[Lore] Cerelle II: Bastard Blood Of The Lion

A letter. A letter of secrets. She unfolded it, careful, as tender as a monk. Though her gaze remained hesitant, unsure of the contents. Her eyes followed the trail of ink, like a pilgrim, till she reached the final etch, a signature, a signing, a verification of truth.

Damn her family. She just mused on that for a moment. Idiots. Every day seemed a new toil, some that gold could solve and some that maintained a stain upon her, upon them all. Yet they never stopped. As if they were jesters and she was the joke they were crafting.

Her face twisted, it twisted to the beat of the dour downpour, a cold but stable rhythm. But stability, was often deceiving. She’d come to learn, nothing was ever truly stable.

A bastard.

She sighed, something heavy dancing on her breath, resignation perhaps? It wasn’t the babe’s fault, it never was, she knew that. But some small, cold part of her wanted to blame the child. Something deeply ingrained, she supposed.

He was but a boy, a boy born to dimwitted parents, but a boy nonetheless. She, she was but a girl, a girl unprepared for the rapturing responsibility that family burdened her with each days.

It was soon whence she made way for the dimmest streets of Kings Landing, a retinue following. Their cleanliness clashed with the streets of filth and fear. Her gaze was more distant than usual, it was not the kind Cerelle, the girl who fawned over flowers and books. It was a girl steeled for duty. A girl who had to erect a facade of fury and discipline, lest she welcome a host of vices to her house.

“Calm yourself.” She repeated, in minor murmurings, as if it were a prayer. Her usual soft smile was replaced with a thin but deep-set frown. She cared not to note the name of this bawdy establishment and didn’t dare sully her name by stepping towards it.

So she halted, a street or so away, just before one could create a scandal based on her very footsteps.

The woman, dressed in ornery that seemed out of place in the murky sea of salacious squalor, approached with a wet gaze. Her cheeks were pale and sharp and quite frankly, Cerelle would not deny her beauty; however, beauty couldn’t absolve such debauchery. She was not a prude - not compared to others - but this profession, it wasn’t something she could understand, or could grow to.

Silks wrapped the lady, cheap but pretty, they frayed and wore at their edges, but that was it. If Cerelle’s eye wasn’t that of a girl trained, perhaps she’d miss it, mistake it for something worth more than it was.

“That is the child?” She asked, her glower, trying to harden, shifting downwards, to the small, frail babe in the woman’s arms. Pity washed over her. Pity for the woman who gave up her boy for a better life. Pity for the boy born to a sullied mother and a stupid father.

A small cry. Weak. But beautiful, as beautiful as something so shrill could be.

“Yes, milady.”

She nodded. “You’re willing? To give him up to my house that is.”

“Yes.” Tears trickled down her face.

“Pass him to me.”

Hesitance. A moment skipped by, before the babe was passed to the Lady of Lannister.

He was perfect. A cherubim. An angel brought to them. The blessing of life. But he was perfectly tainted by sin; for that she felt sorrow. She may be able to accept him as a Lannister, but would the world? A bastard to them, was just that, a bastard, a mishap, a mistake.

His hair - somewhere between honey and silver - thin sprouts of it on his rounded face seemed to glimmer under the thin rays of light that breached this den of darkness.

“What’s his name?”

“He hasn’t one, milady.”

“Then I will give him one.” She pondered for a minute or so, as small hands grasped for the loose bits of decoration upon her dress, those that dangled as ornaments.

“Valarr. That’s who he shall be. Valarr Hill, Valarr Lannister, remember that, when the day comes that this boy grows into an adult, winning tourneys and living a life you could never give him. Remember today. Remember the choice you made. Remember that you did the best you could and gave him the best life you could.”

Those were all the words Cerelle had for the woman, all she could give, bar her hidden appreciation.

She stared. Longer than she should’ve, before turning away. It was a long walk back, but for some reason, she preferred that, over passing this child on so she could ride.

She didn’t know why.