Of OldStones

by MoonWitch96

Summary:

Arelei Lannister comes to the world in the howling dark of the hour of the ghosts, at the start of winter, a ragging blizzard outside as Joanna Lannister screams and bleeds. Silent as death. Pale as a corpse. Weak, on verge of death, Joanna Lannister begs her husband to have mercy on their deformed child. In his rage, Tywin nearly does not listen. He has his heir and his future queen- what does he need of this pale, sickly thing that will likely not live the night?

The answer is simple:

She is a lioness with a heart, and anyone can take the Game of Thrones and throw it on its head if they know enough.

Or a modern girl of Earth is reborn as the Golden Lannister Twins’s younger sister, and takes the burdens of her fractured house, the realm, onto her very shoulders.

Notes:

*Queitly posts*

… I did say I would come back to this one (:

Chapter 1: High in the halls of the kings who are gone: Joanna: I

It is in the very start of the Winter of 267, the windows rattling with the howling snow beyond them, that Joanna Lannister nearly dies in childbirth.

 

She had not known she was with a child. 

 

If she had, Joanna Lannister would have never walked away from her ladies, her husband's guard, for a moment of quiet. Even at the lateness of the hour. Her mind was abuzz with the latest insult of the King. Of Rhaella's crumpled brow at his action, or the Prince's innocent indigo eyes staring in quiet horror at his father. 

 

It was just a moment. 

 

Just a moment of peace that she needed. 

 

She was in the highest point of the Tower of the Hand. She worried at her skirts with her hand. And like the animal of her sigil, she is relentlessly pacing. A lioness in a cage of her husband's making. Of the duty to serve the Queen. 

 

She bares her teeth, grinding.

 

Disgust lives in the hollow of her throat. Fury is alive like fury beneath her pounding heart. 

 

Then- 

 

A spasm, so sharp, so queer, makes her bend in half. 

 

Joanna grits her teeth at the pain. It is like the worst of her moonsblood. It is like- The start of her birthing gushes from her. Splatters down her stockings, her fine leather boots and the furred hem of her woolen velvet dress. She gaps. Uncomprehending at the vivid clear liquid. 

 

She-

 

Her hands, pale and clawing, automatically grip what feels like an unfilled womb. Then. She feels it. A relentless turning within her.  Confusion, panic, creep in.  She has born two healthy children before this. How could she had not known- Another spasm hits.  Harder. Longer.  Joanna cannot help her ragged scream. No one comes running. She does not think anyone patrols beyond the second floor of the Tower. She takes a hasty step. The ache that pierces her makes her scream again. 

 

She is alone. 

 

She is-

 

Afraid. 

 

Another spasm. 

 

Joanna screams. 

 

Within her, the babe stirs.