Chapter Two
A/N: Thank you to Frozen862, Guest, Louise, HeartoftheArtsari and yourloved for reviewing the last chapter.
Myrcella had always imagined that, when she stepped outside into the open air for the first time, she would feel elated and free. But she could hardly feel free when she knew that she was merely being transferred from one prison to the next. All the princess could do was hope that her next captors would be a little more lenient. 'With the country the way it is,' she thought bitterly. 'I very much doubt it.'
The Starks' hatred for her mother and her kin was well-known by even the smallfolk now, and so Myrcella surrendered to their bannermen without a fight, fearful that any struggle would result in a beating, or worse. All her life, her mother had told her of the savage Northmen, who killed each other for the slightest insult and mated with wolves in the night; the Seven only knew what they would do to a daughter of one of their greatest enemies, if she did not submit to capture meekly.
As it was, the three young men sent to retrieve the princess seemed kind enough. Although they did not speak with her at all throughout the journey, they left her hands and feet unbound as she rode alongside them. 'They trust that I won't run away.' she thought, unable to hide her surprise at this fact. 'Or perhaps they know that I don't have the courage.'
The journey went on for a long time, though how long Myrcella could not have said. Once they had ridden a fair distance from Sunspear, they found themselves in the midst of the Dornish desert, one of the most notorious places in the known world. Many a man had died of thirst on the golden sands, while many more had simply withered away from the heat. Yet it was not the sands of Dorne that Myrcella feared so much as the snows of the North and the grim-faced Stark king waiting amidst them.
She had first met Robb Stark little over a year ago, when she had ridden with the court to Winterfell, for her father to ask Lord Stark to be his Hand. Now that lord was dead and her father was too, and the boy she had shyly admired at the feast had grown into a man, and had crowned himself king as well.
It was strange how the world could have changed so much in so little time. King Robert had hardly been cold in his grave before the disputes started over who should take his place. Myrcella remembered putting the question to her mother, when Ned Stark had come into the throne room and denounced Joffrey's birthright, stating that the throne instead belonged to her uncle, Stannis. Mother had spoken to her and Tommen at length about it that evening, saying that he was only a jealous foolish man who would do anything to weaken the Lannister claim to the throne, but still it had crossed her mind more than once how swiftly her mother had protested, when she usually dismissed things of this nature quite calmly.
Finally, Myrcella's eye was caught by the beating sunlight, which was reflected off of the calm blue expanse of the sea beyond. This was a far lesser known port than the one at Sunspear, one that was far less likely to be monitored by the crown. 'They won't know that I'm gone until it's too late.' the princess thought regretfully, unable to contain the wish that they would run into one of the Lannister ships as they sailed. 'Anything to take me home, back where I belong.'
The only trouble was... she did not know where that was anymore.
She allowed the thoughts to skip through her mind endlessly, until eventually she was so exhausted that she drifted off to sleep, the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull of the ship a familiar lullaby for a girl who had spent near every day of her life beside the ocean.
When the princess awoke, the boat had ceased its movement. 'Have we stopped for supplies?' she wondered. 'Or, Mother have mercy, are there pirates coming? Or my uncle Stannis?' There had once been a time when Myrcella had believed, though he cut a frightening figure, her uncle would never do her harm. Those beliefs had died with her father, for now she did not what or who to trust. Any one of them could turn on her, just as the Martells did.
A single glance out of the small window of her cabin gave Myrcella one of her answers. A scant hundred feet away loomed a great stone fortress. It was different to the many Southern palaces and castles the girl had seen on her childhood progresses, seeming to be built largely for purpose rather than appearance; in fact, the place bore resemblance to only one that she had seen before, and the flags flying above it seemed so very familiar...
Myrcella's heart sank as she recognised the grey direwolf, prowling on a field of white, alongside the silver trout of the Tullys. She was finally here. The time had come to face her fate. She could only hope that the boy was as kind to her as he had been at Winterfell. A crown will change a man, my sweetling, and rarely for the better. Her mother's words rang through her mind, echoing even as she tried to ignore them.
As the princess clambered into the little boat and began to row ashore, she caught sight of the welcoming party assembled on the banks. The group was hardly aptly named, for Myrcella had hardly seen anything so foreboding in all her years, and the closer they came, the more she recognised, and the faster her heart began to pound.
There were knights, bannermen and soldiers beyond counting, armed and dressed in mail, but they were not the ones who the princess feared. The cause of her anxiety stood before them, a crown of iron set among his auburn curls. Ever from the distance, Myrcella could hear the shout, the shout which eradicated that which had always protected her the most.
"All hail the King in the North!"
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