Note: This is completely AU. Joffrey is less sadistic in this fanfic, but we'll see how the story goes. I don't own anything, but my characters.

Marriage Proposal

She was perplexed. There was no other word for it. Her brain was scrambled into about fifty pieces, because none of it made sense to her.

She always figured that she would marry a Barrowton from the North, just like her brother and sister before her, just to keep securing alliances. Never in her life did she imagine that she would receive a marriage proposal from the King of the Seven Kingdoms.

It frightened her — she had heard stories of King Joffrey Baratheon's cruelty, but still remained unsure of the truth in them.

She was pacing around in her bedchamber, her laced blue frock flowing behind her, her shiny black hair bouncing on her back.

She was unsure. She had only met King Joffrey once — and that was when they were both children. She didn't understand the concept of arranged marriages, only that nearly everyone in the Seven Kingdoms had them.

She always wondered why. Even her parents, and her siblings before her, had bore arranged marriages. Neither parties seemed to protest, though, all seemed quite content with their pairings.

Would it be the same for her?

She had always dreamed of a love marriage. Meeting someone new, falling completely in love, and then wedding and bedding them in love, living happily until the end of their days.

She chuckled quietly, perhaps she had been reading too many fairytales and fables in the library.

"My lady," Came a soft knock on her door.

Her hands smoothed the front of her dress, while she looked upon the closed door, "Come in."

"My lady," Repeated Harriet, her handmaiden, allowing herself into Adelaide's bedchamber, "Your father, my Lord, wishes to see you."

Adelaide simply nodded, allowing Harriet to leave. She knew that her father desperately wanted her to agree to the marriage proposal, he would make some statement about securing an allegiance with royalty, like it mattered more than his daughter's opinion.

Adelaide made her way down the many steps, and into the room where she knew her father would be. Looking around, she saw her mother, Lady Raina, standing next to her father, and her elder brother, Malloy, on the other side of her father.

She felt like she was being interrogated, and shifted uncomfortably under her family's gaze.

"Welcome, my dearest," Adelaide's father, Lord Ashford, began speaking, "As you know, you have received a marriage proposal from King Joffrey Baratheon. Do you accept?"

Adelaide sighed, and looked down at the ground, weighing her options.

The truth was, she had no options. It was treason to refuse a King. Joffrey would have Adelaide beheaded in an instant.

When he didn't get an answer, Lord Ashford looked at his wife, Raina, and then to his son, Malloy, before turning back to Adelaide with pity.

"My dear, if you agree to this, you will become King Joffrey's Queen, isn't that enough?" Lord Ashford tried to reason.

Adelaide's eyes shot up towards her father, "But I don't love him."

"Adelaide darling, I didn't love your mother when I married her. But she bore me three beautiful children, and I couldn't help but fall for her. Look at us now, we're the two happiest people in the Seven Kingdoms."

Adelaide sighed again.

If she married King Joffrey, she would become Queen. That was a plus, but she would be his Queen.

However, if she refused the King's proposal, she and her family would be punished for their treason against the King, and that was something she didn't want. They would be killed in the most brutal of ways.

Adelaide gulped.

"I accept King Joffrey's proposal."