Sprinting Fox: Unwritten

Lannister OC (DARK HotD AU)

A/N: Another random one-shot... AHHH. The ideas are bursting out of my head as I wait (not-so-patiently) for HotD S2 to come out. The following 2 chapters (all in this same page) are part of an untitled short story with a House of the Dragon OC with... interesting leanings. She is fucked up. Think of Cersei as a child, way too curious, way too rude. But the idea refused to go away so I wrote it. You can expect the usual Game of Thrones themes to be referenced or written explicitly, including but not limited to: abuse, miscarriage, traumatic childbirth, underage marriage, violence, incest, etc. I am basing this off of Season 1 of House of the Dragon. For reference, the OC's face claim is Imogen Poots. If you look up gifs from her role as Arianne in Centurion, you'll see the image I have of her.

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CHAPTER ONE

The Red Keep, King's Landing, 126 AC

She was home.

"Stay close, child," said the man beckoning her after him. "Come, come, this way."

"Where's the Queen?" she asked. "I want to see the Queen. I want to see the Iron Throne."

"There will be time for that later, Erystia. Later."

Huffing in annoyance, she continued to follow him.

She wasn't supposed to be here. Her place was at Casterly Rock with her cousins, with her Uncle Jason. She was meant to grow as a lady there, and she'd eventually be wed to a good husband and as all other women, expected to further his line.

Erystia had different plans.

She was very young when she became aware that her cousins were idiots. Cerelle, Tyshara, Theina, Joanne, and little Ceira had no ambitions and they weren't particularly beautiful, either. Loreon was a fool and would only inherit Casterly Rock because he was a man.

She was smart. She knew when others lied, she knew how to get people to do what she wanted them to. She wove her words delicately and paired her commands with her delicate face, the second gift her mother gave her— the first was her life.

Her mother died in the childbed, living long enough to name her. Erystia was raised largely by her aunt, Johanna Westerling, and rarely saw her father, as he served King Viserys with the title of Master of Ships.

She grew tired of Casterly Rock. She wanted to be more than a lady, only daughter of a second son. She wanted everything she could get her hands on, everything she felt she deserved.

She didn't want to be some other lady, she wanted to be a queen.

The idea got in her head after she was old enough to understand that Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen would be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms one day. Being Queen sounded fun, it sounded important. She had the charm, the beauty, the grace.

She knew she wasn't born a Targaryen and wouldn't sit the throne. A Queen was a Queen either way, in her mind. There was a path that she could take that (if she was correctly interpreting her father's words to his brother) would land her there much more easily than it would Rhaenyra.

She could marry Prince Aegon.

She'd never met him in her whole life. She'd only heard of him, and there wasn't much anyone wanted to allow her to hear. She'd been told she could learn when she was 'older,' yet she was already a woman flowered who knew exactly how children were made and still no one would tell her anything.

They refused to refine her understanding. She had only a few points: men liked it, men would do anything for it, and men could be made to do things with it.