Chapter Text
TYRION
Beyond the crumbling perimeter of a pit once built to hold dragons, their lesser ancestors twittered gaily in the palms. The Hill of Rhaenys on which the pit sat had been named in honour of a Targaryen Queen. Fighting the first Dornish war, her dragon had taken a bolt to the eye and both had died in the fall. The Queen’s body was never recovered whilst her mount’s sun mottled bones remained on display at Hellholt, the very castle it’s body had ruined. Now their forebear had returned to Westeros with intent to reclaim it and the wall which encircled the capital city was heavily adorned with scorpions, bolts loaded and ready.
The largest of the lethal contraptions had been mounted atop the Dragon Gate. One of seven portcullis set to bar enemies from invading, it’s far reaching views of rolling farmland and peaceful seaside had been interrupted by foreign occupation. Soldiers stationed above and below sweated in all manner of arms; red and gold, black and silver, muddy furs and leather. Bronzed invaders wore the gauntlets of slaughtered countrymen. Oiled beards hung low over their taut torsos and tight braids bound with silver bells fell down scarred backs. Some carried bow and arrows, others held spears, but every one of them had a curved black arakh strapped to their waist. The khalasar reaved and raped, torched temples and holy men and screamed with joy as they rode into battle. Before King’s Landing they waited in silence except for a small pocket of them who, desperate for even a taste of violence, had set aside their weapons to grapple in the dirt. The loser’s braid was taken and his corpse was burnt. The soldiers of King’s Landing prayed to the Seven that the savage’s in fighting would turn the tides of battle against them.
Behind the Dothraki stood factions of smaller men, frozen in strict formation and unconcerned by the fire. Slave soldiers castrated as children, The Unsullied were reared to feel no fear. Gripping the haft of tall spears, reach extended by 30 leagues, they squinted from under visored helms up toward the battlements. Defending archers glared down at them, hands twitching at their quivers as infantrymen held swords tighter still. Most of them had killed their fellow men on the orders of monarchy, but few could have imagined warring with Dothraki and Unsullied. Neither had any intention of laying siege to a city for the disgruntled brother of some late king or other. They served the mother of Dragons: a conqueror who had woken beasts from stone, crucified noblemen and burnt her enemies alive, father and son alike. She had flown over their heads and their gates and straight into King’s Landing, headed in the direction of the Dragonpit. Awe struck and terrified, battle worn men had cowered together, swords and bows forgotten beside barrels of resinous pitch. Below the clouds of noxious mist, the savages had booed and hissed, roaring with laughter and shouting: “Khaleesi! Khaleesi!”
Humiliated Westerosi returned the Unsullied’s gaze with the righteous hatred of a soldier. Goading gossip about cockless warriors ran with threats in foreign tongues, and the low hum of the living beat akin to far off drumming. The hearts of thousands would stop only for the Queen they’d chosen. The hubbub of King’s Landing sang of a million more, coming and going and utterly oblivious to the looming threat. A commitment had been sworn between the rivals for their kingdom and yet life within the walls carried on. Brothels welcomed patrons; taverns expelled the bacchanalian; expectant women wailed with birth pangs, whilst midwives bent on hands and knees to catch their babies. Abject filth to such purity, the men of Fleabottom perspired with every swing of a hammer; steel sang and beggars extended rattling cans; market stalls bellowed bargains, and alchemists toiled over cauldrons, brewing concoctions fit to fell a dragon. All whilst the woman who’d ordered them and the invader she planned to vanquish endorsed a truce against all expectations.
Witnesses of the phenomenon walked from the scene in a ruminative silence as though in fear of breaking the spell of such a dubious alliance.
“Success is not an outcome I’d routinely associate with your sister .” A eunuch was the first to speak, leaning to catch a dwarf’s ear. “At least never beyond Lannister self-interest. ” Tyrion rarely found fault with what Varys had to say, but it stung all the same. The family name was all that mattered, almost especially when standing on different sides of a war. “And yet, not only did Cersei seemingly respond to reason, her sole ally has abandoned her out of fear of dead men? It beggars belief, Tyrion. Really, it does!” Varys’s tone was both smug and questioning, mining for information. Dissecting mannerisms as though Tyrion was holding in a game of cards, he remained painfully aware of what the former Master of Whispers was implying. Denying him a read on body language or eye contact, Tyrion walked as quickly as his legs would carry him.
“Can’t say I blame Euron,” he remarked dryly. His sister’s lost ally, the fleeing Greyjoy pirate was part of another family divided by warfare. His nephew Theon strolling beside them had chosen dragons and lost the only person who meant anything to him. Tyrion raised his voice forcing the boy to listen as he and Varys passed. “Certainly it would be a break from tradition were a slimy coward no longer the ruler of the Iron Islands.” Theon flinched at mere mention of his kin. Varys played along, sharing disappointment in other blood of the Kraken.
“And I had such hope for the daughter, Yara .” Again Theon twitched as though struck and Tyrion felt a stab of guilt. “Seems the girl’s ambitions to break the wheel of reeving and raping have seen her fallen prey to it. My only hope in her case is that the end comes qui-”
“Euron alone is to know what has become of her.” Theon’s hanging hands were fists. Tyrion took no joy in tormenting a broken man, but shifting Varys’s focus from what had just happened was more important than Greyjoy's feelings.
“Indeed,” Varys agreed, “Under your sister’s reign bodies have been known to disappear . How lucky you were to make it out of a meeting with her.”
“I am lucky, ” Tyrion sighed, quoting his late father, “Lucky that my sister will never be half as clever as she thinks she is.”
Flashes of the end he’d delivered their father besieged Tyrion: the worn steps of the secret stair, chestnut hair glowing in the lamp light, a golden chain pulled white knuckle tight, Tywin’s hissing rejection and two arrows with barred red fletching. Varys had been the first person Tyrion had encountered after the killing. “What have you done?” he’d asked him, with the very same look of foreboding and suspicion that he wore now.
“My only hope,” Varys said, his voice dragging Tyrion back to the present moment, “For all our sakes, is that you are as clever as you think you are.”
Taking the last word, as was his custom, Varys walked on without looking back, hastening to eavesdrop on more interesting members of their party. Head bowed and ambivalent, Tyrion slowed. The city burned into his back and all he could think about was the sound of his sister’s hollow laugh.
Last he’d lived in the capital Tyrion had served unwillingly: as an unwanted son, a scorned younger brother, an objectionable husband and sole murder suspect. His nephew, the boy King Joffrey had been poisoned at his own wedding. Squirming in his mother's arms, the boy’s life had ended just as it had begun. Hand outstretched and pointing, his last act was to accuse Tyrion of his assassination. Caught holding the cup the boy King had sipped from, Tyrion had been thrown straight into a dungeon. On a hay strewn floor with barely a pot to piss in, he’d felt abandoned by everything. Then his squire Podrick had come to him, sweetly smuggling candles and almonds, duck sausage, and quill and parchment. Most valuable of all was his an undying faith in Tyrion. Sent to find reliable witnesses, Podrick reported how Tyrion’s new wife, Sansa Stark had gone missing, that he’d been offered a lordship in exchange for condemning him. Holding loyalty to higher regard than status or money, Pod had denied all who sought to frame Tyrion and grateful though he was, Tyrion had ordered him to flee the city and called upon his beloved brother, Jaime.
Named the Kingslayer for murdering Aerys Targaryen, Jaime had betrayed his vows to save civilians from burning by the Mad King. And yet he'd been pardoned whilst Tyrion was set to hang for not poisoning a spoilt brat at a wedding. Jaime didn’t suspect Tyrion, but the late King's enemies were too many to pinpoint who'd really ended him. Positing his little brother’s defence to Cersei, she'd remained insistent that the crime could only have been Tyrion’s. Jaime’s failings had made an easy target of their son, and he’d better serve them by finding Tyrion’s partner in crime, the northern whore, Sansa Stark. Jaimie, doubtful of the girl’s part in such a plot, had given the mission of finding her to the only person he could trust: Brienne of Tarth. Gifted a sword, a suit of armour and Podrick for her squire, the pair had left King’s Landing as Tyrion’s execution loomed.
Shackled and escorted to the throne room, he'd been called upon to stand trial. Judged by his father, Tywin, alongside him had been father in law to the late king, Mace Tyrell and foreign emissary for the lands of Dorne, Oberyn Martell. Asked his plea, Tyrion had pleaded ‘not guilty’ and been forced to listen as any man he'd wronged was called upon. Twisting his deeds and words far out of context made for damning evidence of his murderous intent. Denied even self-defence, Tyrion sat rueful and condemned. His accusers had all wished Joffrey dead and pointed the finger at Tyrion to absolve themselves of suspicion. Wise to the fact and to their father’s complicity in such a farce, Jaime had gone to him and bargained for Tyrion’s life. Consenting to step down as King’s Guard, to take a wife and to bear children with the Lannister name, Jaime had granted Tywin’s every wish: Tyrion would be found guilty and shipped away to the Wall whilst Jaime would finally take his place as rightful heir to House Lannister.
Jaime had begged Tyrion to trust him. Relenting, proceedings had continued with no further outbursts from him. Oblivious to any such negotiation and desperate to see her son avenged, Cersei had played the hand she’d kept hidden. Calling a final witness, a woman had stepped into the throne room that Tyrion had assumed lost to him: not his wife Sansa Stark, but her handmaiden, Shae. She had been with him long before his marriage and the murder of the King. A prostitute, Shae’s talents and tenacity had impressed Tyrion and despite his father’s warnings regarding whores at court, Tyrion had brought his plaything to King’s Landing.
Serving in his father's stead as Hand of the King, Tyrion led the Battle of Blackwater Bay only to fall to a would be assassin. Attacked on the orders of his sister or father (nephew even), recovery had left him bedridden and disgraced. Still Shae had come and thrown Tyrion's money in his face, begging that he leave with her and put an end to playing his family’s dangerous games.
The worst part was that Tyrion had never considered running an option. His feelings for Shae were strong, but the only joy Tyrion knew was winning and his injury put him on the back foot. Shae, who expected danger, displacement and exchange at every turn, stayed with Tyrion through healing and hiding and marriage to another woman. Despite warnings of Tywin’s disapproval and Cersei’s spite, the complications of a virgin wife, Shae had been the light of Tyrion’s arduous little life.
All whilst his young spouse Sansa had lost her father to Joffrey’s tyranny, her brother to Tywin’s war strategies and her family name to Tyrion. When expected to bear children named after those enemies, she'd offered herself unwillingly. Tyrion had promised never to lay a hand upon Sansa without her consent, and trapped in a prison of other’s making they had become something like friends.
Desperation to win whilst having so much to lose had steadily crushed Tyrion. At breaking point, he'd chosen birthright over romance and removed his weakness, root and stem. In a display of callous, but necessary pageantry, he’d told Shae the very worst lies:
“You are a whore ! Sansa is fit to bear my children and you are not . I can’t be in love with a whore . I can’t have children with a whore .”
Passage had been booked for one on a boat to Essos and a comfortable home had been arranged there with servants and income to last the rest of Shae’s days. Tyrion had considered everything to spare the woman he loved, either from hanging at his father’s hands or much worse at his sister’s command, and though she’d sobbed as he'd rejected her, Tyrion had hoped never to see Shae again.
Reappearing to stand over him in court, Shae had spat the very worst lies back at him.
“After he married Sansa, all he wanted was her, but she wouldn’t let him in her bed...so he promised to kill King Joffrey for her.”
FramingTyrion as an abuser of women and a murderer of boy kings, his woman scorned had spun an unanswerable story. With a wife on the run, a lover betrayed and heartbroken and only a squire loyal to him, Tyrion had snapped and offered up his final confession: how he only wished to be the monster they’d painted him, how he'd so wasted his time defending them at the Blackwater and that whoever had really killed Joffrey had saved them all from a reign of terror.
“I will not give my life for Joffrey’s murder,” Tyrion had spat at Tywin where he sat upon the Iron Throne, “and I know I’ll get no justice here so I will let the Gods decide my fate. I demand a trial by combat .”
A smug smile had glittered behind Tywin’s eyes and a clamouring public had been granted their entertainment. Cersei, vindicated and bloodthirsty, had chosen the biggest and most brutal of their father’s men as the crown’s champion. Named the Mountain on account of his height and the trail of bodies that attempts to conquer him had left behind, he was renowned for his inhumanity. Jaime, who had lost a hand during captivity, had no hopes to defeat him. Whilst the sell sword Bronn, who had fought for Tyrion in The Vale, had been bought where Podrick had run. Out of options and soon to be killed by a man who dashed the brains of infants on walls, who sodomized princesses and septas, Tyrion had received his final visitor.
Lamp held aloft, the bronzed and beautiful, Oberyn Martell had taken a seat in Tyrion's dungeon and told him a tale of childhood disappointment. He and his siblings had once accompanied their father on a visit to the Lannister seat of Casterly Rock. Unimpressed with the place, they had come only to see the ‘monster’ born to Lord Tywin. Little Cersei had promised to show them, delaying and building anticipation. Yet when at last she'd ‘unveiled the freak’, young Oberyn had naively replied:
“That is no monster. That is just a baby .” Apparently Cersei had accused infant Tyrion of killing her mother and told Oberyn:
“‘It doesn’t matter. ‘Everybody says that he will die soon. He should not have lived this long.’"
Decades had passed and Cersei had never stopped dreaming. Unfortunately for her, Oberyn too had long aspired for just one thing: vengeance for the murder of his sister, Princess Elia and her children by the Mountain. Tyrion had found himself a champion.
Named the Red Viper for his fighting style, on the day of the trial Oberyn had been calm and fast to strike. The prince wanted an eye for an eye and had speed on his side. Succeeding where so many had failed, he felled the Mountain. Then he ordered him to reveal whose command had doomed his kin, all whilst pointing up at, Tywin. The Mountain had only ever done as he was bid, but playing dead in the pit, he caught Oberyn off guard. Knocking him flat on his back, the teeth knocked out of his mouth, scattered like a game of jacks. Then the Mountain squeezed the Prince's head until his eyes were mash and his face had caved in. Wailing, Oberyn’s lover had held her own face in a similar fashion as the public cheered and the Mountain stood long enough to be named the Champion. Tyrion’s mouth had hung open all the way back to the dungeons. Resigning himself to execution, Tyrion tried to look forward to finally meeting the mother he had killed when the brother who had bargained for his life came through for him again.
Conspiring with Varys to arrange Tyrion’s escape, Jaime had risked treason to save him. Tyrion however couldn’t bear to leave without answers from his father. Seeking him out, he'd stumbled upon a sight that remained burned into his mind. Lying nude on golden sheets, olive skin glowing under lamp light, the love of his too-long life, Shae had roused from sleep as she’d done so many times before. Whispering his father’s name, “Tywin” and “my lion” , a nickname once reserved for Tyrion, at the sight of him she hadn't smiled as she might have done before, but gasped and lunged for a knife. Tyrion had taken her in his arms like times gone by, only that time she’d fought against him and she’d cried. Together they'd slipped from the bed. Fists clenched, Tyrion had pulled hard on the chain about her neck. Seconds had passed into minutes and Shae had never said ‘my lion’ again. Body slack, she'd stared towards Tyrion’s retreating back as crossbow in hand, hot tears staining tracks, he had cornered his father upon the wooden seat of a privy and killed him too.
The castle bells had rung again for an assassin. At the docks, Tyrion had accepted whatever was waiting for him: not soldiers, but a large box. Putting what remained of his trust in Varys, a man who had given testimony against him, Tyrion had been loaded onto a ship, carted across the narrow sea, kidnapped, sold into slavery and even forced to fight gladiators and starving lions. When at last he was presented to Daenerys Targaryen, she’d asked why she shouldn’t just kill him, and no answer had come to Tyrion. Smiling he'd told her how he’d killed his own mother and father, that he was “the greatest Lannister killer” of their time and as such her natural ally. The Dragon Queen had implied that much more was required to be welcomed into her service and it had dawned upon Tyrion how much Varys truly valued him. “
Into your service?” he’d repeated, almost laughing. “It’s too early to know if you deserve my service.”
Daenerys, once a princess on the run from assassins had been sold to savages only to become the mother of dragons and breaker of chains. She'd looked upon Tyrion from her temple throne, and despite the atrocities committed against her family by his own, she’d chosen to see him as separate from them. In the time since Tyrion had advised her on traitors and allies, fathers and lovers, diplomacy and succession. The sum of their conversations had been an alliance with Sansa’s brother, Jon Snow and a truce with Tyrion’s sister, sworn just moments ago in King’s Landing. Cersei had burnt enemies and innocents alive for the Seven Kingdoms. Daenerys intended to take them from her without a war. When presented with an undead soldier, one of a hundred thousand making their way South, the unbelievable had left Cersei's mouth: her armies would march North to join the fight and hostilities would be frozen until the dead were defeated. Unfortunately Tyrion knew what his sister's word was worth. She had tried for years to end him, hated Jon Snow and all Targaryens. Lannister's paid their debts and yet no matter what it cost her, Cersei always got what she wanted.
“I owe you a great deal of gratitude.”
Jon Snow slowed to walk at Tyrion’s side with a face like someone had just died. The King in the North was known for his honour, battles survived and being the bastard son of a nobleman, but what Tyrion had always liked best about him was his icy glowering.
“You have my respect,” Tyrion told him and the King bowed his head, “Though it’s entirely possible that what you owe me are undergarments. Mine were repeatedly soiled in the Mountain’s presence.” Cersei had offered a truce on one condition: that the King in the North remain neutral in the eventual war for the throne. Unfortunately Jon’s fealty had been pledged already to the dragon queen. Like his father, Jon couldn’t help, but be honest and Daenerys looked at him as though she could see his heart through his skin. Jon’s father had been honest with a Lannister once too and lost his head to a boyking. Cersei couldn’t help, but be just as explosive. Tyrion had volunteered to defuse the bomb, and though he’d led his sister to believe that she’d won, victory just wasn’t an option anymore. Survival was the most any of them could hope for and Cersei wanted to live as much as any of them.
“What happened with your sister?”
In the blunt fashion of a warrior king, Jon asked the very question that Varys had tiptoed around. Tyrion released the breath he’d been holding and smiled at Jon. Presenting a redaction of events rather than a confession, he aired the speech he’d been drafting since leaving Cersei’s chambers.
“On the Rose Road my sister felt a dragon’s might. In the pit, under the pure light of day she saw beasts from legend, and yet they were nothing compared to the monster from nightmares that you dragged down from beyond the Wall. It has always been human nature to play for profit, but Cersei had been forced to act in her own best interest. The longevity of House Lannister is my sister’s first concern.”
“And yours?” Jon’s eyes bored into Tyrion, the same grey as his father’s. The man had died for integrity rather than live to assure his legacy. Tyrion’s father had died on the toilet and taught him only duplicity: how best to be the biggest piece of shit.
“At this point,” Tyrion explained, feigning a smile, “I pull through day by day and my only concern is where my next drink is coming from.” Jon smiled because he wanted to believe Tyrion.
“Next we toast, our glasses will be raised to you.” Tyrion smiled too and it was just as empty. He doubted any celebrations were forthcoming, or that he would survive to see them.
“Tell me,” Tyrion redirected the conversation, “Will you pen another letter to dearest Sansa? Put her mind at ease? It must be taxing for a lady, keeping so many acerbic, lordly men on such a tight leash for so long.” Jon’s forced mirth drained from him. Gulping, he nodded his leave and carried on with long strides, thinking of his own sister rather than Tyrion’s. He knew all too well that taking Cersei by her word had been the last mistake of too many, but Daenerys and Jon didn't know a thing about the true nature of family.