If Jaime knew one thing, it's that he did not like Oberyn Martell.
Infuriatingly, the Martell's had decided that they wanted to stay at the Rock for the next Moon and a half until the tourney that they were throwing in Lannisport began. Mariah and Joanna had met several times, and through a truly impressive tag team, they had somehow convinced Tywin that Cersei and Oberyn should be betrothed, and now they had to properly negotiate the next steps of a union between their houses.
Cersei and Oberyn got on like a house on fire. As in: the sprinklers were on and the fire alarm was blaring and everyone knew not to get too close lest they get dragged into that mess.
"Perhaps all that sun has shriveled up and fried the little brains you had!"
"I'll be happy to see it do the same to you, my lady!"
Jaime and Elia ignored their feuding siblings in favor of playing with the cats Jaime had brought to the sitting room.
"Aslan is very sweet," Elia commented lightly as she stroked the white and orange kitten that had fallen asleep on her lap.
Jaime smiled as he watched Fork and Knife tussle, "He is. Do you wish to keep him? His mother has already left him and his siblings."
"Which are his siblings?"
Jaime picked up the four calico cats from their basket and dropped them on her lap, "Richard is the darkest one, Alex has the longest fur, Lion-O has the muted colors, and the only girl, Bastet, is the dark-faced one."
"You've chosen interesting names," She said, pulling her hair away from where Richard was attempting to eat it.
Jaime gives her a disbelieving look, "The other litter is named after cutlery and kitchen tools."
Elia grins, "Interesting." She repeated.
Cersei lets out another screech of outrage.
Jaime glanced at them, but seeing no blood being drawn and Guest Right not yet broken, he dismissed them.
Elia winced at Cersei throwing her goblet vaguely in the direction of her brother, "I do wish that our parents thought to have adult supervision for them too beyond just us. I do fear for my ears."
"You can't say that your brother isn't provoking her on purpose at this point," Jaime pointed out.
"When I see you, I shrivel up and go soft, like wet bread!"
"Like that," He groaned and stood up, chucking a pillow at Oberyn and Cersei's heads. Bullseye. "Oi! Will the both of you sit down and shut up ?! You're giving Elia a headache and I am this close to throwing the both of you out the bloody window. You know that you don't actually have to speak with each other?"
Cersei and Oberyn looked at each other, then at him. They have seemed to find a common cause now, he could see their eyes sparkling with it, and his own eyes filled with dread.
Jaime barely had time to duck before twin pillows were being thrown back at his head, ruffling over his long blond locks and hitting poor Elia who sitting on the floor behind him. Kittens ran in every direction, mewling their displeasure at their comfortable warm person being knocked over by the flying projectile.
Elia glared at her brother and his sister, murder in her eyes, looking truly like the middle sibling who just found a kitchen knife and was about to terrorize their siblings with it.
Taking pity on her, and also maybe trying to stop her from committing kinslaying under his family's roof, Jaime lept in between her and the dumbass duo, "Don't worry, princess, I'll defend your honor!"
"How are you going to do that, catboy?" Oberyn mocked.
Oberyn got a faceful of pillow.
"Like that, snakeboy," Jaime replied, only to have his sister leap at him with her own pillow.
"Ah!" Jaime couldn't sidestep quickly enough and toppled over by the force of her blow, her on top of him, attempting to smother him with her perfectly embroidered pillow. He brought a forearm up to block her from killing him with her playing, "Elia, help!"
Cersei got smacked in the back of the head by Elia, making her shriek and Jaime gain enough leverage to flip them both over. Unfortunately, Oberyn decided that it was a great time to defend his betrothed and roped his arms around Jaime's middle to pull him off her. Elia threw a blanket on top of her brother's head, and that's when the pillow fight started for real.
It was sibling against sibling, sister against brother; ever so often Cersei and Jaime teamed up to smack Oberyn, or Elia and Oberyn teamed up to jump at Cersei.
It was a mess: feathers and kittens everywhere, children shrieking with laughter and shouting cries of revenge.
" What is going on here?"
Everyone froze.
Jaime was attempting to smother Oberyn while the other boy stuffed a fistful of feathers down his shirt. Cersei was holding one of Oberyn's legs and attempting bodily pull the boy out from under Jaime. Elia had a pillow high above her head, ready to aim the full force of her blow onto Cersei's head. In the corners of the room, kittens were playing with fallen feathers and Socks had managed to climb inside the boot Jaime had lost.
Mariah Martell and Joanna Lannister looked shocked at the utter chaos the children had made, Tywin and Genna looked furious, and Kevan was covering Gerion's mouth with his hand so nobody could hear his laughter.
Elia did not put her pillow down, simply turning her big wide eyes onto her mother. "Oberyn started it." She stated simply as if it would excuse everything.
Mariah closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, "So you are assisting Lord Jaime in smothering your brother?"
"Yes," Elia said with a smile.
" Why ?" Joanna asked, looking at her own children.
"He insulted Cersei and then threw a pillow at Elia so I had to defend their honor," Jaime explained.
Joanna frowned and looked at Cersei, "And why are you helping Prince Oberyn then?"
"He's my betrothed," Cersei said, looking at her mother like she had just asked her why she thinks 1+1=2. "So if he's being a bastard, then it's my duty to beat him up. Jaime can't beat him up for me. Nobody can kill him but me."
Kevan was pressing his own lips together to stop himself from laughing. The hand over Gerion's mouth was doing nothing to hide the tears of laughter streaming down his face. Genna looked like she was muttering a prayer to The Mother for patience. Nobody wanted to look at the face of Tywin, but if you did, you could almost swear his eyes were glowing red like he had suddenly gained laser vision.
Jaime suddenly had the image in his head of his father having fire hair like Hades in Disney's Hercules. Then, he wondered if that was even accurate and started imagining his father with Cruella's coat.
"I like her passion," Oberyn said, slightly muffled due to Jaime still attempting to lightly kill him.
Cersei glared at him, "I hate your face."
Elia gestured at them, "This is an improvement from this morning."
"It's almost like seeing you and Tywin young again," Mariah muttered, but everyone heard her anyway. "Except you tried to train your falcon to attack him, and then had the falcon attack Steffon when he insulted Tywin."
Wait, what? Jaime has never heard that story before. Did his parents not like each other as children? But they were a love match!
Joanna started laughing and Tywin slowly turned on her, fire calming in favor of a look of betrayal. Joanna didn't care, she was laughing just as hard as Gerion was.
"Have–" She said between giggles, "Have children just like you."
She broke down again.
Tywin walked over and picked Jaime and Cersei up by their collars, scruffing them like misbehaving kittens. "Clean this up."
Cersei immediately started protesting, saying that this was a job for the servants, but Jaime just nodded. It wasn't that bad, but for a lord's son who had never done manual labor, it would be an appropriate punishment.
"Stop smirking, Oberyn," Mariah snapped. "You're helping."
Oberyn started spluttering, and Jaime smirked. Ha! This is what he deserves.
He could see Elia trying to hide her grin behind her hand.
"You too, Elia."
Elia dropped her grin, "Fuck."
Joanna started laughing harder when Mariah's face changed to one of pure horror as she yelled at her daughter for her unladylike language.
Jaime has a sneaking suspicion that the Princess Mariah swore like a sailor when she was younger.
Genna turned and walked out of the room, muttering about how she was the only well-behaved one out of all of them.