So, I've had this idea burning a hole in my brain for a while and I decided I was going to post it. It's very AU from the start as you can tell already but I want to give it a try. See if anyone likes it.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize.

Please let me know what you think.

Ella Baratheon can hear her parents yelling from down the hall. She had intercepted a message for her mother and was bringing it to her chambers. Her Uncle Jaime is standing dutifully outside the doors of her father's quarters, their voices echoing out into the hallway. She slows her walk as she approaches, finally able to understand what they're yelling about. It's not the first time they've fought. In fact, it's a common occurrence in the Red Keep, stumbling across them amid an argument behind closed doors. But this time, as she nears her uncle, she can hear they're fighting about her.

"She's just a child, Robert."

"She's a woman, Cersei. It's high time she married. We need the allegiance between the North and the South."

She stops in front of her uncle, looking up at him. "Uncle Jaime?"

"Turn around, little doe. You need not hear this." Despite his words, Ella finds herself unable to move.

"You think you'll achieve this by marrying her to Eddard Stark's bastard like she's some common girl with no family name?"

"He'll only be a bastard until I legitimize him."

"Eddard Stark has a perfectly good trueborn son. Why not him?"

"Because this is the way I want it."

Ella can hardly believe what she's hearing. Her father is marrying her off? To a Northerner much less? She goes to push past her uncle, so many thoughts running through her head but he stops her, caging her in his arms. Her uncle is strong, no matter how hard she fights she can't get out of his grip.

"Calm yourself, little doe. Running in there in a rage won't solve anything." He whispers to her, her mother and father's voices lowering now.

"You have no right." Ella can hear the spite in her mother's voice.

"I am the King. I have the only right."

She hears footsteps approach the door, her mother opening it. She stops when she sees Ella and Ella spots a flash of surprise, but it happens so fast if she had blinked she would have missed it. Jaime releases her, the rage she'd been feeling a moment before having settled.

"Mother?"

"Let the girl in." She hears her father call. "She's heard enough, she might as well hear it all."

Her mother steps to the side, letting Ella enter her father's chambers. The sun is setting, painting the room in oranges and reds. He's sitting at his desk and for the first time in a long time, he does not have a glass of wine in front of him. Her mother flanks her as she approaches her father, the tension in the room thick.

"Come closer, girl." Her father beckons her over.

Girl. That was the name her father gave her. Her mother had named her Ellyana as her father had been so taken with her brother, his first-born son. She is the second-born child of Robert Baratheon, coming only minutes after her twin brother. Her mother had told her that her father had loved her when she was born. They were near identical, looking just like their father. But her brother had taken ill not long after his birth and died from a fever. Her father refused to acknowledge her for eight years after his death. Even still, she's haunted by her twin brother who never made it to his first name day. She can't remember her twin, but she had told her mother once she always felt like there was a piece of her missing. Her mother is a twin herself and told her that's where the connection with her twin brother would have been had he lived. Her father doesn't hate her, necessarily, but she can always see the longing look when he sees her. The wish that she had been the one to die and not her brother.

"You're marrying me off?" Ella speaks before her father can. The rage may have settled, but she's still angry.

"Yes. You know Jon Arryn has died, girl? The previous Hand to the King."

She nods. She had heard about it yesterday. "Yes, Father."

"I need a new Hand. We will ride North for Winterfell in two days. I intend to ask Eddard Stark to become my new Hand. While we are there, you will wed his son Jon."

"The bastard?"

Her father fixes her with a dark look. "I will legitimize him before the wedding and he will be a Stark when you wed him."

"I don't want to marry him."

"I don't care what you want, girl. It is time for you to take a husband and I have chosen Ned Stark's son."

"You can't do that! I don't want to live in the North, I want to stay here with my family!"

"You will do as I say, Ellyana."

She should have stopped there. She should have known her father was drawing close to the last of his patience when he called her by her name. But the fire is burning inside her again and the words are leaving her lips before she even realizes it. "I'll run away then. I'll sail across the Narrow Sea and live in the Free Cities. Or perhaps I'll go North over the wall and become a Wildling and you won't be able to tell me what to do ever again!"

The room is so silent the sound echoes across the room when her father's hand connects with her face. The force of it nearly sends her sprawling on the floor, but Ella catches herself on the edge of his desk. She keeps her face turned, biting her lip to keep the tears that pooling from falling. She will not cry in front of him.

It's not the first time he's struck her. The first time had been when she was a little girl after her mother had told her of her brother's death. She had made the mistake of speaking her brother's name in front of him. She had cried then. It had only made it worse. He'd struck her several times after that too. Her uncle Jaime told her she had her mother's mouth and her father's temper. Neither were a good mix and got her into more trouble than she should have gotten into.

"Get. Out." She can practically feel the rage coming off her father, no doubt he'll strike her again if she doesn't move.

She feels the gentle touch of her mother's hands pulling her away from her father's desk, her arms wrapping around her and leading her from her father's chambers. She keeps her head lowered, her lip starting to bleed from her teeth as she holds her tears in. Her father calls her uncle into his chambers as they pass, her mother leading her back to her own quarters.

She sits Ella in a chair at her table once they arrive, grabbing a bowl of cold water and a cloth before sitting next to her. "That was stupid of you, Ellyana."

Ella looks at her mother as she gently wipes the blood off her chin before pressing the cool cloth to her burning cheek. "I don't know why I said it."

"You were angry. You have your father's temper."

"I don't want to be married. I want to stay here in the South."

"I know. But your father has made his decision. You will be a lady of the North in less than two months."

"Father hates me so much he'd marry me to a bastard to get rid of me."

Her mother lifts her chin so she's looking into her eyes. It's the only part of Cersei she has, her eyes. The rest of her is Baratheon. "Your father doesn't hate you, Ellyana."

"I can see it when he looks at me. He wishes I had been the one to die. He won't even call me by my name unless he's angry. He did not even acknowledge me until I was eight."

"Your father does not handle his grief well. He lets the ghosts of those he's lost haunt him." Her mother has a bitter look on her face as she speaks. "I have tried to get you out of this arrangement, but your father is determined in his decision."

"I have to go North. I have to get married."

Her mother nods. "Yes. I have heard the bastard is handsome at least. Much like his father aside from just looks. He's kind hearted. Noble. Honest. He will treat you well."

"I don't even know him. I know none of them."

"You've met the Starks before. They came to King's Landing nine years ago, not long after your father became King."

"I was seven then, mother. I hardly remember it." She lets out a long breath. "I'm scared, Mother."

Her mother smiles softly at her. "You are a stag through and through, Ellyana. But do not forget you are also a lion. Do not be afraid. You can roar louder than the wolves can howl."