Ever After AU

The Audience

Cersei and Joffrey stared Myrcella down harshly as they sat down for dinner.

"How was I supposed to know she'd come flying out of the side door?" Myrcella asked, amazed that they would attempt to blame her for the princess taking off from the wedding without a Lannister in tow. "She was supposed to be getting married."

"I heard that the princess spoke to you. What did she say?" Joffrey asked his sister with a fierce glare.

"Well, I can't be sure. It all happened so quickly." Myrcella snorted. "But I think what she said was, 'serves me right for choosing a foreigner over your brother." Myrcella lied with a little grin.

Joffrey and Cersei fell into peals of giggles in delight, buying everything Myrcella told them; hook, line, and sinker.

"Well, very good." Cersei said with a self-satisfied laugh, as though she had had something to do with it. "Well, perhaps we should just let her fret about it for a few days."

A bell clanged outside all four of them leaped up from where they were eating dinner to go to the door.

"I'll get it! I'll get it!" Joffrey yelled and raced to the front of the pack to answer the door first.

"His Supreme Majesty King Mace Tyrell..." Podrick looked with a little grin to Myrcella and back to the family as a whole. "Requests an audience with the Baroness Cersei de Lannister and her children immediately.

His words were careful and measured. He stared directly at Myrcella as though trying to pass some messages along with only his eyes. She couldn't quite grasp it.

"Oh, is anything wrong?" Cersei asked, a small smile still pulling at her lips.

"No, milady." the page said with a conspiratorial wink. "The king also demanded that you arrive in style."

"Mmm. Then in style, we shall be." Cersei said with a truly triumphant grin. Her daughter and eldest son jumped up and squealed as well.

-----//////------

When the Lannisters were paraded in, they were wearing their best gowns and suits, though not the same as from the masque. Cersei seemed truly proud of herself and supremely confident, her children trailing along behind her. A small crowd of nobility lined the hall on the sides, watching them present themselves before the royalty. For once, the princess wore a tiara and she stood slightly behind her parents' thrones. The Lannisters owed deeply before them.

"Baroness." the king said with a solemn nod, his and everyone else 's expressions severe. "Did you or did you not lie to Her Majesty the Queen of Westeros?"

"Choose your words wisely, madame, for they may be your last." the queen added. Margaery smirked as she watched realization cross Cersei's face.

"A, uhm, a woman would do practically anything for the love of her children, Your Majesties." Cersei cleared her throat anxiously and stared down at her feet for a moment before replacing her facade. "Perhaps I did get a little carried away."

"Mother!" Joffrey exclaimed as though he had no idea what they were talking about. "What have you done? Your Majesties, I am a victim here, just like the rest of you. She has lied to us both, and I am ashamed to call her family."

"How dare you turn on me, you little ingrate!" Cersei grabbed her son from where he had pushed in front of her. Myrcella winced at the display.

"You see? You see what I have had to put up with?!" Joffrey asked, panting for breath after the brief tussle as Myrcella audibly groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Silence, the both of you!" the king shout and bashed his staff on the dais. "Good gods. Are they always like this?" he looked to Myrcella.

"Worse, your majesty." she answered sadly.

"Myrcella, darling, I would hate to think you might have had anything to do with this." Cersei spun on her daughter.

"Of course not, Mother." Myrcella said with a chuckle. "I'm only here for the food."

"Baroness de Lannister," the queen recaptured their attention. "You are forthwith stripped of your title and you and your horrible son are to be shipped off wherever the Cartier decides is best for you on the next available boat... unless, by some miracle, someone here wishes to speak for you."

The crowd murmured softly as Cersei glanced around desperately, searching for someone she had yet to alienate. No one spoke up as Joffrey stared down at his feet, already resigned to his fate. Silence fell over the hall.

"There seem to be quite a few people out of town." Cersei attempted to lie.

"I will speak for her." a voice lifted up, someone's familiar timbre echoed from just out of sight. Someone entered the throne room from behind the Lannister family and all of the lookers-on, knelt in a bow. Joffrey and Cersei were the last as they turned and attempted to process the sight of Sansa Stark in a tiara, bright red hair beautifully tamed and in a gown that accentuated long disguised beauty. "She is, after all, my step-mother."

The people rose as Cersei Lannister smothered a gasp. Sansa glanced up at the dais and met Margaery's eyes, where she smiled proudly back. Sansa walked right up to the former Baroness and stared her down. She slowly dipped into a curtsy.

"Your Highness." she said softly with a slight nod.

Margaery spoke up then.

"Joffrey, I don't believe you have met..." And she gestured to Sansa. "My wife."

Sansa had not finished with Cersei yet, however.

"I want you to know that I will forget you after this moment..." Sansa stared the older woman down ferociously. "And I will never think upon you again. But you, I am quite certain, will think about me every single day for the rest of your life."

"And, uhm, how long might that be?" Cersei asked, beginning to fear for her life. She had never thought her life would end up in Sansa's hands.

Sansa Stark took a deep, calming, and settling breath before looking up to her mother and father in law.

"All I ask, Your Majesties..." she swallowed her nerves harshly. "Is that you show her the same courtesy that she has bestowed upon me while I lived under her roof."

Sansa looked down meaningfully at her step-mother before turning and joining her wife on the dais without looking back.