The Wrong Prince.

Prologue.

Her life had been an endless series of disappointments as of late. From the day that the King had announced to everyone in the hall that he would not wed his son to a servant's daughter and that in the end that was all that he saw Lord Tywin as. His servant. Cersei had been enraged when she had heard it; she had wanted to pick up her dagger and dig it deep in the old mad man's throat.

But she knew that would only end up with her head being struck off and so she hide her rage as best she could but that did not mean that she did not feel it all the same and she hated him so very much and she was certain that she would never stop hating him. That he would try and keep Rhaegar from her, her perfect prince.

He was as mad as they all said, he had to be. To think that she was just a servant's daughter, to think that Lord Tywin Lannister was just a servant. Well, he was old and sick and with a bit of luck, they would not have to wait to long until he was dead and her beautiful, perfect Rhaegar was on the throne and then he would choose her and make her the Queen.

Well, that was what she had hoped at the time.

It was weeks; maybe months it was hard to recall now, later when word had finally come to them that the King had decided that his son and heir, the future Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, was to wed Elia Martell. Elia Martell with the flat chest and ever sickly and a thousand, thousand other reasons that proved she was inferior to Cersei.

Cersei had been forced to attend the wedding, it had to look like they were fine with what the King had done in order to avoid having his ire turned on to them, very few had managed to survive the King when his ire was raised at them and her Father had made it clear to her that their vengeance for his insults would come later.

For now, they had to play the humble servants until the day when they could finally take their vengeance, Lannisters would always pay their debts and the King had already accrued such a large debt from them indeed that Cersei was going to make sure that he paid her back for every single second, she spent most nights thinking of ways of how she was going to do that.

But it seemed that she would have to suffer yet more disappointments before her vengeance could be given out and Lord Tywin would be the one who would inflict such disappointment on her. Her father had promised her a prince and he had gotten her one but it wasn't the one that she wanted, he wasn't even close to that.

Doran Martell was an old man, even older than her own Father and yet that had not stopped him from arranging the betrothal and selling Cersei like she was nothing more than a bag of wheat. He was to be her Lord Husband, and Cersei was to be his Lady Wife and be in Dorne, away from her own home and she did not think she had ever hated anyone more.

She wasn't sure if she meant her Father or Prince Doran, she probably meant both of them when it came to it but her hatred did not matter, it would not save or spare her. She had been sold and she had been bought.

For a moment her eyes burned and she was certain that she was going to cry but in that moment Cersei remembered who she was and so she closed her eyes tight and willed them away, she was Cersei of the House Lannister and she was a lion of the Rock and the daughter of Tywin and Joanna Lannister and she was not going to cry, she would not allow it.

Only when she was certain that not even one tear would fall did she open her eyes and turned her attention on to the rest of her room. She needed to focus on packing for the journey into Dorne, she was to be wed and no matter what she said or did nothing would sway her Lord Father from this path that he had chosen for her and so, even though she wanted to scream and cry and rage and throw things and hurt someone it would do little good.

And so Cersei Lannister remembered her aunt's worlds, that lions did not weep, and carried on with her packing. The one thing that almost everyone agreed on when it came to Dorne was that the southernmost kingdom of the realms united under the Iron Throne was the warmest of them all. So she knew that her velvets and all her other dresses made of heavier fabrics would need to be left behind.

So she put all of her velvets aside into another trunk and some of her favourite jewels into it as well; servants were well known for their sticky fingers even in the heart of the Rock, so who knew how much worse they were going to be in Dorne? She wasn't going to risk any of her mother's jewels ending up in some dusty desert market.

Cersei even considered leaving all of better silks behind, Doran Martell should count his blessing that he was getting her for a wife at all, why should she have to dress in order to impress him? But as much as the thought of that pleased her she knew that her father would not allow her to show herself in public in anything that would bring shame to House Lannister.

And so she placed all of her fine silks in her travel trunk and called on two of her servants to carry it down into Casterly Rock's courtyard along with the rest of her luggage and Cersei followed them out, keeping her head up high. She would not allow anyone to say that she had been afraid to go but she also did not smile, let everyone speak of how miserable she looked. Let them know that none of this was her choice.

When she reached the courtyard only her father and her uncle Kevan were waiting for her, she wished that Jaime was here but he had been sent away to Crakehall when the announcement had been made, her uncle smiled at her warmly and Cersei felt a sudden urge to smash all of his teeth out. "Cersei, you look lovely. Prince Doran is going to be a very lucky man indeed, are you ready to go?"

"Yes." It was all that she intended to say to him and for once her uncle seemed to have enough sense to not press the matter with her and so he nodded and mentioned to her Father that he would make sure that everything was ready for the journey ahead. And when he left it was just the two of them, the old lion of the rock and his daughter and Cersei would not be cowed, meeting his green eyes with her own.

"You promised me that I would be Queen."

Lord Tywin did not seem shamed, he looked disinterested and that made the rage in her stomach flare up a thousand times worse. "A promise that I made to you when you were a little girl that could still sit in my lap, you are a woman grown now and you should know by now that the world often gives us challenges and things we did not expect, if that was not the truth then your Mother would still be alive."

The stab of pain that came with his words made her want to cry, made her want to ruin and hide but she remembered Aunt Genna's words that a lion did not weep and so she pushed them back and kept glaring at her father, her hands curling into fists and her nails biting into the skin of her palms. "He's an old man."

"He's not that old, and younger women than you have married men much older than him. Perhaps you would prefer to be wed to Walder Frey instead?" Father would never marry her to a Frey, she knew that to be true but that did not change the fact that the thought of being married to that old leech made her feel unwell, Doran Martell was a better fate than that but being taken by a wildling would be a better fate than that as well.

"He has a whore." That bit of gossip had burned through the Rock like wildfire when the match had been announced, Doran Martell had brought a whore back with him from the Free Cities when he had been a young man. "She's respected, she sits by him at his side during feasts and they have a bastard daughter that he has kept within his own halls, am I to suffer them?"

"He is Dornish, they are lustful creatures and not like us. Do your duty as a wife and bear him trueborn children and soon enough the woman and her child will be sent away from Sunspear." Tywin Lannister held up his hand when Cersei opened her mouth to speak again, to try and find something she could say to convince her father to relent, to spare her from this.

"Enough Cersei, this will happen. I am your Lord Father and you will do as I command." His face was stone and Cersei wanted to spit in his eye. "The choice you have left now is one of dignity, will you climb into the wheelhouse with the dignity that befits a Lady of House Lannister or shall I summon my guards to have you carried like a little child?"

Cersei know what she wanted to do but she also knew it would do no good and so she spun on her heel and marched away from her father and climbed into her wheelhouse, her septa was waiting for her inside and the old woman tried to give her a comforting smile and Cersei glared at the woman, and the silly old cow started and looked down at her needlework, and Cersei sat down on the other side from her and glared out the window through the golden silk curtain that separated her from the world.

And as the wheelhouse trundled out to start the journey towards Dorne, Cersei allowed the first tears to fall.

End of Prologue

Well, this is a story that has been niggling at the back of my mind for a while now and it was started by the idea that I truly feel that Oberyn and Cersei would be a terrible match as I honestly think that the two of them would kill one another.

And then I thought, what about if Cersei was married to Doran instead?

Welp, I guess we're going to find out!

With a lot of love,

DiscordantSymphony