One Flesh, One Heart, One Soul

by Delay88

When the Red Wedding doesn't go as planned, Lannisters and Starks are forced to make an uneasy peace. Joffrey marries Sansa. Tywin marries Margaery. The game of thrones gains a new player - if she can conquer her own fears. But that isn't easy when your life and your soul are at stake. And it does not take long for Margaery to understand that in the end, you win or you die.

1. Prologue

On the seventh day of the seventh month of the new century, His Grace King Joffrey of the Houses Baratheon and Lannister wed the Lady Sansa Stark, ending the War of the Four Pretenders. In recognition of House Tyrell's significant contribution to the war, the Hand of the King, Lord Tywin Lannister, took the Lady Margaery to wife in a lavish double-wedding in the Red Keep.

While the young King tragically died of a fever only a few days after his own royal wedding, leaving the Lady Sansa a widow at the age of three-and-ten, the union between Lord Tywin and Lady Margaery proved to be more long-lasting.

Despite their difference in age, their marriage was a happy one. Concerns that the Lady Margaery might see herself in competition with Lord Tywin's first wife, the Lady Joanna Lannister, were soon laid to rest when the Lady Margaery named her only daughter Joanna in honor of her husband's beloved first wife.

Loved by the smallfolk for her tireless efforts to improve the lot of the baseborn, she became known as the Queen Without a Crown, for it was through her beauty and sweet temperament that she gently guided her lord husband in ruling the realm on behalf of young King Tommen and providing for even the lowest of the lowborn.

Her popularity was just as widespread among the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms. It is said that Lord Tywin, ever a hard man, mellowed under the influence of his young lady-wife and that many men who had displeased the Hand of the King owed their life to her, for she pleaded for mercy on their behalf and had their sentences reduced.

She even reconciled him with his heir, Ser Jaime Lannister, persuading him to renounce his position as captain of the Kingsguard and to take his rightful place as the heir to Casterly Rock.

When the pretender Robb Stark reneged on his promises made at the wedding of his sister Sansa and rose again in rebellion against His Grace King Tommen Baratheon, Margaery accompanied her lord husband on his campaign to the North, staying with him until the end when he succumbed to a flux in 304 AC at Karhold.

- Maester Yandel, The World of Ice and Fire