**283 AC - The Red Keep, King's Landing**
The screams echoing through the halls of Maegor's Holdfast were not those of a dying queen, but of one bringing life into a world still bleeding from rebellion.
Cersei Lannister, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, gripped the bedpost with white knuckles as another contraction tore through her. Sweat plastered golden hair to her forehead, and she wanted nothing more than to curse Robert Baratheon's name the drunken oaf who had put her in this condition.
"Push, Your Grace!" Grand Maester Pycelle urged, his wrinkled face a mask of concern. "The babe is crowning!"
Around them, midwives scurried with hot water and clean linens. The air was thick with the smell of blood and sweat. Cersei had heard the stories of countless women who never rose from the birthing bed but Cersei Lannister was not some women who would be deafeted so easily. She was a lioness, a Lannister.
With a final, primal scream that seemed to shake the very stones of the Red Keep, she pushed.
And then a different cry. Sharp, piercing, full of outrage at being thrust from warmth into cold air.
"A boy!" one of the midwives gasped. "A prince!"
Pycelle moved quickly, his chains clinking as he took the squalling infant and examined him with practiced efficiency. Cersei collapsed back against the pillows, chest heaving, golden hair dark with sweat. She should feel relief. Joy, even. She had done her duty. Given the king an heir.
But all she felt was exhaustion.
"Your Grace," Pycelle said, and something in his tone made her eyes snap open. The old maester was staring at the baby with an expression she couldn't quite read. "Your son is healthy and strong."
"Let me see him," Cersei demanded, reaching out with trembling arms.
The midwife placed the cleaned and swaddled bundle in her arms, and Cersei looked down at her firstborn child.
He was red-faced and angry, tiny fists waving as he cried. But it was his hair still wet and plastered to his small head that made Cersei's breath catch.
Black. As black as a raven's wing. As black as Robert's.
For a moment, something cold settled in her chest. This child was proof undeniable proof that she belonged to Robert Baratheon. That his seed had taken root in her womb.
But then the babe opened his eyes blue as a summer sky, Lannister blue and looked at her with an intensity no newborn should possess. And despite herself, despite everything, Cersei felt something shift in her heart.
"Lyonel," she whispered, the name coming unbidden to her lips. "His name is Lyonel."
Robert Baratheon crashed through the doors like a warhammer through armor, still in his hunting leathers and smelling of horse and wine.
"Where is he?" the king roared, his voice filling the chamber. "Where's my son?"
He crossed the room in three great strides, and for once, the perpetual disappointment in his eyes when he looked at Cersei was gone. There was only excitement, pride, joy—all the things she'd wanted to see directed at her but never had.
"A boy, Your Grace," Pycelle said with a deep bow. "Healthy and strong, with excellent lungs."
Robert laughed, the sound booming off the walls. "Of course he is! He's a Baratheon!" He looked down at Cersei, and she saw something almost like gratitude in his face. "You've done well, wife. Let me see him."
Cersei carefully transferred the bundle to Robert's massive arms. The king held his son with surprising gentleness, and she watched as he pulled back the swaddling to examine the child properly.
Robert was grinning now, looking down at his son with undisguised joy. "What shall we call him, Cersei?"
"Lyonel," she said firmly. "After Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm."
Robert's grin widened. "Lyonel. Yes. A strong name for a strong boy."
He looked down at his son with undisguised pride. "You'll be a great warrior, won't you, boy? We'll get you a warhammer forged, train you proper. You'll win tourneys and break hearts and—"
Lyonel chose that moment to wail, his small face scrunching up in displeasure.
Robert laughed and handed the baby back to Cersei with less grace than he'd taken him. "Here, he wants his mother. I'll have the whole city celebrating by nightfall! Wine for everyone! My son my heir was born!" He was already heading for the door, shouting for his attendants and then Cersei was alone again, save for the midwives and Pycelle, holding her black-haired son.
She looked down at Lyonel, who had quieted in her arms. Those too-aware eyes studied her face, and she wondered what he saw."You will be great," she whispered to him, fierce and low. "You are a lion and a stag both. You will have everything, my son. Everything."
Thousands of miles away, in Casterly Rock, Tywin Lannister read the raven's message with his customary impassive expression.
*A grandson. Black-haired, healthy, named Lyonel.*
He set the parchment down carefully and allowed himself the smallest of smiles.
The succession was secure. The alliance between Lannister and Baratheon was sealed not just in marriage but in blood. And most importantly, Cersei had proven herself capable of providing what Robert needed most a legitimate heir that none could question.
"Kevan," he called, and his brother appeared promptly. "Make preparations. We will travel to King's Landing for the naming ceremony. And send word to the maesters I want a full report on the child's health."
"Of course, brother" Kevan said.
As Kevan departed to carry out his orders, Tywin looked out the window from his solar toward Lannisport *Lyonel Baratheon,* he thought. *Let us see what you become, grandson. Let us see if you are worthy of the lion's blood in your veins.*
In his mother's arms, surrounded by the warmth and muffled sounds of the Red Keep, the soul that had once lived another life in another world was still reeling.
*I'm a baby. I'm a fucking baby. In Westeros. In Game of Thrones.*
*And I'm Joffrey's... no, wait. The timeline... Robert and Cersei's first child. The one who should who died in orginal timeline...*
The memories were fragmentary, confused a life of screens and stories, of watching a show about this world, of knowing how it all went wrong. And now he was here, at the very beginning of it all, in a tiny body that couldn't even hold up its own head.
*Lyonel Baratheon,* he thought, testing the name in a mind far too old for his infant form. *I'm Lyonel Baratheon son of Robert and Cersei. The prince who should've died but didn't exist because i was reborn into his body.*
He could feel his mother's heartbeat, steady and strong. Could see her face above him, beautiful and hard and complicated and his father Robert, the Demon of the Trident, already drunk and dreaming of past glories and dead loves,had looked at him with pride.
*I know how this story goes,* Lyonel thought as sleep began to pull at his consciousness, his infant body demanding rest. *I know all the mistakes, all the betrayals, all the death that's coming and I'm right in the middle of it all.* His last thought before sleep claimed him was both a promise and a prayer:
*I won't let it end the same way and i won't let House Baratheon go extinct.*