The Baratheons of Dragonstone arrived at Gate to the Red Keep on foot, adorned by flowers.
Before Shireen stepped fully through the gate into the Royal Keep though, she stopped and turned around. Many of the smallfolk that had cheered her were still standing there. She looked at them while her parents and and Ser Barristan waited behind her.
Oh why not, thought Shireen to herself, the people liked to cheer so let them cheer her.
If they wanted that desperately to believe in the blessings of the Seven, she would give them something that they could hold dear.
Shireen took one of the small flower petals that clung to her modest gown, went down the ten steps to the nearest woman that was standing there, a shabby and thin old one it was, and then kissed the flower, gave it to the old woman and spoke kind words.
" May the Mother bless you and the Crone heal your worries as she healed mine."
The old woman looked at her and fell down on her knees while she looked to Shireen, then to the flower that she now carefully grabbed in her old and thin hands and then back at Shireen. She cried. Shireen sighed quietly and then bend to take the next flower from her gown and to repeat it all for others.
A short while this was going on, till no more flowers were left on her. Then Shireen turned around and went back to her family still waiting at the gate.
Behind her the people were crying and shouting her name, thanking her for being so kind and calling her the Maiden come to life. Well, Shireen thought to herself, if that would have been true, she surely now would look prettier and would not still have her Florent ears and her father's jaw.
She arrived by her mother's side, turned around once more and waved a few times back at the people with her left hand before she stepped finally through the Gate and into the Red Keep.
Her father and her mother stared at her, mother with devotion and father with nearly shock. Ser Barristan and others around him looked like they were striked by lightning.
Shireen desperately held back her giggling at all these unbelieving faces. Let them all think that she believed herself rescued and brought back to life and blessed by the Seven, she would use this all to change the direction of her life.
The Baratheons of Dragonstone were brought to the Throne Hall and before his Grace.
Uncle Robert looked unhappy, thought Shireen, unhappy and already drunk and dirty too. Unkempt hair and wild beard, winesoiled shirt and grease-stained breeches. Her great and famous Uncle, the cuckolded King. Shireen remembered the letter that her father had sent everywhere in her first life.
She looked away from the King and saw the Queen standing beside the Iron Throne with a clear look of distaste and annoyance on her beautiful face. Joffrey the bully was standing beside his mother, staring back at her and her parents with a smirk on his lips.
On the other side of the Iron Throne stood the Hand, Lord Jon Arryn and looked at her and her parents, kneeling in front of the Throne as they were, kindly and with slight curiosity.
"Well niece, the letters were not lying. Nothing more to see from the Greyscale, not even a single scar. Seems the Gods have blessed you, ehh? Fine."
Trust Uncle Robert to be unimpressed when stating the obvious, Shireen thought with amusement.
"If she was really blessed by the Gods, then they should have made her prettier to look at too and not only healed her Greyscale. She is still ugly."
And trust Joffrey to be horrible whenever he opens his mouth.