She watches Jeyne the Maid be dragged off with little care.
She finally feels something as the woman's back is beat bloody with a large whip. Cersei only cries for more lashes, only cries out lies of Jeyne the Maid's words against her, her Lady Mother, and the great Lion Lord himself while she beat a noble, fragile lady. No one questions Lady Cersei Lannister. No one dare thinks she is making shit up even though she's ten years old and cruel.
Melara watches it all numbly, even as Cersei smirks wider at her.
Cersei delicately touches her eyes for tears she had so well shed.
"Why haven't you told me she was wretched, Melara my friend?" she whispers, and she reaches out to poke at the welts at her back, still exposed in her torn dress, her face slides into a monolith of fury, "I could have done this ages ago. I am to be the queen, and you are to be my favorite handmaiden- you cannot let anyone be wretched to us!"
Melara wonders the same. She realizes that Cersei, before the woods-witch and Melara's secret crush on Jaime, that Cersei cared for her. As much as she is able. She would not hesitate to kill her, much as she wouldn't late in life hesitate to throw away her brother-lover when he loses a hand, but Melara still has the affection of Cersei Lannister in her hands…
Why had she never used that before? Why did she allow Her Lord Uncle and Jeyne to abuse her? Her memories paint Melara as a bold, lively thing, that was yet coward underneath her Lord Uncle's hands…
Why ?
She watches Jeyne and realizes that her mother's necklace is still around her neck. That her black pearls are in her ears.
Gingerly, Melara steps away from Cersei. The guards stop their whipping as she gets closer.
"My lady," a pitiful whine, " Please. Mercy. "
"Where was your mercy when my Uncle beat me?" she asks the older woman, voice flat, "Where was your mercy when you slipped poison into my food? Sweetened it and made me ill?"
"No, no," keened Jeyne the Maid.
It was so funny. In her memories for all her hate, Melara had seen Jeyne as this towering, horrible thing.
Yet she was just a cruel woman that hurt a child because she found it funny. Nothing more, nothing less.
Melara delicately takes her mother's necklace back. Slips out the earrings even as the guards have to hold the trashing woman still. Melara clings the fire opals and black pearls to her chest.
"More lashes," she said simply, stepping back.