"The King will have 20 children and you will have four. Gold will be three of their crowns, gold their shrouds"

Cersei Lannister could hear the woman's voice in her head as she stared at her newborn daughter.

The first Baratheon princess, black of hair, born only eight moons after the end of the Rebellion.

The only child that would be hers and Robert's, of that she would make sure.

"Your Grace, have you and King Robert decided what to name her?" said the Maester, but she couldn't take her eyes off her daughter. Her tiny daughter, who was far too eager to come into this world she could not wait the two moons left and far too fierce to perish because of it.

"Cerelle. Her name is Cerelle" Cersei spoke. She will be a Lannister and she will not be killed.

The King was far too smitten with the newborn when he came back from his hunt -She has my hair, Cersei! Look at her!- to bother with the fact that her name was not from his family.

It felt like a small victory for her.

Robert was kind to her, at first. Some days, she even found herself growing fond of the way he laughed, the way he smiled as he held Cerelle in his arms and looked down at the baby who shared his eyes and hair. She had considered herself lucky, when she had heard she was marrying Robert Baratheon.

And then there were the days when he had too much of a drink, and blamed the drink for his actions.

It was always the same, she learned not too late after that, and no matter how many times she said 'You hurt me' in the morning, he would not take responsability.

Those days, she hated him.

It was worse when he called her Lyanna.

Three moons after her birth, Cersei wakes at her daughter's crying. From her crib, the infant is red-faced, shaking her tiny tiny hands in the air.

"What's wrong, my little doe?" Cersei asks as she walks over. She touches Cerelle's face and gasps. Without losing time, she takes her baby in her arms and runs.

She sits by her baby's side the whole week it lasts. At first, Robert drinks and yells and punches walls- all the things men do to show they care. Then, when it's clear their child will survive, Robert drinks to celebrate.

All the things to show he cares.

Eight moons later, Joffrey Baratheon is born.

And Cerelle is then passed down to a wet nurse, not quite forgotten and yet not quite as present.

When Cerelle is four years old, she falls down while playing with other highborn ladies of her age and scrapes her knees. She runs to her Mother, not quite crying as that was not what princesses did, but not happy either.

Joffrey, in all his three years of life, notices her on the doorway. He notices from where he's sitting, playing with a wooden lion, and grins.

"Mother!" he cries, and runs to her arms. He's wailing loudly, with fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Calm down, my little prince" her mother whispers, placing soft kisses on his forehead.

"Mother?" she asks, her hands grabbing fistfuls of her dress. She doesn't dare step closer.

"Cerelle, what happened? Joffrey, shh, it's okay"

"I...I fell down"

"What? Love, I can't hear you if you are mumbling like that. Joffrey, what happened? Why are you crying?"

"Mother...I-"

"Cerelle, go to your Septa. She can help you, I'm sure"

"Yes, Mother"

She kind of wishes her wet nurse was there, but her mother had forbidden her from coming back to the castle.

By the time Myrcella is born, Cerelle knows how to read and sing and all other kind of stuff. She learns it all by Lalia Lannister's side, daughter of her mother's uncle Tygett.

It's not what she wants to learn, though.

"Why can't I learn swordfighting?! I'm older"

"And a girl" her Septa answers, rolling her eyes unladylike "Girls are not supposed to play around with swords, nor are they this unrespectful and undisciplined"

Cerelle frowns and stomps her foot as Lalia sticks out her tongue at the Septa's back.

Besides Lalia, who's a year her senior, she has three other ladies-in-waiting.

She doesn't need more, she assures, as she dresses herself and the only thing they do is keep her company. Two are high-born girls, but being with Cerelle, they are not exactly proper.

There is Jenne Lannister of ten years of age, from the Lannisters of Lannisport, who's a better rider than her and a master of gossip.

There is also Dala Florent, a girl of her age and cousin to her own cousin Shireen. Dala has black hair not as dark as Cerelle's, but close enough. They have similar eyes, and people who didn't know Cerelle could confuse Dala for her. She's better than her in embroidery, but to be honest Cerelle is only acceptable.

Jeyne, a low-born girl from King's Landing's heart, is the one who fetches her water for baths, changes her bedding and brings them food. It wasn't uncommon, however, for them to invite her to eat with them. She was older, fifteen years of age, and seldom accepted their invitations, but was always grateful when she did, happy to be treated better than a servant under Cersei's commands.

She manages to slip away from her Septa and run down to her father's chambers, but her Uncle Jaime catches her before she can get too close.

"Niece. Where do you think you are going?" he puts her down and blocks her path.

"I want to see my father!" she demands, sidestepping him.

"Cerelle, I don't thin-"

"Father!" she calls, opening the door with a bang.

"The Seven Hells! What do you want, child?" Robert looks at her from his desk, putting down the quill he was using.

"I want to learn to swordfight! Or use the warhammer! I want to fight!" Cerelle says and runs to her father. He takes her into his arm and sits her on his knee.

"And why do you want that? Don't you want to sing and sew and all that crap?"

"No! I want to fight like Joffrey!"

"Bah, Joffrey doesn't know how to fight!" he tries to say under his breath, but like always, her father is too loud.

"Then I'll learn and fight wars! I'll lead the armies in your name"

"Is that what your really want, girl?"

"Yes"

The day the Rebellion is announced, she's practicing with a sword and she cries and begs her father to take her with him.

She can't help but think that he may die.

Cerelle hugs him one last time, he musses up her hair and as she watches him go away atop his horse, holding Jon Arryn's hand tightly, she wonders if he will think of his family back in King's Landing at all.

It's no secret, really, that he's not exactly fond of them.

"I wish I had golden hair, like you and Joffrey and Myrcella" she says to Lalia one evening while the Rebellion is still going on, far far away from her home.

"Why? Your hair is pretty too" Lalia says, looking at herself in the small mirror in her hands.

"But not like this" Cerelle answers as she finishes doing Lalia's hair the way the Queen does hers "My mother is beautiful and she has golden hair. I bet Myrcella will be beautiful, too, when she grows up"

"Well, I think you will be beautiful too" Lalia says like it's final.

Sadly, it doesn't make her look more like a Lannister, like her siblings.

Father comes back from battle with a beard that never goes away again and aged eyes, looking older and yet acting younger.

Cerelle knew he was not honorable towards her mother, but now he doesn't even try to hide his actions. He drinks and whores in front of the whole King's Landing, embarrassing himself more than her mother will ever allow him to do to her.

She thinks it's sad, watching him fade away, or maybe be himself again.

She's not sure which is worse.

Tommen is red faced when he's born, fat and golden haired.

Myrcella is not passed off to a wet nurse.

Cerelle isn't sure if it's because her mother didn't want to make the mistake she did with her or something else.

"Mother says I'll be King" Joffrey says from the doorway, arms crossed as he leans.

"I know, Joffrey" she rolls her eyes, not stopping her reading.

"And you can't be Queen" the ten years old says.

"Not unless something happens to you and Tommen, Gods forbid" she then turns, looking at her little brother.

"And when I'm a King, I'll do what I want" he has a weird look on his face, one that perhaps should not worry her but does.

"A King can't do what they want"

"Father does"

"No he doesn't. If he did, he wouldn't be king"

"You don't know what you are talking about! Anyone would want to be king! You're crazy"

Tommen is a sweet, sweet child as is Myrcella.

Joffrey is not.

When Tommen is four, Father brings him a fawn. It's a small, delicate thing and Tommen adores it.

"I couldn't find a doe, but in my next hunt I will bring one for you, my little doe" Father says, caressing her cheek. She smiles and throws her arms around her neck.

Joffrey just looks.

Three weeks later, only a few days before her Father went into another hunt, Cerelle hears a child scream. She runs towards the sound and finds Tommen crying in front of Joffrey, whose hands are bloodied.

At his feet, a bloody mass of muscles and bones lays.

"Tommen!" she calls, running to her little brother and gathering him in her arms.

"Relle! Look what he did to Fawn!" Tommen cried, grabbing her hair in his chubby hands and hiding his face in her neck.

"Joffrey, what is wrong with you?" she says, both horrified and scared. She takes a small step back, moving Tommen away from Joffrey.

"I just wanted to learn how to skin animals!" Joffrey says, but his eyes say something completely different.

"Come, Tommen" she says, even though her littlest brother is in her arms and with no will to move by himself as sobs make him shake.

She doesn't get her own doe, and that's more than fine with her.

"You called for me, Father?" Cerelle calls from the door to her father's chambers, entering the room.

"Yes, my little doe"

As the years started to pass, the little nickname her parents used had started to shift between them. At first, her mother had used it with fondness, just as her father did now.

Lately, it hadn't been filled with the same love.

She had noticed it in the way Cersei called Myrcella a 'lioness' and not a 'doe' like her. She had seen the pendant hanging from her sister's neck.

The way Joffrey was sure of himself, of being a lion-

She was the odd one out.

"Is something the matter?" she asks as she sits down in front of her father.

"Can't a father call his daughter from time to time to just chat?"

"Not you"

"Watch that tongue, little lady, I'm still your King" he says, his voice not serious enough.

She just smiles at him.

"I wanted to give this to you" he passes her a small wooden box, able to fit her hands "I saw Myrcella's but I didn't see you wearing one. Like hells I was giving you a Lannister anything,so..."

Inside the box lays a golden pendant but instead of a lion, the face of a stag rests on its middle.

"Thank you" she looks up, the begining of tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

There was little chance her father had been the one to go and buy it, but he was the one to give it to her personally.

It meant a lot to her.

She's fourteen years old when Jon Arryn comes to fetch her.

He stands beside Robert when he calls her.

"Father" she says, sitting in front of him before he says anything.

"Daughter" he's uncomfortable, she can tell by the way he doesn't look at her. "Cerelle. I-Jon, you do it"

She raises her eyebrow to Jon, who looks back at Robert.

"Robert, she's your daughter-"

"You know I can't-"

She looks amused at them both.

"Well, you have to, you were the one to offer it to Ned-" the words leaving Jon's mouth peak her interest, and she leans over in her chair as she tries to decipher what they are talking about.

"It's for the best!"

"Then you tell her before Cersei-"

"Ok, wait, what does Mother have to do with it?" she interrupts, alternating between looking at her father and looking at Jon.

"You...Cerelle, you see…"

"Your father and Lord Stark have arranged it for you to be a ward at Winterfell"

" Since when-?" she starts, confused, but her father answers before she can even finish her question.

"Since the Greyjoy Rebellion"

"What?! And you didn't tell me?!"

"Cerelle-"

"NO! Why now? Why not when I was younger? I'm past the age to be a ward, I'm closer to the age for- You want to marry me to Robb Stark"

"Told you she would figure it out"

"Shut it, Jon. Cerelle, you knew this was going to happen-"

"Not to a Stark. Not to the North" she interrupts him again. Yes, she knew it was going to happen, but she always hoped for a warm place with the sea near her. She was so used to hear the sound of the sea from her window.

"The decision is made, Cerelle. You are princess"

Born between silk and gold, princess never fall in love, Lalia had sang once.

"Yes, Father" she answers and raises from the chair. She's out before either men can say anything.

"Cerelle" Jon calls from behind her, but she doesn't stop "Cerelle" he tries again, and when she doesn't answer, he grabs her arm "Please" he pleads, not even turning her around. His grip is not strong enough to really keep her there, but she stays anyway "I may as well have raised Ned myself. The North is not that horrible, I promise you. They are not barbarians"

"I never believed it. I just want to stay home"

A month later, she leaves through King's Landing's streets, riding Dala's mare as the girl rides in front of her, using one of her dresses and her Baratheon pendant. Her neck feels empty without it. People wave at Dala, who sends the occasional wave and smile. Four Kingsguards go with them, Lalia riding beside her.

She had insisted in no carriages,and only after a big fight had her mother agreed.

Her father had laughed and said 'Alright'. She could be counted as one more in a fight, so he worried not.

Attached to Dala's mare, a sword and a knife were hidden by Cerelle's dress.

Here's the first new chapter! It deals a lot more with Cerelle's childhood and, hopefully, makes her a better character than Lenore, who was created in an impulse.

Leave a review saying what you liked, disliked, or whatever you want!

-Cat