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Lannister : Chapter 2
🕑 Added 2025-03-11 14:34:01 +0000 UTC
( Joanna POV )
Seven save her from her children. They were lovely dears at times, but when they chose not to be, oh when they chose not to be!
Jaime and Cersei, when they had been babes had fussed constantly with each other. They'd fought while she'd fed them at her breasts, they'd fought with their food and rolling around on the ground, and it has caused her no end of heartache not least because she couldn't tell the little troublemakers apart. Jaime and Cersei had been born near identical twins despite their divergent gender, and at four they very much maintained that appearance.
Oh, Joanna had tried to solve it many times, putting Cersei in dresses, having Jaime's hair cut short, but no sooner had Cersei seen her brother's hair than she'd cut her own to match, and she still chuckled at the memory of the girl convincing Jaime to wear her dress and attend her lessons while she went off Gallivanting and playing with a sword. The boy was lucky to be young enough that he wouldn't remember it, but Joanna was, oh, Joanna was. She couldn't wait to tell it to Jaime's wife someday over a quiet dinner.
Today though, it wasn't her twins that were causing her trouble. Oh no, Joanna was out on the hunt for her younger son, Callum, as the boy had once again managed to slip from the servant's watch and escape on an adventure across the Rock. A typical event, for a child four times his age.
Her Callum was barely two years old.
Of course, that was the way of it with her youngest son. He had been born strange, and only gotten stranger as he grew larger. His green eyes had always glimmered with intelligence, and though he was cute as a button he was clearly no ordinary baby, not in demeanor, not in intelligence, and not in his ability to outwit those charged with watching him from the moment he'd learned to crawl.
No, he had been strange right from the start. When he was breastfed he had always been polite about it, smart, and communicative, when he needed food he would just point to her breast, then to his mouth. Jaime and Cersei had just whined for hours, but Callum seemed far too impatient for that, it was as if everything about being a baby bored him.
He had been only half a year old before he had figured out how to talk, though he did not talk much at first. When he had first learned his voice had been squeaky, almost uncomfortable sounding from a baby that could barely crawl, but then he learned how to ask questions, and a deluge of them began. What did a word mean, what was outside the rock? When could he learn his letters? (What kind of child actually looked forward to learning their letters?) Her son was always asking her questions whenever she was around, which perhaps, was why she handed him off to the servants so frequently, from around the time he'd turned one and a half. There was only so much of her younger son that Joanna could handle in a day.
Not that he wasn't loving, or affectionate, or cute or cuddly. He was all of those things, even moreso than his siblings. Cersei and Jaime spent half their time hand in hand with each other, but Callum only hugged or cuddled or nuzzled up to his mother. Joanna enjoyed that part, especially when he was tired and done with his questions. It was when he had energy that Callum was a problem.
Evidently, he'd had too much of it today. Joanna frowned as she had to hike her skirt up, moving up the stairs to where Maester Eomund had said the boy went. She loved Casterly Rock, the ancient seat of her family's power, but sometimes she wished it had a few less stairways. The ravens and pigeons of the Castle's rookery cawed and cooed at her as she passed, creating only further annoyance as she climbed the steps to the tallest watchtower of the entire Rock. The structure set at its very peak all the way back in the days of Lann the Clever.
She was panting when she reached the top, huffing in great breaths of air as her knees felt like they were on fire. Grimacing, she glanced around, where the harsh sunlight left few shadows on the ancient stones. There, in the corner, her little boy stood on top of an old wicker chair, staring out across the ocean from the summit of the Rock.
"Callum!" she called, between breaths, exasperated. "Stop running off, you'll kill your poor mother." she groused. Normally such words would be wasted on a boy of two. She knew Callum understood her though. The waifish boy blinked, turning to face her before his face colored with alarm.
"Ah, um, mother… I hadn't thought you'd find me for a few more hours." the boy had the sensibility to blush. "I hadn't planned to be quite so high up by the time you came looking for me."
'Well that's just great, now he's trying to puzzle out my schedule too.' Joanna sighed to herself, though her ire softened as the boy climbed down off the chair and rushed over to hug her.
"Are you alright, do you need to sit down?"
'This is your fault you know?' Joanna looked down at the boy, who seemed to be genuinely concerned and pondered the merits of chastising him, versus the merits of sitting down to catch her breath. In the end, her aching knees won.
The Lady of Casterly Rock let out a sigh of relief as she slumped down into the wicker chair her son had been standing on. The summer sun beating down on her skin with not a cloud in the sky, though the sea breeze and the altitude kept that heat manageable. As she caught her breath, her annoyance at the little boy waiting patiently beside her started to cool, though she was certainly getting tired of chasing him down across the castle this way.
"What were you even doing up here anyway?" She asked, glancing over at her son, who stood at attention next to her.
"Hmm? Oh, well, I just wanted to see what it was like" The boy paused for a moment. "Outside the castle I mean, I've looked out the windows but you can hardly see much. From here I can see everything, all around the Rock for miles and miles." the boy sounded wistful, an emotion that neither Jaime, nor Cersei had ever displayed, but that was par for the course with their brother. "It's such a wide… it's a beautiful world we live in you know? And a beautiful land."
Joanna looked at her son, his eyes drawn towards a gap in the battlements, where the view cut out over the Rock to sweep across the Westerlands, a smile on his face that melted her poor heart. It was a little smile, a soft smile, a happy smile that any mother would love to see on their son.
"Do you like it up here?"
"Hmm? Oh, I like it very much." The boy nodded.
Joanna was just about to suggest that they could spend more time together up here, maybe have a picnic, when her mind went to those stairs again. Erg. The top of Casterly Rock was more than 2,000 feet high, and that was still 50 feet below them at the base of the tower.
Still, it was her son asking…
"Well, I suppose that we could have a picnic up here together…" Joanna commented, and Callum's face lit up.
"Oh, yes, that would be wonderful." He bobbed his head up and down. "I think when I'm older I'll renovate this tower, put a study at the top… oh, and perhaps a lighthouse, they'd be able to see it all the way in Lannisport from here!"
Joanna smiled as the boy began to go on speaking about all the ways he'd change the tower and all the things he'd do when he was older.
She might have a strange son, but he was still a child at heart.
...
Chronicle of the Targaryen Dynasty in the Seven Kingdoms
Maester Willem
270 AC- First moon
Queen Rhaella Targaryen gives birth to a stillborn child fathered by King Aerys II Targaryen. Lord Tywin Lannister, Hand of the King, orders the construction of additional garrisons for the Gold Cloaks in the Flea Bottom area of King's Landing. Lord Lannister also approves the addition of a new wing for housing Septons at the Great Sept of Baelor, as the original was dilapidated and in need of significant repairs.
