There were nights—not too often at first, but often enough—where Joffrey would slip into Myrcella's chambers and wake her.

When they were younger it was mostly innocent and Myrcella knew he just wanted the company their mother and father would not provide that late at night. As time passed, Joffrey seemed to demand more than just having her company. He wanted her to be close and he wanted to touch her and be touched.

Myrcella allowed this because this was when her brother was nice to her. He would call her his sweet sister and whisper things in her ears—deliciously wicked things she was sure he could never say to her anywhere else—and when his fingers and hands ran over her body, his touch was often gentle. Joffrey was never gentle, she knew; so it made her feel special—like he loved her.

He then started coming by more often and usually before she would even fall asleep, but always when she was alone. She used to think about asking him how he knew when she was alone, but knew he wouldn't answer. Her dear brother loved his secrets; of this, she was intimately aware.

The night he kissed her she couldn't truly say she was surprised, she would reflect much later. He led up to that intimacy so precisely and so dramatically that she was almost anticipating a kiss before he bestowed one upon her.

It didn't stop there, of course. Myrcella liked to think she knew her brother better than anyone, even their mother—for she was pretty sure Cersei had never seen what Joffrey showed her during these nights—and Myrcella knew that what Joffrey craved above all else was more. More power over her, more intensity in their encounters, more intimacy.

He asked her to do him favors; the first of which he said was hardly more than what she had done already. "You touch me all the time," he whispered in her ear. "Is it really so much that I want you to touch me there?" The second was little more than that. "It's almost the same thing," he instructed her as he took off her smallclothes slowly, caressing her budding breasts with his larger hands. "Only instead of using your hand, you use your mouth."

She knew and had been taught that marriage was supposed to come first for a woman. Joffrey was her brother, not her husband, which was why she would allow him no further liberties. The night he positioned himself above her with the clear intention to take her maidenhead in his eyes, she pushed him back.

"You know we cannot do that," she pleaded with him, tearing up at the look of betrayal in his eyes. "Would that we were married, but we are not and I may yet be betrothed to some Lord."

Something flashed in his eyes when she said that. Even with the only light in the room coming from a candle by her bed, Myrcella can see the change come over her brother. He kissed her roughly then, more roughly than he had ever kissed her before. "I will never let you leave me, sweet sister. Never."

-x-

One night, shortly after returning from Winterfell, when Joffrey visited her chambers, he ordered, very seriously, that she not involve herself in any political matter. At the time, she hadn't understood the order, but not long after that conversation, her father was fatally wounded. He did not visit her the night their father passed—he sent the Hound to fetch her to him.

When Joffrey became king, things inevitably changed. Myrcella would have to hide her sadness each night when he would summon her to his chambers, for she knew her brother held no affection for their father.

To get to her brother's chambers, she would have to pass many people, the most aware of her destination being Joffrey's guards. She couldn't help but wonder how much they all knew. Were they aware of what happened behind Joffrey's closed doors? Did they guess? She was not his betrothed, and her family was well known for reviling the Targaryans and their ways, so perhaps they knew nothing. If they knew, or even suspected, it mattered not, for Joffrey was now King, and Myrcella was his to command.

It was never Myrcella's intention to disobey her brother's order to stay out of the political mess her family was in, but he brought her into it in the end. Some nights, he was just touch her—nothing more—and tell her about what is going on in King's Landing and the whole of Westeros.

Early on, Myrcella recognized that he just wanted someone to listen to him, but she had always been smart and strategic and couldn't help but give her opinion. At first, he was angry at her disobedience, yelling at her and even going so far as to raise a hand to her. She flinched and turned away from him, but the blow never came.

He didn't apologize, and she didn't expect him to, but he did kiss her and all seemed forgiven. She found out the next night that her advice had been correct and it became tradition after that to discuss matters she would never otherwise be privy to.

-x-

Myrcella liked Sansa Stark. She remembered the girl back in Winterfell who was proficient in stitching, was sweet and kind and happy. Her stitches were unquestionably still perfect in King's Landing, and she was always sweet and kind to Myrcella, but Sansa Stark was no longer happy.

The joyful glimmer in her eyes had dimmed to the point where they appeared more grey than blue, even when she was smiling. For that matter, her smiles no longer seemed to reach her eyes. Sansa tried not to show it, and sometimes it seemed like she wasn't even aware of it, but Sansa's hatred for Myrcella's brother burned so strongly within her that Myrcella felt she had to do something.

The girl was to become Queen. She was to sit by Joffrey's side and support him—not unlike what Myrcella had been doing in the shadows for years, only Sansa's role was to be very public. She could not look like she would rather be anywhere but near her King.

The problem was never Sansa, however. Myrcella wasn't stupid—she had heard what happened to Sansa when Joffrey was displeased. She had seen the look in Sansa's distrustful eyes when certain members of Joffrey's Kingsguard wandered too near. The truth of it was, Myrcella has never been blind to her brother's many faults, for she had witnessed a great many of them herself. She remembered with clarity the time he almost hit her.

She forgave him then because he was her brother and she knew he, in his own way, cared for her. Sansa could not do the same for Joffrey did not hold any affection for his future wife. If he had, he wouldn't have forced Sansa to endure any of the things she has endured while in King's Landing.

Myrcella's only choice was to confront her brother for Sansa.

She waited until late one night. Like most, she had made her way to his chambers where his guard let her in without question. He had needed her something fierce that night, and it took much coaxing with her hands and mouth to get him to relax and kiss her nicely.

When he was finally sated, she curled up beside him. "What is it you want, sweet sister?" he asked her, knowing her habit of staying after to ask a favor.

There had been no delicate way of phrasing her request. "I feel you should treat your future queen a little bit better, brother," she whispered. She looked up at his face in order to monitor his reaction. His face had hardened and his body tensed.

"What right do you have to make suggestions on how I treat my betrothed, sister?" he hissed at her.

Joffrey had had a temper for as long as he had been her brother and Myrcella was long used to it. She met his gaze and deliberately spoke with a soft, placating voice. "I have no right, Joff, but I—I just thought—what if someone was treating me how you treat her?"

He had his hands around both of her wrists and was positioned over her faster than she could blink. "They would be dead, 'Cella. I would kill them."

Neither moved or spoke another word for awhile. They simply stared into each other's eyes. When finally Joffrey rolled off of her, Myrcella left without comment.

She noticed that things seemed to calm down after that. Sansa was brought to Joffrey less…at least at first. Some days after Myrcella's plea, Sansa was stripped at court. When she went to her brother that night, Joffrey's grip on her skin was lot rougher than he had ever been before. It actually hurt. Tears pricked her eyes and she fought to keep them hidden from her brother.

Myrcella realized something important that night. While she acknowledged that he was her weakness, Joffrey would never even admit to himself that she is his.