Ridiculous-length Note: This chapter is obscenely long, so much so that i had to split it in two, since the second part (that i will be posting very shortly, promise) is just as long as this one, almost. I am sorry for that. I know that I take my time and explore, but even that should have some limits, right? I know that, but as we heard it once in a great movie, '…once I start I get too lazy to stop'. However, I would be very grateful to anyone who has the nerve to pick up this chapter and underline the parts that I should cut, since I cannot seem to do that on my own.

I went slowly on Myrcella's thought process so that the phases of it were clear and wouldn't feel forced or sudden – since she has taught herself not to make any 'sudden' decisions. I also added some bits about the Frey-Bolton betrayal (that do not really move the story forward, I know), because I thought you guys would like to have at least some kind of background on the 'how come Robb Stark is still alive' part.

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- Silly Note: you'll hear talk about a violet/dark-lavender dress in here… if you've seen 'Elisabeth: the Golden Age' you'll know the kind of vivid colour I had in mind. And as for the cut… I confess that I saw it in some stills of 'Reign' and fell in love with it: McQueen_Fall_2010 (nr.15 of the collection). If you google it that way, you're sure to find pictures of it, though the original one is black… aaand now I'm well past the limits of silly and brushing up cozily against the ridiculous… ;P

Sorry!

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5. Riverrun: All the truths that you don't know (pt1)

"You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting."

- T.H. White, The Once and Future King -

She had expected him to be a man of war – he truly couldn't have been anything else – and she had not been disappointed. He was certainly no boy, but Myrcella knew that he was not as old as he sometimes looked either. She did not know his age with true specificity, but she did know that Robb Stark could not be more than two and twenty, probably even less.

(which meant he was older than her by a good five years, though Myrcella tried not to think about that much. It was nothing, worse matches were possible. Gods, worse matches were made every day! Five years was nothing! All the while she stubbornly ignored that voice in the back of her head that reminded her: Trystane had been two years your senior, and it truly had seemed nothing to you then… he would be past eight and ten now, had he lived to see it…)

And yet, despite the King's youth, whenever she looked at the him, Myrcella found it hard to match the memory of Robb Stark in the courtyard of Winterfell from years ago with the man she saw now - the King of Winter - despite the fact that, objectively, she knew they were the same person. There were faded traces of that boy she remembered however: even with that beard that hid the shape of his jaw, the King was comely (and she remembered thinking once that Robb Stark had been so handsome); if the startling blue of his gaze weren't so cold and hard, his eyes would be beautiful; if his mouth wasn't always pressed so severely, his lips would be lovely; if she didn't distrust what it meant for her, she would like the width of his shoulders, the leanness of his tall frame. And there were new things as well, things she'd never known: she had learned that he could hold a conversation pleasantly, though he didn't seem to be one of too many words; that he could listen with patience to thoughts that different from his own, despite being very set in his ways; that he took care to place every touch with gentleness, even though it was as much as offering his arm, or kissing her hand. He was careful with himself, Myrcella had learned, and he was also very careful with her and she knew enough of the world to be thankful for it.

But for all the small interactions with him since that walk in the woods, she admitted that she learned of him mostly thought watching him about is business: with his bannermen, with his soldiers, with his mother and sisters.

He walked his camp often, spoke to all of his soldiers - from the horsed ones to the humblest footmen - as if he knew every last one of them and in turn they greeted him with rough-cut smiles and borderline-revering eyes. They loved him, Myrcella realized soon enough. They respected and believed in him. It was a quick realization: one only had to take a look around to step into it (and what a startling one as well: a King loved by his people - such a novelty). It was no surprise really: Robb Stark led his men through war, to victory and independence and now he was leading them home. He walked and spoke and acted a king, but he did it with the easy grace and familiarity of a soldier, a warrior that had shed blood with his brothers.

That was the image he presented and whether it was real or not, it didn't matter. It was what his men saw.

It was by watching him in the fold of his army that Myrcella learned that the King was not such a solemn man after all. He had an easy-going manner with his men which somehow, while making him approachable, managed not to rob him of an ounce of gravity. That easiness of speech and manner was like an armour around him against all false pomp. There was not one drop of that pageantry-feeling in Robb Stark that Myrcella had sometimes seen in commanders walking about their ranks, as if parading themselves and their title. There simply couldn't be: his armour was not gold-plated, silver or ornate: it was of the undescript grey of hard iron, scrapped and well used; he didn't wear his crown among his men – she had never actually seen him wearing a crown at all! It was as if he believed he did not need it, and that belief was returned to him a hundred fold by his men. He was a King not only in name, but in deeds. (Joffrey had always seemed ludicrous, but in comparison to this, he seemed obscene). Myrcella imagined that, had she been one of his men, she would have loved the Winter King too, same as his soldiers did… but the fact was that she was not a man in Robb Stark's army - and perhaps that was the problem: he would have been so much easier to like, if she could keep him in the safe distance of a liege lord, or even a friend… and as she thought that she felt like laughing. It was a little hard to do, she thought absently, fancying herself a man when she was stretching on her tub wrapped only in hot water and nothing else. The thought gave her giggles for a moment.

They had arrived in Riverrun hours ago, just a little past midday, and Myrcella had spent most of her time in that tub, scrubbing at her skin and her hair, enjoying the unwinding of her saddle-sore muscles. And what a pleasure that had been - the warm room, the soft bed and hot bath - a delicious frivolity that she could not resent herself for indulging in, not when she finally felt clean for the first time in weeks, her skin once again smooth and she could pass a hand among her curs and not have her fingers get trapped in impossible tangles after a few inches. The simple relaxation of it allowed Myrcella to almost forget that she'd have to dine in a hall filled with northern bannermen and riverlords that night. Myrcella had to admit however that the situation was nothing quite as new as she pretended it was. Certainly not the first time she'd have to share an evening with people that wished she would choke on her stew. So she luxuriated in the warm bath a little more, indulging in the faint scent of jasmine-oil in her water and dry wood burning in the hearth… and - though strangely incongruous - indulging in the thought of Robb Stark as well.

She could say now that she knew what a true smile looked like upon his face, what he looked like when he was happy - and to her relief, seen with her own eyes that he was actually capable of happiness. She had seen it not even three hours ago, upon entering the gates of Riverrun and could not stop thinking about the moment.

Myrcella had been riding ahead with the royal party and was among the first to enter the gates and into the keep – and from up on her horse it was easy to see the scene unfold: how swiftly the King jumped down from his horse and hurried his step to greet the tall man that looked vaguely like him - thought with brighter red hair and eyes less grave - and then immediately he'd turned to the middle-aged woman that was standing close to that man. For a moment Myrcella had a flash of doubt but the thought didn't even have time to form when she noticed that it was not the woman that he wished to greet, but rather the infant that she was holding: a little girl with tuffs of deep russet curs and wide clear-blue eyes that reminded Myrcella of Sansa's. The child could not be more than two years of age: a pretty little thing with chubby cheeks and pale skin that seemed the softest thing in the world and a squealing laughter that made one want to smile, the way children often do. The child gave a very loud squeal when the King picked her up and held her close. He greeted her with kisses and the babe squirmed a little in his arms, perhaps bothered by the scratch of his beard. The King – Robb Stark, he looked a lot more like Robb Stark then – had smiled at his daughter and the look on his face had been… Myrcella had been shocked by what she saw there, truthfully.

He had been full of love as he looked at that little girl, eyes so soft and smile so warm that he didn't look like the same person at all.

She had stayed in the great hall of Riverrun only long enough for the formalities to be done with (and long enough for Edmure Tully – their host and the King's uncle – to give her a look full of righteous distaste, undoubtedly feeling as if he was the first one to grace her with it). Afterwards all the new guests had been ushered to their rooms – something for which the princess had been so glad of that she could have kissed the maid that showed her to her room – and the hole time Myrcella had been thinking about that moment in the courtyard: Robb Stark with his daughter in his arms, and the tangible proof that there was truly a man beneath the King and the ever-winter of his eyes.

A man who could look at his daughter with so much affection, with such love… well, such a man could not be so bad, could he? And he was most certainly capable of more emotions than she gave him credit for. If up until then Myrcella had been almost convinced that the King was not as bad as she had feared him to be, his behaviour with his daughter seemed only to confirm it for her. The relief she'd felt had been palpable.

Directly after that, Myrcella had sternly warned herself not to put too much stock in anything. Trust no one but yourself, the voice of reason whispered to her. There was no guarantee that he would ever be capable of showing her the same image of himself, of ever trusting her that much. No guarantee at all that he would love the children his Lannister wife gave him in the same way he loved the daughter he'd had from his first wife (and Myrcella knew all too well that there were many ways one could be a horrible father and that an indifferent one was its own kind of agony… just as she knew she'd be pushed to do something horrible if he proved to be a cruel one). If one desired to be thoroughly mistrusting, one could even say that, the fact that he loved his child was not even real proof that he was capable of even a shred of the same emotion for anyone else: he could love his daughter fiercely and still be a monstrosity to everyone else… though Myrcella knew that by then she was grasping at straws. Robb Stark was not her mother; her mother was a unique specimen of human nature, too specifically broken and warped by the life she had led and the hurts she'd suffered, to serve as an example for anyone.

Myrcella knew that she was being stubborn with her refusal to admit it when something so obviously good was before her eyes, but she could not help herself. She was not the kind of woman to build people up inside her head anymore – that was among the most lethal mistakes one could make, she'd learned that painfully. She'd rather discover people piece by piece and as for the King, the only allowance she'd dare make was that he was not what she'd feared him to be – which was admittedly a great relief. OF course, Myrcella knew her own heart and mind, knew her weakness and what they craved: she would never be happy with so little, but she had long since stopped dreaming about happiness. Peace was all she hoped to find now, a sort of contentment. When one could not alter their own circumstances, the next best thing to do was make the most of them, and Myrcella wold do just that, and not waste a moment wishing for the stars. If you had the misfortune to be born a woman, a Lannister and a princess – all at the same time - you learned at a very early age that dreams were for fools and you were not permitted to be one.

Women… every time Myrcella found herself contemplating the thoughts of her sex in general, her mother came to mind. Cercei Lannister had often had much to say about women and their weaknesses.

A woman's weapons…

Myrcella lifted one leg over the edge of the tub and looked at the shape of her ankle, her calf and higher, her thigh. She touched the tips of her fingers down her sides, to her hips and thighs, wondering how a man might look at her… what the King would think of this body when she was in his bed. Myrcella knew herself for what she was: as tall as her mother, but without the sensational curves that made Cercei Lannister appear so stunning even when the prime of her age had passed. Her own body was more compact, made of wiry muscles and subtle curves, rather than shapely ins-and-outs. Perhaps because she was young still, or perhaps because of all the riding and the running and Obara's training… It was no matter anyway. Nymeria was just as slender, and she was beautiful in the eyes of all who saw her. Every woman's body is beautiful, Ellaria always said, and when it came to that, Ellaria was somewhat of an authority after all, so Myrcella believed her.

But it was one thing to have a body that one might find pleasing, and another thing entirely to know how to use it.

Myrcella had heard enough about the intimate preferences of men ('call it what it is Myrcella', a voice said inside her head, one that 'It's called fucking!') from the uncensored mouths of those such as Obara and Nymeria, even Arianne. They had taken her aside when she flowered and spoken to her of a woman's body and its ways… and then later, of other things. Obara liked to speak of domination and mastering men to her own desire. Nymeria on the other hand treated seduction with the same finesse and mystery that she treated all else. Arianne… well, where the snakes explained fucking to her as a means to its own end - the end being your own pleasure and that of your lover - Arianne spoke of it as a game. Of how you could make men or break them; how to drive them mad with want and how to keep them wanting; how you could bend them to your will and use their desire against them.

(Myrcella would understand, once returned to her mother, that Cercei Lannister saw her body in this light as well… though her way was quite different from Arianne's. Arianne enjoyed it from start to finish; her mother made it sound like whoring oneself)

Myrcella had listened to them red-faced but fascinated, though she had not been able back then to imagine what it was like to have a lover - and now she knew that she probably would never have a proper one. Husbands are not lovers - they are husbands. In Dorne they had the neat solution of paramours for that, but westeros was different… and Myrcella would be queen (and she would rather die a thousand painful deaths than bring a single bastard into this world). And besides, despite all the stories and funny details, despite the fact that Myrcella might even know what it was to want - as in, to want a man as a woman does - the thought of laying with one brought nothing but apprehension for her. And when she thought of Robb Stark… she simply could not shake off the anxiety it brought her, how much the thought of being helpless that way with him disturbed her - which was a problem of its own because, according to Arianne, a man's true weakness was a woman's desire.

Could I maybe fake that? Myrcella wonders absently, and in the space of the same thought she decided that she should ask Obara about it. Or rather, Nymeria, if she were willing – Obara was not likely to understand the need to pretend you wanted someone. Tyene was bound to be full of heady secrets too, but Myrcella would never ask her for any of them; Tyene's secrets were poisonous as Tyene herself. Ellaria might have something valuable to teach her, and though Myrcella dreaded the older woman's extreme and indiscriminate sexuality a little, she would likely do well to listen. After all, Ellaria had kept one such as prince Oberyn for her own for more than sixteen years - that was no easy feat. And that was something Myrcella would like to learn how to do, because though she did not know herself as a married woman, seeing that she had never been one before, she did know that she would not like to share her husband with anyone.

And as Myrcella contemplated that, she deliberately did not think of her mother. Gone were the times when she'd ask herself what Cercei Lannister would do in her place. The only time she did, was so that she could do the exact opposite - which was why, as she contemplated the lines of her own body, Myrcella did not delude herself into thinking that by using it she could ever gain any ounce of control over the King. She had seen how feeble that kind of power was, how fast it waned. Both Cercei and Arianne were wrong there: assuming that all men could be ruled by their cocks was as irrational as assuming that all women were airheaded fools without two coins of sense to rub together. Men could be driven to utter madness for a woman and that was true enough – as women could be for men - but desire itself was too volatile to be a solid means of control; using it as such was like building sand castles and expecting them to hold against the oncoming waves – it seemed to Myrcella an amateurish mistake to make, especially when the ones making it were women seasoned enough in the games of shadows to know better that to put on men more trust than their nature should allow.

Women like her mother, Myrcella unwillingly admitted. That men were slaves of their loins was a notion that Cercei Lannister believed in firmly… and perhaps resented just as strongly. She had always wanted to have been born a man, as if being a woman categorically precluded her from any direct form of power or violence. But a woman's helplessness in front of a man's fist was not weakness, it was fact; as was a man's soft flesh under any blade, as certain as death was in a poisoned cup. Blood-spilling and blood-drinking were not things only men could do well, and neither was leading kingdoms. There were many kinds of power and Myrcella had seen women successfully yielding them all – and each of them had proved more efficient at it than her mother was (but thinking that was unkind and perhaps… perhaps a better testament to her time among the dornish than anything else she had learned from them).

Power was a game of shadows and dust, Myrcella thought, and that was a truth that her mother had never quite grasped fully. Or rather, one that she regularly misunderstood. It was a mistaken vision that her mother had passed down to her precious firstborn. Joffrey was a ruin because of his own nature, yes, but also because Cercei Lannister was very nearly a complete failure as a mother.

My mother… her shortcomings so glaringly obvious; her virtues so painfully meaningless.

But enough of that! Cercei Lannister was not what she wanted to think on now. How did she even deviate her thoughts that way? Had she not been thinking of the terrifying prospect of dinner? And later, of men? How had the thought of bedding Robb Stark brought her around to contemplations about her mother? (though Myrcella knew the answer to both those questions, so intimately linked they were.) Safer to think of the feast alone and of the man men and women whose hatred and scorn she'd have to face.

Myrcella sighed deeply, tracing patters in the water with the tips of her fingers that were slowly starting to prune. How very ironic was it that a room full of people that wanted her dead sounded almost warm-hearted compared to what thinking of her family made her feel? She smiled to herself, and a little whisper in her head spoke to her with her uncle Tyrion's voice: murder preferable to family… there might be a Lannister in you yet! Myrcella smiled a little more widely, though her heart tightened a little with longing. She missed her uncle's wit. She missed little Tommen's smile… she'd missed Jamie's barbed humour for so long that now it was a faded memory, but her feelings for Jamie Lannister were a bit more complicated than that, unfortunately.

But she was lucky, because just in that moment, a knock sounded at the door, saving her from the thoughts; and just by the way the fist connected with the wood of her door, Myrcella knew who it was behind it.

"Come in Obara." Myrcella said, turning around in the tub so that she could face the door with a smile. Such a timely interruption. Obara opened the door and held it open for Elia who closed it behind her, taking Myrcella in with a smile – one that turned into a smirk when she looked back at her sister.

"I told you she'd still be in her bath." Elia said, speaking around her smile. Obara only rolled her eyes and landed herself on Myrcella's bed, flopping down like a dead fish with a groan as Elia sat herself on Myrcella's vanity chair, pulling both legs up over one arm and leaning against the other.

"I'm waiting on your lecture for overindulging." Myrcella said though it was but a tease. Obara only gave her a rude gesture with her hand.

"Tired?"

"No." Obara groaned. "Starving."

Elia shared a look with Myrcella but said nothing.

"I can't say I'm looking forward to dining with all those men, to tell you the truth." Elia said distractedly. "Most of them smell like a two-day-old carcass in the sun."

Myrcella curled her nose at her friend. "Lovely thought."

Elia only raised one eyebrow at her. "Not very enthused about the oncoming feast, are you?"

Myrcella sighed but said nothing. Elia got up from the chair and came to sit on a low stool behind Myrcella's head, brush in hand ready to pass it through Myrcella's curls that had been hanging out of the bath and starting to dry. She'd already brushed it, but she didn't say anything because Myrcella loved having her hair brushed and Elia loved brushing it. You have gold growing out of your skull, she used to say, and I have ebony. They had waved their hair together once, laughing at the contrast.

"I wouldn't worry. You'll be sitting close to Sansa and she likes you. And once the official part is over, you can come sit with us. I'll come up there and steal you away." Elia said putting her head close to Myrcella's practically whispering the words in her ear like a secret conspiracy. It made Myrcella smile.

"I'm not sure what to wear." She finally said then.

"No red." Obara quickly pointed out and Myrcella narrowed her eyes at her.

"Thank you for the obvious council, oh wise one. No I mean, do I dress richly? After all I am to be a queen and I am supposedly a princess. I wouldn't do to look beneath my station – it could be seen as an insult to the King. But then, would they take offence in my dressing up as too rich? As if I'm flaunting my family's name and fortune - and all the rest - right in their face."

Not that anyone in that hall tonight would need reminding. Even those who'd never met her, knew her. Even those that never met her mother.

Still, Myrcella knew that the Riverlands had suffered dearly in the war: they were the knot of the realm and practically indefensible besides. And her grandfather, the undimmed Tywin Lannister had unleashed the Mountain on them… Myrcella felt her skin crawl every time she thought of the man. No, she didn't want to cause discontent… but she'd chew on her own hand before she was made to look feeble in front of anyone.

Obara had turned on her stomach, face buried in the covers so the groan she let out was muffled. Of course she didn't give a rat's ass about what Myrcella was to wear. She'd probably wear breeches herself.

"Wear something of rich cloth, but simple cut." Elia suggested wisely, as the motions of the brush became soothing. "It seems like a good compromise."

Myrcella nodded. Yes it was.

Elia set the brush aside and it was then that Myrcella chose to finally end her long bath and start getting herself ready. She rose from the water and stepped out of the tub, catching the robe that Elia threw at her from the other side and wrapping it around herself. It was warm in the room, the fire was roaring, but from out of the water Myrcella felt suddenly cool.

"Hells Myrcella, what is it, don't they feed you in the Red Keep?" Obara asked, as Myrcella feared she would, sounding surprised and even angry.

The princess knew why of course: she had lost much weight these last few months and though she had been slowly getting back to her usual form, she was not as she'd been just yet. She had not hoped for Obara not to notice – Obara noticed almost everything – but she had hoped however that the older woman would have Elia's tact and keep the observation to herself. She should have known better of course – she did know better. But hope lies a slow death, it seemed.

"They fed me well enough, but my appetite was whimsical since I had to share a table with my brother most of the time." Myrcella said blandly as she dried her hair, looking at a spot on the carpet in front of the hearth.

She did not mention that the journey to the Red Keep from Sunspear had been less than pleasant, and that during that journey she'd been fed with bread and water and the occasional stale fruit. Those were memories she did not particularly wish to revisit and she was glad when Obara didn't enquire further into it. Elia's warning look had been enough this time it seemed, to make her think again about asking. Myrcella was grateful for it.

"You should have thought of that yourself – the dress thing." Obara observed from where she was laying, now on her side, her head propped on her hand as she stared at Myrcella's face intently. "Why didn't you?" and then, without even giving Myrcella time to answer: "What's been worrying that pretty head of yours?"

Myrcella shrugged, but walked over at the bed where Elia too was now lying and saw on one corner, leaning against the bedpost as she dried her hair with a linen cloth. Should she…

Oh, why the hell not!

"I have been thinking about the King."

Elia smiled brightly as she flopped back against the pillows. "Oh, finally! I thought you'd never get over your 'sensible' approach with him."

That Obara stayed silent was something Myrcella did not miss.

"I am well within my rights to be careful."

Elia rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know, but… well, you keep everyone at such a distance, Myr. It's a struggle to get close to you." She paused briefly, enough to let Myrcella know that she was hesitated a moment at least, before bringing it up. "I don't think you've made a single new friend ever since Trystane died."

Myrcella said nothing to that. Elia had a way of divesting your innermost secrets right in your face, and quite carelessly too sometimes, but she'd never done it in any way that had felt hurtful. It did feel a little so now though, and Myrcella felt like biting back something like 'and you wonder why?'… But that would have been unkind and much too low a point to make. So Myrcella kept peace. What Elia said was the truth after all and she'd be a liar if she said different.

Fool me once…

"You were saying you've been thinking about the king." Obara pushed, saving Myrcella from having to grace Elia with any kind of answer.

"Yes." Myrcella said, taking her line of thought back up… and hesitating. "His men like him."

Obara rolled her eyes almost at the same time with her younger sister. "His men think the sun shines out of his ass. Or, what is the saying up here, the he 'pisses snow' or something of the like."

Myrcella bit her lip, but couldn't hide the smile. "I'm sure the phraseology is the same, Obara." Myrcella said and took a deep breath. "His men would follow him through all seven hells themselves, but what about his bannermen?" she asked then, and on this she had to ask Obara who was among the fighting men and her father's right hand. She was bound to know some details that were precluded to most. At least she was bound to know more than Myrcella did, since she'd never been present when the king spoke with his captains of his bannermen. Of course not…

"What about them?" Obara asks, needing a specific question to focus on.

"What do they think of him?"

Obara frowned. "He is their King." She said simply which earned a sigh from Myrcella.

"Yes he is, and as much as the soldiers of his army love him, the lords are something different. Lords of anything don't ever give their loyalty just because they must – they always want something back."

Obara gave her a contemplative look.

"It was his bannermen that declared him King you know, not the other way around. That says something." Obara quirked an eyebrow. "If you were one of his bannermen, wouldn't you love him?"

Myrcella though on that. No, she had not known that Robb Stark had been chosen to be a King. It was an obvious choice after all, Starks had always been the Kings of Winter, but still… it spoke of his worth, sure – and it also reinforced Myrcella's belief that he was even more dependent on his bannermen than other kings. After all, without them he would have no crown.

But then again, that had been years ago…

"I'm not one of his bannermen so I don't rightly know. And while there are lords who love their kings for being brave and strong and true, as there are those who resent them for the same reason."

Obara frowned deeply. "And why do would that be?"

Obara asked these kinds of questions often: she asked them not because she wanted to hear what she didn't know. What Obara wanted to hear was the things Myrcella – or anyone – thought she knew.

"If I had soldiers under my command, I wouldn't want their love and loyalty to go to another man. The only control an overlord has over his king are the military forces he supplies. If the lord wants to ignore the king's call, but his men don't share that opinion… well, I wouldn't like that king much."

"You wouldn't be much of a lord though, if you ignored your liege." Obara pointed out and Myrcella finally lost patience.

"You know perfectly well what I mean. I just want to know if there's anyone in particular among is men that wishes me harm. Or rather, more harm than the others." And how the king would feel about that – that would be nice to know as well, but that was something neither Obara nor Elia could tell her.

Elia gave her a sympathetic smile. "They don't much like you, it's true." But she was teasing, Myrcella could see that.

"Of course they don't. Half of Westeros doesn't much like me, the other half hates me. It doesn't exactly break my heart. But I want to know if there's anyone that hates me with a passion a little more fierce than the others. Someone I should watch out for."

And at that, both Snakes fell silent – a silence that hinted of answers.

"There's Lord Karstark – he's one you must watch out for, truly." Obara said. "About the same age as the King, big man, bushy beard… but I just described ninety percent of this army. You'll know him by the way he scowls at you, never mind."

Elia filled in the reason why, when Obara neglected to do so. "The Kingslayer killed his older brother and his father on the battlefield and strangled his little brother with his chains when he tried to escape."

Myrcella felt her mouth go dry.

This was… this was expected, admittedly. And at the same time it was not. She knew men died in war. A war had been waged by her family, thousands had died by Lannister swords – same as they'd died by Stark swords. War was carnage… and those were just words. Myrcella knew blood and fear and hatred, but she did not know battle. She had no faces to link to it, no screams to remember or blooded fields to recall. All she had was words and tales. But this was different: it was closer. Killing on a battlefield she did not know, but the other one – with that she was intimately familiar with. As Jamie had killed to free himself, so had Myrcella, not even so long ago. She could understand it, but… But she had not had to sit down and break bread with the family of those she'd killed after! That changed the situation most thoroughly… and it made her wonder of things that she perhaps should not wonder; practical things that hurt to think about. Things like: how many men had Jamie killed himself? How many had reason to hate her for the blood that her blood had spilled? Not some general idea, some man in red armour, but her blood, her father, as much as she hated the word… the man whose flesh she had been made of, whose blood flowed in her veins.

"Anyone else?" Myrcella finally asked so flatly she might have called ever herself callous. Elia gave her a tiny smile, as if she knew exactly what Myrcella was thinking. Obara on the other had regarded her with cool eyes.

"Not with any tie to you that is quite so particular, but as for the King… well, I have heard rumours going around." Elia said then, looking from her sister to Myrcella in turns. Of course she had. She was like a shadow when she wanted to be, and words in the wind called to Elia the way the scent of blood called to wild beasts.

"Remember when we heard that the King in the North was dead?" Elia asked, looking at Myrcella in the eye with her shining amber ones. Myrcella did remember. She had been in the Watergardens when she'd heard, and Robb Stark's laughter had not been the faded memory that is now. She'd felt sorry for him then, for the boy she used to know that wouldn't smile any longer.

"Well, apparently though not dead, he got pretty close to it. He was betrayed by one of his own and the Freys."

Myrcella frowned. The Freys had been the family of his wife, his queen. What the bloody hell could have made them betray her, their own blood, if not their king?

"Apparently, the King had had Walder Frey arrested once the old man opened his gates at him and his army, and supplanted him with his heir."

"On what charges?" Myrcella asked immediately, leaning forward a little.

Elia shrugged. "Oathbreaking. Walder Frey was one of the Tully bannermen, but when Riverrun was under siege and soldiers were needed, old Walder had not kept his oaths to his overlord. Not even a single one of his men went to Riverrun. So, once the terms had been negotiated and the King was granted entrance into the Twins, Robb Stark called Walder Frey to answer for his actions and when he could not answer in any way that satisfied his grace or his bannermen, he was put in chains for them – and dragged all the way to Riverrun so that Lord Tully could pass judgment on him while his heir was put in his stead to replace him."

"And the son of that same man who had not kept his oaths, betrayed him." Myrcella reasoned bitterly. If the King had wanted Walder Frey punished for his crime or made an example off, his Frey head should have been taken from his shoulders in front of his whole army, the Twins cleaned of his supporters and a trusted man, with his own trusted soldiers, put there to supplant him and keep the peace while the King fought his war. Throwing men in black holes meant nothing if you couldn't go through with it… but maybe Robb Stark had not wanted to kill the father of his bride quite so soon.

It was a nice theory – and one that Elia deconstructed with a few chosen words.

"Oh no. Apparently, the new head of house Frey had been vocal in his calls to answer the threat against his liege Lord. He was quick to swear fealty to the King and apologise to Lady Catelyn for his father's misgivings. Once the Riverrun siege was broken, Lord Tully and the other riverlords had Lord Frey condemned for treason and his head was taken by the King himself, because by then the riverlords had declared him king of the Trident too." And here Elia smiled that tiny feral smile that made her look as predatory as her father. "Gotta love the Stark's nerve there. He had not even married the Frey girl at the time – which he promised he would do anyway, by the way, despite Lord Frey's general worthlessness or his untimely and bloody demise."

Myrcella scoffed. One could have argued that Walder Frey owed the northern army passage and had no right to exact toll on the King for anything, oathbreaker as he was. One could say that, and deduct that it had been so very noble of Robb Stark to have kept faith with his given word, despite the nature and crimes of the man he'd given it to. And if one could not look deeper into it than that, one would have to be a fool: Of course the King would keep his word - he'd have no choice. House Frey needed securing and Robb Stark needed their men and their bridge… and that girl's hand if he wanted to keep them both. Elia spoke of Walder Frey's untimely demise, but the whole of Westeros had been waiting for that old man to die for a long time. As for 'bloody' however… there, Elia might be right. And still, Myrcella could not think of one single person that would have wept over Walder Frey's grave, if even less than half of what people said about the man was true.

"So what happened?" who had betrayed whom; where, when… most importantly, why?

Elia shrugged and looked at her nails, disinterested apparently with the whole thing. "I'm not sure, there are so many tales going around. But the thing they all have in common is that a branch of the Frey house resented their leader's bloody dispatch and they allied themselves with the Lannisters because apparently – and here is the part that might interest you – one of Lord Frey's sons was married to Tywin Lannister's sister."

Elia looked at Myrcella expectantly, as if she was waiting confirmation. Myrcella searched her memory for the name, the face. She found the first, but the second was not there.

"Genna Lannister. She is married to a Frey, I think. I don't remember ever meeting her." Even barely heard of her, and never outside her lessons when she'd had to study her family tree and know the names of all the Baratheons and Lannisters, their ranks and marriages and alliances, all by heart. But that was such a long time ago…

"Well, she must be the one. Either way, on the King's wedding night in Riverrun there was an assault on the camp and many were killed. Ironborn, they said, and Frey men. Fuck knows what they were trying to do – some say that they had been paid their weight in gold to free Jamie Lannister, who was being kept in the dungeons of Riverrun at the time - but what they did accomplish was a hell of a lot of confusion apparently. Enough of it to get the King himself into the mix. He got himself stabbed… and there are those who swear that the dagger went right through his heart and he still refused to die."

Obara snorted. "Northerners like to make a big fuss out of everything. You'd think they were a more stoic lot with how solemn they usually look."

Myrcella was inclined to agree, but the King's stabbing wasn't the issue, since the he had survived it. The real question was how had whoever stabbed him gotten so close to him? The cloak of darkness was not nearly enough to spirit armed men inside a well guarded fortress. Betrayed by one of his own, Elia had said, which made sense: they would have needed someone on the inside to help them for that. Knowing her grandfather, it would be the one with the most to gain should the King of Winter fall. But Myrcella didn't know enough of the north and its conflicts to guess at who that was.

"So who was it that betrayed him?" she asked, as much to herself as she was asking Elia. Because someone had to have betrayed him, as improbable as it sounded now. It was easy to look at the northerner's rebellion as it was today and see it destined to come to a victorious end, but it had not started that way. It hadn't looked that way even well into the war. In the beginning Robb Stark's position had been much more precarious, at least politically speaking. He had been a very successful rebel, but a rebel none the less, whose campaign depended on alliances and the friends he could keep… and on his bannermen as much as on anything else.

Myrcella found herself looking at him with his men often, and just as often she wondered: how much had he had to compromise, to march them south? How much more, to keep them in a war for years? Was it as true as they said, that northern lords were bound by more than their own interests, that they really did believe in honour? Myrcella doubted it. She'd never seen such a thing as honour preserve a man's life in the face of a swinging sword. It was easier to believe that it was their collective hatred of the south and the crown – and the promise of gain - to give them momentum in the beginning. And it was just as easy to believe that one of them had seen the war for a failure, and their King for a boy, and decided to switch sides as long as it was still feasible.

Elia looked at her with dark eyes that seemed to know more than they would ever tell anyone. Myrcella didn't even blink under her friend's stare. She knew better.

"Northerners are a superstitious lot it seems: most don't like to speak to foreigners of what amounts to them as the most dishonourable and shameful of betrayals. You've got to get them seriously drunk before they even consider it, but once you do, a certain lord Bolton of the Dreadfort features heavily on their angry rants. And how the King's wolf ripped his throat out. And how the Bolton's bastard set siege to Winterfell and almost burned it to the ground before he was rooted out. And how some say he's dead and others say he's not."

"I thought it was the ironborn who tried to burn Winterfell!" Myrcella said immediately – and so did the rest of the realm for that matter.

"So did the King for a while. The truth seemed to be of a different colour."

Bolton, Myrcella though, and tried to recall the name from her lessons, the history. It had been quite a while ago that she had learned the names and symbols of all the houses of Westeros, and unfortunately for her now, the North had never been deemed so important to make a careful study. But she knew that the Boltons were an important house of the North. She remembered vaguely that they were second only to the Starks of Winterfell… the flayed man was their symbol – and she remembered that because it had always frightened her. What were their words? Myrcella could not recall them.

"How did the other lords react when one of them was killed by the king's wolf?" Myrcella could not imagine that that had not been met with some frowns, whatever the circumstance. When a prominent lord committed treason, the necessity for a fair and very public trial was direr than ever, if only so that the bannermen could not say that the king was killing his men at his pleasure. Kings who did that tended not to last very long.

"Bolton did not die at Riverrun the night the King was stabbed. He died later, at Harrenhall, or something like that. And I have yet to meet the man that regrets his passing: it seems that Lord Bolton had been acting without orders while he was stationed in Harrenhall, sending men of other noble houses to die in useless battles while he kept his own as reserves. He might as well have stuck a dagger behind all their backs – which seems to be something no northerner can forgive."

Myrcella sat back, leaning against the bedpost and looking at Elia in stunned silence. She'd never heard of any of this… not that anyone had ever deigned to fill her in with the particulars of the war of course, but still. That was a pretty big secret to keep! Treachery of this calibre must have shaken the northerners hard… and perhaps even hardened their resolve. No wonder nobody seemed to mind that a wolf had torn Bolton's throat out.

"Lord Bolton sounds like a stupid man. Did he think he'd never get caught slaughtering his own troupes?" Elia asked herself as much asked it to the other two girls with her.

Obara was the one who answered. "I doubt very much that he was stupid. I think he knew exactly what would happen in Riverrun and expected the King to die. I think that the King chose to let that word spread, so that he might root out the spy in his ranks – and he did." Obara's eyes settled on Myrcella's and even before the older woman spoke, the princess knew what she was going to say. "And I also think that Bolton had help from King's Landing."

Myrcella smirked, an honest expression of sharp cunning that she allowed herself only when in the presence of those she most trusted. "From my grandfather, you mean." Obara raised her brows in ways of an answer and it made Myrcella smile wider. "Tywin Lannister probably orchestrated the whole thing. It sounds like something he would do."

"Sneaking behind an enemy's back you mean?"

Myrcella only cocked one eyebrow at Obara's goading. Had it been anyone else, she would have thought they were trying to provoke her, but Obara knew her better than to think any kind of truth about Tywin Lannister could ever inspire passion in her. But there was one aspect over which Obara was wrong – one that Myrcella had learned fairly recently about her grandfather - or rather, discovered. She had always thought that he was a cruel man, but that was not strictly-speaking the truth. The outright misery he inflicted upon others - of his blood or not - by his actions (sons and daughters that he dehumanised completely and only saw as tools, by the by) certainly classified him as a cruel man, but he was not ruled by cruelty, it was never his motivator. It was not a part of him at all, much as it may surprise some people. Tywin Lannister was, to the deepest core of him, a coldly efficient man. Myrcella was convinced that he probably had no humanity to speak of to hold him down, to weight his hand and his conscience. No honour, no fear, no hesitation… and it was a horrible thing to say but that gave him a great strategic advantage over his enemies: where others were bound by conventions, Tywin Lannister probably saw himself above them. There was nothing he would not do to get what he wanted, as he had proved time and time again. Cruelty was just a result of that kind of thinking, not the reason behind it.

"What I mean is that it sounds like something he would do: Extreme, efficient and to the point. He probably knew that the northern ranks were breaking and decided to use it to his advantage. Too bad it came back to bite him in the ass."

Obara's eyes turned surprised on her. She had not expected that kind of answer, not formulated in that manner. Myrcella herself knew that months ago, when she was still in Dorne she would have sung a slightly different tune.

"So you know more of Tywin Lannister now?" and this time it really was a question, an honest one.

Myrcella shrugged. "Barely so; enough to survive him, I hope… and on occasion get on his nerves when I got bored. It was fun to see how far I could push before he left me for Joffrey to deal with."

Elia had sensed the danger vibrating in the conversation but where she held her vigil in stillness and contemplation, Obara leaned forward, closer to Myrcella's face, fascinated by it.

"And how far was that?"

"Not much I admit. He is a rather dull man, my grandfather."

He had enjoyed her wit over dinner occasionally (something that had always caused a strange reaction on her queenly mother, reactions that usually led her to most surprising silences), or at least as much as Tywin Lannister seemed to enjoy anything, but the moment she actually got funny (namely, insolent) and joined her uncle, her grandfather got impatient. A shame really, since insolence was where uncle Tyrion excelled and Myrcella considered herself his favourite student.

"Can we please move away from the topic of Tywin Lannister. I don't like talking about him." Elia said tensely. It made Obara roll her eyes but Myrcella could only smile, though a little sadly.

"Nobody really does Elia."

"Unless they're plotting to kill him." Obara was quick to add.

"Well, there's always that." Myrcella countered, utterly unaffected. But then she decided to heed Elia's advice. "What were we speaking of before that anyway?"

"The north and the south and how they're not so different after all." Elia immediately supplied. At Obara's questioning frown however she explained. "That the Northerners betray their own and turn cloak same as anyone – Lord Bolton did!"

Myrcella held her tongue, but Obara outright groaned as she flopped back on the bed. "Hells, sister! Did you really believe all that about the northmen?"

"Not exactly, but…"

"No, there's no 'but' anywhere." Obara was firm to correct. "Listen well sister: There are greedy and grasping men everywhere, as there are cruel and cold men everywhere. Once in a while you might even find good men, in unlikely places. But all men lie." Obara stated with a certainty that brokered no disagreement and unfortunately for Elia, Myrcella could not make one. What Obara just spoke of was a rule Myrcella had learned to live by too: anticipating lies and never taking anything at face value. Learning how to look beneath the layers of the obvious (and not so obvious at times) what was already there was a careful art, but if one had patience, one could master it. And if there was one thing that Myrcella did not lack was patience: pain teaches it to you better than any master ever could.

But Elia had not been tempered with the same fires and hurts that Myrcella had been. They had both lost much, but not in the same way. Elia had always been home, with her sisters and people who loved her about her. Not so for Myrcella, though they had loved each other dearly for years. Myrcella had been alone in a foreign place, hated on all sides and distrusted and despised… and hurt for crimes she never committed and faults that were not her own.

Different flames have made us… and it shows.

"Yes, but there is a difference between the south and the North though." Elia pointed out quickly. "In the south, lying is seen as a matter of course. Something widely accepted-" and she didn't even need to give an example of it, since Obara and Myrcella had just made her point for her there. "-but in the North, they see lying as something to be done unless all other options have been exhausted. Something to be ashamed of, almost."

Obara snorted. "They like to believe their own legends up here, but if you believe they're above treachery and deceit you're a fool."

Elia made a face at her sister, annoyed now. "I don't believe they're above treachery – we were just discussing it, if you recall. And I don't think they're above deceit either. But most seem to prefer direct confrontation to plotting in the shadows. Plotting and scheming are the weapons of cowards – or so the northerners seems to think it. I mean, take at what father says about the King's council: when the bannermen disagree with him, they say so in his face. And there's something to be said too for the kind of King that allows such discussions – I think that is why in the end, the King's will is s absolute among them."

Elia gave Myrcella a considering look, as if she was just hashing something in her mind. "It might work to your advantage, that. You'll know immediately who dislikes you and who does not, whom you may win over in time and whom not. At least as far as I've noticed, northerners tend to be pretty straightforward about their thoughts and feelings."

Myrcella scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Yes, I too have noticed that." Though her admission lacked Elia's unprejudiced tone and felt a little more like she was being sarcastic. The northerners had been free enough with their opinion of her after all.

"Oh, to all hells with them! Forget about the bloody bannermen for a moment!" Obara snapped rather impatiently. She was exponentially impatient when she was hungry. "You'll met them and know them for yourself, which I'm sure you'll prefer. Tell me about the King – it's with him you started this before you saw fit to distract us with talk of strategy and tactics."

Of course she wouldn't give up, Myrcella told herself. Obara never did. But perhaps she did have a point about letting things run their own course. She should worry so much over things she had no power to control.

"There is not much to tell." Myrcella admitted to with a shrug. Without her permission, the memory of his smile as he looked at his daughter came to mind. "I find don't find him quite so frightening anymore and I think I may come to like him, or at the very least tolerate him easily, if the man I see in him is truly the man he is."

Elia just smiled but Obara's eyes were heavy on her full, of contemplation.

"Careful Myrcella." She said after a moment, sounding utterly serious. "Loving one's husband is the very worst thing a wife could do. I'm told its quite the inconvenience."

She speaks so calmly, with such a tone – it dared to be light, conversational almost - that mocked the seriousness and heaviness of those viper eyes that stayed on Myrcella without blinking. Obara's tone made her statement into the worst king of jape: the kind that is not funny at all and begs for tears, not laugher. In Myrcella it only sparks anger.

But she beats it back and raises one challenging eyebrow. "I tell you that I think the man is not as thoroughly monstrous as I'd feared him to be and you caution me against love? That is quite the leap you've made." And despite her want to be cool, her irritation shows.

"Yes perhaps." Obara admits all too easily and immediately Myrcella is suspicious. "So what about the king is troubling you so much that you tried to distract us with talk of his bannermen and all that nonsense?" Obara pushes, a certain bluntness in the enquiry that manages to make itself known even in the simplest of questions. Myrcella narrowed her eyes at her.

Oh you think you're so smart don't you? Fine then!

"I was wondering…" but then her nerve failed her. "Well, I was asking myself really, about…"

Oh, damnation!

"Spit to out already!" Elia prompts, curious now. Obara's smirk however tells Myrcella that that little viper already knew.

Obara laughed heartedly. "You're wondering about bedding him, aren't you?"

Myrcella winced at her tone, at how much it made Obara laugh and maybe even because she was embarrassed as well. How strange when not even the bawdiest japes made her flinch, and yet she was reduce to such squeamishness by the thought of having a man between her own thighs.

"Stop that." Myrcella hissed at Obara who was still laughing and when that was not enough to make the older woman stop, Myrcella kicked at her thighs with her foot. "Stop it! It's not funny."

But this time Myrcella too feel like laughing because, there she was, contemplating that which would be the final goodbye to girlishness, the final step that should make her a woman, and yet, in the face of Obara's teasing, she managed to sound even younger than she actually was. The truly funny part was that Myrcella had always needed to sound older than her years - the occasions for her to show her youth and revel in it had dwindled down to none very fast – and yet this, the one thing that she needed to be grown about, made her return to childishness in a heartbeat.

But Obara didn't stop it – on the contrary she grabbed Myrcella's ankle and pulled, toppling her on the covers and rolling over her – making the princess yelp with surprise and then laughter when Elia joined in.

"You've both lost your minds!" Myrcella shrieked, but she did abandon herself to laughter when Obara tackled her and straddled her thighs keeping them firmly in place and her hands caught in hers, grinning like she was utterly out of her senses… and enjoying a particularly good hunt. Stupid woman!

"What are you so worried about then? He'd handsome, your King. I bet he's pleasant to look at beneath his leathers too – if not a bit pale for my tastes." Elia drawled from close to her head, having curled herself close to Myrcella's side and not doing a single thing to help the princess buckle Obara off her – for which Myrcella glared at her, and which Elia ignored. But it was hard to glare for long, because Obara's fingers managed to tinkle her belly a she held her hands down and Myrcella couldn't help the squirming and giggling it caused her.

"He's not my King yet, and him being handsome has nothing to do with it." Myrcella said with gritted teeth trying not to smile as she pushed upwards with her hips trying to throw Obara off, but to no avail. It only made Obara laugh harder and her robe split down the front to reveal her thighs as she struggled.

"Oh he'll love your golden cunt, don't you worry about that."

Elia laughed and Myrcella rolled her eyes at that. Trust Obara to put things in the most uncomfortable way possible…

Obara spoke without any malice at all – it was a jest and Myrcella could even see the funny side of it, but it also made her think of other things, and just as she did, her body abandoned her struggle and went completely limp. That was when Obara let her go completely and their eyes met… and the understanding passed between them. Obara's smile fell, and her eyes turned serious in a moment.

"Are you afraid, Myr?" she asked as she removed herself from above her and settled on her stomach, by Myrcella's side, so that the princess was lying between Elia and Obara as the laughter died out of the three of them and their breathing slowed.

After a bit of thinking on Obara's question, Myrcella answered it with a nod.

"He seems like the sort to be kind." Obara said then, but even she sounded speculative. The truth was that she could not know that. But when she spoke again and sounded surer. "He is incredibly so with his sisters at least."

Yes, Myrcella had noticed that from afar. The King was capable of tenderness, but he bestowed it only to those he held closest, namely his blood alone.

"Is it the pain that you fear?" Elia enquired and though that made Obara roll her eyes, Myrcella answered all the same.

"No. It's not the pain – I doubt there'll even be much of it – or blood for that matter and I'm thinking I'll have to explain that -"

"Any man who's see you ride would know why, Myr; I don't think you'll have to explain anything." Elia stated as if she was speaking something beyond the obvious.

Myrcella sighed. "I hope so, or I am bound for a decidedly awkward conversation on my wedding night."

Obara huffed. "Not all girls bleed, you know." And then she cast Myrcella a side-glance wand a smile. "Even maidens who don't ride like desert-furies. Men know that, even thick-headed wolves of the north."

Myrcella felt herself smile. "I suppose…"

"Are you afraid he won't be pleased with you? Because if you say yes, I'll call you a liar and a flattery-fisher." Elia said then, half serious, half jesting. The hesitation in Myrcella's eyes made Elia jump up into a sitting position so that she could look at her friend from above as her incredulity exploded.

"Have you lost your senses?" she asked then, putting both hands on her waist, indignation mixing with incredulity. "Or perhaps your memory! Because if you don't recall the men following you around, begging to be your own if only so that they could steal a kiss, I do."

Yes, Myrcella remembered. And she could point out right then and there that they would have been lining up even if she'd had a face like a horse's ass, because what those men truly wanted was to make a token out of the Princess of the Iron Throne. Most – if not all – of them had been nothing but silly creatures too full of themselves that liked to collect trophies and boast about it – and Elia knew that.

But that was not the point anyway. Her fears were not of being unwanted – though that too was a problem of its own. But no, Myrcella's main worry was something else entirely; something that she could not explain to Elia, not now and not ever. Elia had not been there, she did not know what had happened that day in the Red Waste, on their way to the Prince's Pass. And even if she had been, what Myrcella had felt could not be understood from words alone. How could she even explain it: the terror of utter helplessness, the stain it left within you? That frantic need that followed, to never let it happen again, one that transformed you in a creature of walls and vigilant eyes and quick hands that were fast to grab a dagger if anyone got too close without permission. How was Myrcella to abandon that creature's habits and allow for closeness, for submission, when every fibre in her body screamed against it?

What filled Myrcella with trepidation was not the thought of pain, but the suspicion that she really would be a cold fish, paralysed by her own mind, and that she would ruin everything before it even begun. Or worse, that she'd panic and… and…

But she did not need to explain it seemed because Elia's eyes were quick ad her mind was ever quicker. And sometimes she saw much more than one would ever want her to see. Myrcella saw Elia's eyes widen and her mouth slacken, as she looked from Myrcella to Obara in turn as her memory connected the dots and her imagination filled the rest.

"Myr…"

It was a soft murmur as her hand came to catch Myrcella's, but Elia couldn't really form her question. Myrcella held her friend's hand tight and shook her head: 'no' she said without words, it wasn't that way; rape was not what had happened that day. It would have happened, but Obara had put a spear through those plans - and Darkstar's gut - before he could take that from her, as well as her ear and half her face.

Myrcella smiled a little… and surprisingly it was not even forced. "I'm just being silly. You know me: getting tied up in a Meereenese knot all by myself." She got up and slid off the bed, walking to her trunks. "Come, help me chose a dress."

Because really, she should know better than to dwell on the past by now. Down that road laid regret and pain and grief and shame… and a thousand other things that were not conclusive to anything at all, not anything but madness. What had happened was gone now, the only way to move was forward. The past was behind her shoulders and she had more important things to think of: presently, what the seven hells would she be wearing tonight.

"Wear that violet dress that Arianne gifted for your last nameday. I like how it looks on you, with all that gold hair of yours." Obara said slowly, looking at the canopy of Myrcella's bed.

Myrcella knew which one Obara spoke of. It was a silk dress of a violet so deep and vivid that when Myrcella had seen it for the first time she'd wondered how such a colour could even exist. She moved to her trunk and rummaged a little before she found it, laying it on the bed between Obara and Elia. The colour – a deeper shade than heliotrope flowers, more vivid than the darkest lavender - was still as much of a shock as it had been when Myrcella had seen it for the first time; still just as beautiful. She passed a hand over the skirts, feeling the cool smoothness of the fabric. With its long narrow sleeves and high collar, the dress was very modest and truly cut very simply, without any embellishments beyond the golden brocade decorations of the bodice and sleeves. But the simplicity of that dress was a lie, because the true illusion revealed itself only once the dress was put on, in how faithfully the embroidered bodice would cling to her upper body, showing off every gentle curve from breast to waist to hips before flaring into multiple layers of pleated skirts that fell to the floor and trapped the light within its folds the way the best silks do.

Rich cloth, simply cut - just like Elia said. Myrcella smiled a little. Yes, she'd wear this one – with woollen stockings and thick boots since she hated having cold feet, and a nice warm shift beneath.

"Leave your hair lose tonight." Obara said as she looked at her, a wicked smile staring to form on her lips. "They'll stare anyway, might as well give them something worth looking at."

o

o

TBC very soon...

Author Note: to all those to whom Myrcella seems a little too knowing and mature for her age, I say I would agree, if this was any other fandom; but people have a way of growing up very fast in Westeros and they learn hard lessons all too soon - so I thought it would make sense. I have tried to keep her playful and young when she is comfortable, to balance it.