl was his sister.

"Hurry, let me in. We can't have someone catch us," she urged as she pushed her way past Jaime into his dimly lit room.

"W-why? What are you doing here?"

"We haven't much time. Gather what you can. How many dragons do you have? We'll need more than a handful to live well in Pentos. I gathered what I could, mostly it's just jewelry and other finery."

Cersei was frantic, she was looking around the room grabbing anything that looked like it might be of some value and piling it together on Jaime's bed. "Are you too terribly attached to your armor? We could probably sell it when we get to Pentos for a nice sum."

Jaime shook his head, still unsure of what was going on.

"Why are we going to Pentos? Has something happened to father?"

There was no way the Dragon Loyalists had staged a coup. Was there?

"No, but something is going to happen to us if you don't hurry!" she commanded.

"I don't understand, Cersei. You aren't making any sense. You need to explain why you are doing this."

She looked at him as if she couldn't comprehend why he didn't understand her.

"Father means to marry me off to that child and send me to Dragonstone while you marry one of the little girls and are sent off to Casterly Rock. We can't allow that. We've only just been reunited. We have to run while we still can. While the city is still chaotic."

With that, Jaime understood. He wanted to embrace her, love her passionately, and take everything that they had and flee, but he couldn't.

"Cersei go back to your room. Go to sleep, forget this ever happened, please. We have duties."

It hurt him to say it, but the shifting expression on Cersei's face told him it hurt her more or rather it angered her more.

"You coward," she spat with disgust.

"Cersei, that's not fair," he started, only to be cut off by his sister, who now glared at him with a mixture of revulsion and loathing.

"Not fair! What's not fair is that I'm being forced to marry a sniveling little child, who will almost certainly never rule once his nephew is old enough to start producing heirs! What's not fair is that I am to spend the rest of my days on a rock in the middle of the sea! What's not fair is that I'm going to have to raise a child and then marry him! You get off easy in this! You get to go back home, to the Rock! You get to spend your time with that deformed little monster you call a brother!"

"Leave Tyrion out of this," he demanded, finally attempting to stop her tirade. She simply sneered at him and went on.

"Father thinks that you will be a great ruler, but he's blinded by his own aspiration. You're a joke. A silly little boy of seven and ten who is busy feeling sorry for himself because he had to kill an aresehole who would have ordered him dead as quickly as he swatted a fly. You'll be just like grandfather. Jaime and Tytos Lannister, the two incompetents that nearly destroyed House Lannister. That's how you'll be remembered. It'll be my son and I who will have to pick up the pieces after you bring ruin upon the Westerlands!"

"Cersei, please stop?" It came across as less like he was commanding her and more like he was pleading. The things she was saying, they hurt. They hurt far more than the should, and yet they hurt all the same. His fists were clenched at this point and a part of him feared what he might so if she went further.

His sister glared at him and pointed accusatory.

"I thought we could have loved one another. I thought we could have built a family in Pentos, away from this place and these horrible people. I hadn't realized that you were more a child than my betrothed."

With that, she stormed out of his room, leaving him alone and feeling as if he'd been knocked on his ass.

290 AC

Two years had passed since Balon's rebellion had been crushed and seven since the High Lords' Rebellion had come to an end. Jaime thought the name to be a rather dreadful one that lacked flair and wasn't entirely faithful to what had ignited the conflict. A better name might have been the War for Lyanna Stark or the Deposition of the Mad King. No one had asked him what they should call the war. Still, whatever it was called it was over. On this day he would play his part in solidifying the peace.

"Are you excited to receive your bride, brother?" Asked his younger brother as they waited alongside numerous Lannister bannermen for Princess Arianne Martell and her entourage to exit the ship they had arrived at Lannisport in.

With a smile, Jaime replied earnestly, "A bit more nervous than excited."

This was Jaime doing his duty to make sure the peace was not just a fleeting thing. Though his father had tried to maneuver it so that he would be betrothed to either Rhaenys or Daenerys, the Reachmen and the Dornish made it known that this wouldn't be tolerated. They would fight to prevent the Lannister's from dominating the royal family. With the largely uncharismatic Lord Stannis busy in the Stormlands, the Iron Islands still reeling from their defeat, the Vale, and the Riverlands neutral, the only possible ally the Westerlands had against the combined forces of the Reach and Dorne was the North and Lord Eddard Stark was unlikely to lend them help. After the revelation that Rhaegar had married Lyanna Stark and had a second son by her, Lord Eddard could have pressed his nephew's rights to Dragonstone as heir to the babe Aegon VI, yet he had done none of that. Instead, he took his sister's body, little Rhaegar, and his brother's bastard daughter out of the southern lands and never looked back.

Maybe he feared what Lord Tywin would do to the boy if Eddard had pushed for the boy's legal rights. The Dornish and the Reachmen would have allied with the North if it meant giving the Westerlands a black eye, and if the North got involved it would likely have dragged in the Riverlands and possibly the Vale. Against such a force, even Jaime doubted his father could win such a fight. But Lord Eddard had wanted none of that. He had a son of his own waiting for him and he longed for his home. So it came to pass that little Rhaegar made Winterfell his home while Rhaenys had been promised to the eldest son of Mace Tyrell, and Daenerys had been sent to Dorne.

Jaime's role in making the peace last was pulling Dorne away from the Reach by marrying Princess Arianne Martell. His father had stressed the importance of the marriage alliance in his letters. Being wed to this Dornish princess could save lives, and if she looked anything like her aunt then there were certainly worse things a man could do to save lives.

At last, the Dornish began to emerge from their great dhow. The throngs of smallfolk that had gathered to see the new lady of Casterly Rock ooed and awed at the procession of foreigners. The princess herself was not revealed to Jaime with the rest of her entourage. While most walked, several Sandy and Salty Dornishmen held a palanquin which must have contained the princess. The Dornish made their way to the Westerlanders and halted before them, the thick arms of the men keeping the palanquin aloft looked strained. Then, the men who held the palanquin slowly allowed it to descend to the ground. Jaime had hoped that the Dornish princess would emerge from her hiding, but after a Dornish cryer proclaimed the arrival of the princess and few moments had been allowed to pass he felt compelled to step forward.

"It is a great honor to welcome you to the Westerlands, Princess Arianne."

He had to stop himself from bowing. He was the de facto Lord of Casterly Rock he bowed to no one save King Aegon VI.

After another moment, a Dornish maiden of maybe five and ten, certainly no older, stepped forward from the Dornish procession and spoke.

"Yes, I think you will do. You certainly look like you will do."

"I'm sorry?" Jaime replied with a mix of confusion and annoyance.

"I am Princess Arianne Martell, and I believe that you will make a good husband."

Jaime pointed to the palanquin which prompted the princess to pull open the curtain and reveal a great deal of jewelry and coin.

"The dowry my father promised."

"But why?"

"I wanted to see the man who would be my husband before he saw me. So that I might know if you were right," she responded as if her deception was nothing

"And is he?" an inquisitive Tyrion asked from behind him.

"He certainly looks like he may be." she smiled.

This will certainly be an interesting relationship.