Thud. Thud. Thud.

Six goldcloaks' boots echoed along the hall of the Maidenvault. They stopped in front of a certain room and unlocked the door, then made way for servants with food on their trays. Biscuits, small cakes, a few carrots and a cabbage each, set before Tywin and Joffrey's dinner tables, to which both had already been shackled and chained. No forks, no knives, nothing that could be used to escape or take their own lives.

However the goldcloaks did not leave this time. They waited for Carl to enter the room and closed the door behind him.

"Tywin Lannister! Joffrey! I hope you've been treated well? The goldcloaks said you wanted to see me."

"I told them I wanted to see the Alexandrian who is now in charge of King's Landing. Do you have anyone more capable than a twelve year old, someone who at least knows how to address a Lord and a King?"

"But I am in charge. Unless you want to wait for my father to arrive. He really, really hates tyrants like you, and he isn't bound by the guarantees I gave Addam." That was technically true, though Carl thought his Dad would be even less likely to execute the two than Carl was, and he was in no killing mood today. "Now-"

"Is this how you feed a king and a lord?" Joffrey yelled. "This food won't even be fit for a dog."

"Do let me finish, boys." Tywin whispered something into Joffrey's ear. Joffrey nodded somewhat reluctantly. "We were considering the Young Wolf's terms when the Red Wedding occurred. His Grace would have announced at his wedding feast that we would accept those terms in their entirety, for the realm had bled long enough. We even wrote to the Young Wolf with our own offer, but the Freys slew him before he got the letter. We benefitted, of course, but it had nothing to do with us. What they did was a breach of the laws of Gods and Men, much like what you did yourself. We would never endorse such savage behavior."

"We weren't given bread and salt at the Red Keep's gates. And how the fuck were we so easily hired to play at a royal wedding the day we arrived at King's Landing, if nobody knew who we were? Even though I only have one eye, do you think I'm blind?"

Tywin sighed. "Of course we knew who you were. We thought you were here to discuss terms after your people's victories so close to the capital, and you dressed as musicians so none of the lesser lords would know who you were before private negotiations were held. Bread and salt would have been offered then, after the proper feast had ended and most of the guests had left. We are still willing to offer these same terms despite your childish stunts. In addition to accepting the Young Wolf's demands, His Grace will pardon Lord Eddard Stark for being misled by Renly Baratheon into pursuing false claims of His Grace's parentage. For his remorseful part in Lord Stark's death, His Grace will give up his crown-"

"I will NOT!" Joffrey cried. "I am the King, and the throne is mine!"

Caught! Carl snickered. The Lannisters did not even know how to lie.

"His Grace... His Grace will give up his crown to Tommen." Tywin spoke as if Joffrey were not even there. "A few years in the Free Cities would do His Grace much good. One million gold dragons to be paid to the Starks, for their losses during the War of the Five Kings. And Casterly Rock shall give you Alexandrians another million gold dragons, so long as you withdrew all your forces from our lands. All we desire is peace, precious peace, between the Iron Throne, and the North and Alexandria."

"Of course you desire peace now that you've lost. But you guys weren't such peace lovers last month." Carl unrolled a piece of parchment and began to read. "Roslin caught a fine fat trout. Her brothers gave her a pair of wolf pets for her wedding."

"As I said before, we played no part in Frey's atrocities, and we condemn them all the same. Tell Princesses Sansa and Arya that we may have been enemies," Tywin spat out the word 'princesses' as if it were a bone lodged in his throat. "But if need be, I shall write to Casterly Rock and lend the North enough men to turn the Twins into another Castamere."

With a quick snap of Carl's fingers, a goldcloak stepped forwards bringing several longer documents. "Then explain this. And this." Carl dangled a few pieces of parchment in front of Tywin. Rewards for the Freys, rewards for the Boltons. The documents still lacked the royal seal, but Carl did not care for such trivialities. "Here's another one, attainting the Tullys when you just said you were planning to have peace. Stop lying, Tywin. Nobody's buying it."

"You shall address me as Lord Tywin, boy. Or has your lord father not taught you manners?"

"Lord is for nobles, but you aren't a lord anymore. The Bill of Attainder you wrote for the Tullys is still useful after I changed a few names. I'm not gonna read all this shit out loud, or we'll be here all day. All you need to know is that everyone in House Lannister loses their noble titles from this day onwards. All of its lands and money will be confiscated by my father, or by the Kingdom of the North and Trident."

"You got lucky with King's Landing, Lord Carl. But can your guns help you scale hills? Ford rivers? Batter down a castle's gates? You might hold this city for a while longer, but the greater part of Tyrell's men are still in the Reach. Even now new hosts are assembling at Lannisport. Attaint us, you say, but your plan is folly," Tywin snarled. "Your numbers are far too small, and you do not know our people, our lands. Say what you want about Joffrey, but Tommen never sought to do battle with the Starks or you Alexandrians. He would make a good Lord of Casterly Rock, one that would befriend and trade with your peoples. If you believe my line cannot be trusted, go to my brother or my sister. Their lines would rule the Westerlands well, and they will treat with you favorably so that you could enrich your people. House Lannister ruled from Casterly Rock for thousands of years, married into every Westerlander noble house. You Alexandrians will never be accepted there. Settle when you still can, boy. It's better for us both this way."

"What's left to settle? You brought Westeros into a civil war. You lost. The Tyrells ditched you to save their own ass. The Martells hate your guts. Most of your soldiers died on the streets of King's Landing a fortnight ago."

"Why are you here then? Did you come here to negotiate, or did you come here to gloat?"

"To hear what you had to say. And to tell you that this will be your last night at the Maidenvault. You will be tried tomorrow at the Sept of Baelor. Read these confessions out loud then, and you'll be joining the Night's Watch in no time. Unless you want to spend the rest of your lives in the Black Cells." Carl placed the last two pieces of parchment in front of Tywin and Joffrey, the ones he had spent the past night drafting with Sansa and Oberyn. Varys was there too, pointing out mistakes and what to add.

Tywin read. His face grew grim. "What did House Lannister do to you Alexandrians that we deserve all this?" He lunged forwards as far as his chains would let him, and grasped at Carl's sleeve. "Is it power you want, to rule over all Westeros that hasn't been stolen by the Northmen or the Ironborn? Myrcella is betrothed to Trystane Martell, but a few words to the High Septon and an apology to Sunspear could set that aside, and a different betrothal could be made if your father the Lord of Alexandria wishes. One that would see you seated on the Iron Throne with Myrcella as your queen. Have you ever heard of the tale of Joffrey Lydden?"

"I'm sorry, but I think Westeros has had enough weddings," Carl laughed. "I don't give a fuck about that spiky throne. It's not gonna last much longer anyway. But we Alexandrians do care a lot about bad guys who want power above all else, who spill blood just so they can still be in charge, who take stuff without giving anything back. We care about our allies too. You were the bad guys. The Starks are our allies. So we dealt with you."

"Allies!" Joffrey struggled against rattling chains. "You're in love with the puppy, aren't you? That's why you care so much about the Starks! You two are made for each other, the wolf-bitch and the one-eyed freak." A string of curses erupted from Joffrey's mouth, growing fainter and fainter as Carl strode out of the room.

But when he was pushed onto the High Septon's pulpit the next day, Joffrey mysteriously seemed to have forgotten how to swear. Instead he stood there blankly, shivering, though the doublet of crimson and gold he wore was far thicker than the rags of the smallfolk who now covered every square inch of the marble tiles on the Sept's plaza. A sea of grey and brown, threatening to rise and flood over the alabaster island which was the Sept of Baelor.

The former king's hands trembled as they held the parchment on which his confession was scrawled.

"I am Joffrey, last King on the Iron Throne and son of Cersei Lannister. I confess Lord Eddard Stark was completely innocent of all charges levied against him by the Iron Throne, and was unlawfully executed on this very spot where I now stand. There is no proof suggesting that the matter Lord Stark investigated regarding my parentage was untrue-"

Bastard! Bastard! The smallfolk cried. Several mud-pies soared towards the pulpit. One narrowly flew past Tywin's head. Another one slammed straight into Joffrey's face.

"Who threw that?" Joffrey shrieked. He began to raise his hand as if to give an order, until the weight of his iron fetters forced it back down. "Who? Who dared!" He would have said more, but Carl tapped his shoulder with a carbine muzzle. He glumly lowered his head. "I had profaned this Sept of Baelor with noble blood. I had started a disastrous war which engulfed all Westeros. And I had feasted while King's Landing starved, and ordered the slaying of innocents whose only crime was that they wanted more food for their families." This time it wasn't mud-pies which flew, but sticks and stones. "And… and… and many other things. I was no true heir to the Iron Throne, nor by blood, nor by deed, nor by the grace of the gods. I was no Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and I did not protect the realm."

Tywin Lannister was next. He shuffled up to the pulpit, but said nothing, until Carl's gun not so kindly prodded at his back. "I am Tywin Lannister," he said before he went mute again.

"Dorne," Carl whispered behind Tywin's ear. "Don't make me remind you again."

"We are guilty of orchestrating the Sack of King's Landing at the end of Robert's Rebellion. We are guilty of ordering the rape and murder of Princess Elia Nymeros Martell and the slaughter of her children. We are guilty of starting the War of the Five Kings by raiding the Riverlands without any order from King Robert. We are guilty of plotting the Red Wedding and instructing Frey and Bolton in their respective roles. We accept full responsibility for all the sufferings, deaths and losses caused by our actions, and the just consequences of our crimes. On behalf of myself, my descendants, and my House, we hereby renounce all claims to lands, titles, and wealth within Westeros. I confirm the dissolution of House Lannister and the loss of its place within the nobility."

"You heard the confessions. You heard what they did to bring Westeros to her knees. Joffrey and Tywin are sentenced to death for the atrocities committed against Westeros and the Kingdom of the North and Trident-"

Joffrey's knees buckled. It took the combined efforts of the two goldcloaks by his side to drag him back up. "You promised, Lord Carl, you promised! Have mercy, please! I beg you!"

"But I will allow both to join the Night's Watch, along with any man who wishes to follow them into exile-"

The smallfolk suddenly surged forwards. With shields and spear shafts, the goldcloaks held their lines as long as they could. Still the wave of smallfolk pushed on, lapping up one marble step, then another, and another.

"Off with the bastard's head, m'lord!" someone shouted. "And the butcher of King's Landing too!" another man screamed. He must be a butcher himself, Carl thought. The crowd was now so close that Carl could make out the huge knife in his hand. A pebble slingshotted off a goldcloak's helm. The victim staggered backwards. "Justice!" "Vengeance!" "Make the Lannisters pay their debts!" The smallfolk chanted as they pushed. The dike of goldcloaks on the steps was finally swept aside by the flood of angry men.

The goldcloaks at the pulpit dragged the two prisoners back into the Hall of Lamps, where the Westerosi nobility and other Alexandrians were gathered. "Sam, keys!" Carl shouted. Two lumps of iron briefly soared through the air, before landing in front of the goldcloaks. "You! Unchain Joffrey's feet!" His left hand pointed at the nearest goldcloak, then the man next to him. "And you! Unchain Tywin's!"

And not a moment too soon. The two prisoners' manacles clattered onto the ground when the first smallfolk surged past the doors, not unlike the hordes of walkers he had fought in another world.

"Crap!" Carl turned to the High Septon, but the man just stood there, his face sheet white. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead onto his robes. And everyone else were staring at Carl himself, waiting for their next orders.

Carl didn't know what to do.

But Dad would. If only he were here.

Then the memories came flooding back. Dad, in fact, did.

Carl remembered very little of the day a Walker horde swarmed through Alexandria's gates. The fall, his blood dripping onto the ground before everything went black. A searing pain on the right side of his face, as if someone put a torch to where his right eye had been. Crisp pop-pop-pops of gunfire, almost inaudible among the Walkers' groans. His father hacking at the hand tightly grabbing Carl's own, a geyser of blood erupting from the woman's severed stump. Jill? Joan? Carl had already forgotten her name. She was Dad's lover, though, the first one after Mom died. The woman's son screamed when he was being torn apart by the walkers, and the woman's two hands refused to let go of her son - or Carl. Hugging his friend goodbye back at the house where they were besieged, while his father tried to convince Maggie to 'do the right thing' and sneak past the Walkers with them. And before that…

"I know this looks bad, but it will keep them off us. They'll think we're dead like them," his father had said, splattering walker guts all over bedsheets turned into makeshift ponchos. "It's worked before."

Carl hoped it would work here at the Sept too. "Do you have any spare septon and septa's robes?" He quickly asked the High Septon.

"This way, my lord." Carl never knew a man could run so quickly in robes, but the High Septon did. The rest of them followed into a cloaking room and bolted the door.

"Tywin and Joffrey will be recognized straight away without a Septa's hood, so they will dress like Septas. So will I, when enough of the city has probably already seen my missing eye. Everyone else grab whatever robes you can." He grabbed the nearest robe, a seven-coloured belt, and a cowl. It took a bit of fiddling to get the robe over his arm cast, but his lone good hand was hopeless with the belt and the cowl, until Arya came over and fitted those on as best as she could after wearing her own. He pulled on the cowl's top so it would cover his missing eye, in addition to long black strands of hair dangling in front of the exposed socket. Still the arm cast jutted out.

Arya looked at it and scowled. Then she grabbed a towel and threw it over the cast. "There. That way you look like you are holding something."

"What about the two prisoners?" Sam asked when the two were done. She shook the remaining two keys in her hand. "We'll have to unbind their hands. Even if we could somehow hide the manacles in their robes, the clanging will give it all away."

Carl considered for a moment. "Unbind them then. You will guard Tywin, and Clem will guard Joffrey. If they try anything funny, shoot them."

The room was in utter chaos. Men, women and children tried on robe after robe, flinging those that didn't fit onto the floor, before someone else picked it up and tried their luck. Arya glared at the two prisoners as if she were going to run Needle through them at any moment. And Sansa was exchanging whispers with the Red Viper all the way at the back of the room.

Finally the Red Viper made his way towards Carl. "It would be… most unfortunate if the smallfolk killed them both. You would have kept your word to Ser Marbrand regardless. Why risk your life, and our own, when we could just throw the lions to the mob?"

"I don't want them dying in King's Landing. Not when they are my prisoners, and are supposed to be under our guard," Carl explained.

The Red Viper's eyes twinkled. "They will not be your prisoners when they leave King's Landing," he observed.

"If you want them dead, what happens after they arrive at the Wall is none of my business. If he was here, Dad'll ask you not to kill them. I won't. But if you want to meet my father, the leader of Alexandria, then stay."

Oberyn nodded. "As you say, my lord."

When the group began to quiet down, Carl strode into the centre of the room and softly spoke. "Stick together and move slowly. Stay calm and we'll be fine." The same words Carl heard his father say years ago, words that couldn't be further from the truth. He had stayed calm that horrible day, stuck close to his companions, moved as slowly as he could. He did everything right, followed his father's orders.

And he still lost his eye. All because that kid pissed and screamed.

There wasn't much he could do about the pissing this time, but the screaming was another matter. "Don't need you screaming when we're out there," Carl stuffed a thick rag into Joffrey's mouth. "Hold your piss if you can, or you're a dead man the moment they see yellow pooling around your feet. I promised not to kill you. The smallfolk didn't."

"We'll get out through the back gate to the Street of Steel, and take them to Tobho Mott's shop. It's too dangerous to sneak them onto the docks or back into the Red Keep." The whole group was dressed in septons and septas' robes now. "Keep your heads low like when you're praying." They needed all their prayers anyway, if this time they wanted to lose less than two lives and an eye.

Sam went first. She carefully tugged at the door. It creaked open just a bit too loudly. At least the smallfolk didn't seem to notice, or didn't mind if they did. They snuck out of the room in single file, staying ever close to the marble walls.

In their dirty rags, the mob of smallfolk seemed so out of place among the Sept's marbles. At least they weren't attacking the few Septons and Septas who were brave enough to remain, or too slow to run. Not yet. How could there be so many poor people, Carl wondered, when the Faith was rich enough that their leader could wear that crown of crystal and gold…

Oh CRAP.

They threw a towel over Carl's cast. They gagged Joffrey so he wouldn't scream. But in all his infinite wisdom, Carl didn't ask the High Septon to take off his crown. Under the sunlight, It shone like a lighthouse in a sea of hungry sharks.

"Crown…" Carl made his way close to the High Septon and hissed.

"What?" The High Septon whispered back.

"Your crown. Who do you think they would go after first, when they can't spot the rest of us?" Carl looked up. A few smallfolk were already pointing their fingers from far away. And-

"There! There they are!"

Clang. The High Septon's crown fell at Carl's feet, followed by his elaborate outer robes. Then he was gone. Carl did not dare raise his head again, or they would spot his missing eye… if they haven't already.

Play it cool. Play it cool playitcool playitcoolplayitcoolplayitcool…

Head down. Left foot first. Then the right. Left again. Carl shuffled away from the robe and crown, just before he heard the crack of a fist colliding with bone. Then more shouts, and the tearing of cloth. The smallfolk were already fighting over the High Septon's raiments. The longer the better, Carl thought. They would be too busy to notice the small group sneaking towards the Sept's back doors.

Left, right, left, right… until he stepped on something fluffy and white. The towel that should have been around his arm. Something tugged at the bottom of his chin. In a blur, his hair sprang free again. The calloused hand forced his head upwards. And he stared, stared straight into the ink-black eyes of a dirt-streaked man. The man's lips stretched into a wide grin, that of a predator who had just caught his prey.

Suddenly the cowl was shoved back into Carl's face. Shoved into his nose and mouth. More hands pulled at his one good arm. We got the lordling, someone shouted. Sunlight blazed into his eyes, then all began to dim.