Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

PART ONE

I.

He's a boy, restless and watchful and on the edge of his seat in the Stone Garden where both Septa Maria and Maester Daron like to hold their lessons in summer. Out here, Tywin knows, the noise from the bedchambers in the castle is muffled against the splash of flowers and rocks, its meaning lost in ancient patterns of the ancestral glory laid out beneath their feet.

“Which battle does this carving tell us of?” their maester asks, pointing at a once-magnificent depiction of deeds long gone and forgotten. But even now, their story covered in moss and spiders, Tywin can discern the shapes of Lannister soldiers riding with the crimson and gold banners in their hands.

“Is it true that Mother will die today?” Genna interrupts in a tone that betrays nothing, unless you hear that slight shiver around the last word. She appears brave but more than once Tywin has found her outside the bedchamber where they have not been allowed since Mother fell ill; he has heard her weep in the late evenings and one night he had to carry her back to her own bed when she slept curled up in the corridor outside the closed door. She had woken up then, looked at him with strangely empty eyes before she had buried her face in the crook of his neck; he meant to admonish her for being silly and for not staying in her room, but instead he had just held her for a long time, stroking her hair. They have never spoken of it.

Maester Daron looks at Genna squarely for a moment, before responding. “Now, the matters of life and death are not something men rule over. Only the gods know what will happen to your lady mother.”

Tygett fidgets with the tin soldiers in front of him on the stone table; he is not looking up. “Father says she will be well again.”

Father says a lot of things these days, especially when he is drunk. Tywin sometimes hears him rummage around long after midnight when both of them ought to be asleep; he never walks downstairs to see what the noise originates from, doesn't want to know. The man is mad with grief, some of the maids whisper and when they eat with Father, he tries to look closely at him, to see if he looks mad. It's difficult to tell, he thinks, he looks like he has always looked, but paler and with sad eyes.

“Not even the Lord of Casterly Rock can command the seven, I'm afraid.”

Tywin wonders for how long their maester is going to let them discuss Mother. He does not want to; he stares at the carvings instead, follows the lines with his gaze and wills them stronger, firmer, clearer.

“It tells the story of the Battle on the Field of Fire,” he says, in a loud voice. Everyone looks at him, even Tygett looks up from his positioning of the soldiers around the edge of the table. “The carving, I mean.”

“Ah, yes.” Maester Daron nods after a moment of silence, seemingly surprised to return to the lesson so abruptly. “Indeed it does. What can you tell me of the Battle of Fire?”

Mother dies the following night.

It's a strange thing, dying from a fever in the middle of summer, one maid whispers to another as they scurry along in the corridor outside, probably thinking they cannot be overheard. Tywin looks at them over his shoulder and hears everything.

Father has gathered them all in her room, even Gerion who can barely walk. And so they stand around the bed where she lies, her eyes closed and her face much more at peace than Tywin can remember it having been ever before. Mother had never laughed, at least not as far as he knows. Once, when he was much younger and it snowed for so long he forgot what flowers looked like, he had caught her crying in the Hall of Heroes, had seen her standing by the window and clutching the frosty glass with her fingers as though she had wished to jump out of it. You know I can't stand the winters in this place, she had said to his father that same evening. Imprisoned up here, far from the world. Tywin can't recall what his father had replied but her words return to him now, as he watches her and Father, stooped over her shape in the bed, his back bent, hands clutching the sheets that cover her arms.

Everything seems to hang on a thread in here, he thinks, everything seems to shift and alter around them. Tywin feels Tygett's body warm and close, pressed up against his side and when he looks down, his youngest brother reaches up for him, arms outstretched.

“We must be strong now,” Tywin hears his father say, with his back turned to them. On the floor, Gerion has begun to grumble so Tywin picks him up.

“We must be strong,” Father says again, wringing his hands like an old man. Then he starts crying and Tywin looks away, looks down at Gerion who is heavy like rocks in his arms, squirming and sobbing, too. Tywin has no idea what Mother used to do to make him stop. He feels a red-hot wave of anger rushing towards his own helplessness, his father's bowed head and useless hands, his crying brother who isn't showing the slightest sign of being consoled, even when Genna pats him gently on his arm. Tywin is eight years old and he doesn't know what comes next because nobody he knows has died before and he has no concept of what is proper in these situations and he wishes Father would do something because someone has to.

“Father,” Kevan tries in a small voice. “Father, Gerion is crying.”

There is no response.

“Father?” Kevan says again, louder now.

With a devastated expression on her round face and her eyes full of tears, Genna looks at Tywin before letting her gaze fall on their father before them and Tywin understands - for the first time and with overwhelming force - that they are alone.

“Come,” he says, trying to keep his voice commanding enough for all of them to do as he says, willing it to rise above them. “Let's go find Septa Maria.”

A slight breeze ruffles the curtains in their shared bedchamber and a scent of the ocean slips in – fresh, salty air, washing away all remains of humid heat. Tywin thinks about his mother's words again. Far from the world. He has always thought of Casterly Rock as the world itself, the most important fortress in the Seven Kingdoms, home of King Loren and Lann the Clever and he can't understand why anyone would want to live elsewhere. He wonders if she had wanted to. If it had been Father's fault or theirs. Among his shadowy recollections of her, he remembers that she cried with Gerion in her belly, too, a hand covering her face so that Tywin and Kevan would not see her tears. Kevan had tried to touch her and she had pushed him away. Go outside, get out of here. He remembers, too, soft hands that smelled of roses stroking his forehead, once when he was ill and Mother sat by his bedside. Who is my big, brave lion? But he cannot see her face in his memories, cannot make out her features in the grey that surrounds her; she is already fading and he pushes her further away.

“Tywin?” Kevan's voice is muffled by the blanket and stretched thin by the distance between their beds. “Do you think Father will send us away?”

The thought has occurred to him as well – it's not uncommon for motherless children to be sent away at an early age as squires, even Genna could be sent somewhere for education before she gets wed, he supposes.

“No,” he answers, all the same, shifting position in his bed. His hands and feet are cold despite the season, a chill seeping inside.

“Good.” Kevan sounds reassured.

Casterly Rock is his home, Tywin thinks, it's their home. He pulls the blanket up over his shoulders, wrapping it tight around himself to shut out everything else, to forget that Father is the Lord of Casterly Rock and that he is just a boy.

ii.

“My son is just a boy, Lord Frey.” Father's voice echoes in the feast hall, shattering against the walls and clashing with Lady Tarbeck's high-pitched laughter. “You will have to excuse him.”

But Tywin doesn't sit down. He still stands, hands clenched, staring at his father who cannot conceal his discomfort any better than he can cover up his sweaty, drunken face. This evening it has been plain for all to see that he is pressured into this, that he is cornered like a wolf surrounded by a pack of mountain lions and the roles are wrong, Tywin thinks with almost desperate anger, the lions ought to be more powerful than the wretched lord of the Twins. There is no logic in this, it makes no sense that Father has given in, all but kneeling in front of this lesser lord. Even the vassals muttered in protest before, just as Lord Reyne had stormed out of the hall. Swallowing, Tywin straightens his back further.

“Your son's opinion hardly concerns me, my lord. Last I heard you were still the head of the family.” Lord Frey says, sounding almost bored but Tywin can see how pleased he is behind his act. He has every reason to be. His son is going to marry into the wealth and power of Casterly Rock for no more reason than Father's lack of pride, because of a drunkard's inability to govern his own realm. There's a burning, aching catch in his breath as he tries to steady it; it gives him no pleasure seeing Father ridiculed, merely a dark discomfort, yet he can't remain silent and the impossibility of it all feels almost too much.

"Well, that is a matter of some dispute," Lady Tarbeck cuts in, sending Father a wide grin. "Forgive me, my lord, I am merely jesting."

“Emmund Frey is not even the heir.” Tywin looks at his father again. Why do you let them laugh at us? “You should make a better match for a bride of Casterly Rock.”

“Oh, but the boy is bold,” the Lord of Kayce whispers too loudly to his wife who giggles discreetly.

“Tywin,” Father retorts, voice sharper now, finally carrying some weight. “I believe that is enough from you! Have a seat or leave the hall.”

Realising his words have no impact in this room, Tywin sits down, still keeping his gaze firm and focused on the men in front of him. Beside him, Lady Broom looks about to say something, but remains silent. From across the table, Genna looks at him with an unreadable expression on her face, her eyes wide and somewhat hazed, as though she's been drinking from Father's wine goblet.

He swallows again, waiting for the murmur of voices to increase, to drown his presence here.

But of course his protests hang in the very air for the rest of the evening, drawing gazes and mumbled conversations to where he is sitting. He's pretending not to hear, trying to eat the food on his plate even if the bites seem to grow in his mouth, tasting of anger burnt down to ashes.

“You are quite the little lion, are you not?” Lady Tarbeck leans over the table, patting Tywin's arm. He stifles a grimace before he stiffly pulls away, intent on not giving her any further reason to laugh at him. A lord's face is always calm someone - not Father - says in his memory. “But little boys do not know as much about life as they imagine. Or what say you, my dear Lord Tytos?”

“Yes,” Father smiles heartily; he doesn't meet Tywin's gaze. “Quite so.”

Lady Tarbeck laughs again, tilting her head back and baring her teeth.

Then Tywin leaves, without asking permission, without saying another word. The sound of his feet against the tiled marble beneath him rings in his ears as he walks through the gilded halls; the soaring noise that follows his exit twists into a hard knot in his stomach as he quickens his step.

Later, when he can hear music echoing through the stone walls and see torches and fires light up the dark of night, Tywin sits on a balcony facing the sea. Right beneath the spot where he's sitting, on the grass and rocks, they used to play all of their childhood games. He learned to swim down there, learned to fight with sticks and later with wooden swords; he gave Kevan a nosebleed the first time they practised – and Genna had stood on a tree stump, watching. Some years later as Kevan started to fight back he had pushed Tywin down into the water, injured his leg, cornered him with att the wounded pride of a little brother. Genna had watched that, too, cheering for both of them even if Tywin had always suspected she secretly enjoyed seeing Kevan beat him. It is the code of honour for younger siblings, he had learned.

Now Genna stands on the balcony, stepping out of a shadow, quiet as a mouse. It's strange how his chubby, clumsy, talkative storm of a sister can be so quiet when she wants to; she has always been the best at hide-and-seek. Tywin turns his head to look at her.

“Did you sneak out from the feast?”

Genna nods proudly. “It's past my bedtime.”

Tywin thinks it's quite possibly past his own bedtime, as well, but usually nobody bothers him about it. He may still be no more than a boy, but all the servants treat him with respect and more than once since Mother died, the maids have overlooked his late-night adventures in the castle. One of them - a comely-looking woman with bushy dark hair and rough hands - always grins when she catches him, saying my lips are sealed, little lord. He rather likes her.

“I stole an apple.” His sister walks closer, holding out her palm to show him a baked, sugar-coated apple that looks soggy and wet and not particularly edible. “Here. You can have it.”

He doesn't want her offering but her face is so honest, her expression so triumphant and he thinks about how Father will send her to the Freys within a year, dress her up and give her away as a bribe to a lord the master of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West should have no need to flatter. With a nod, he takes the apple and places it on the bench beside him.

After having wiped her hands on her dress - her new dress, Tywin remembers Septa Maria had told her sternly before the feast - Genna sits down, too. They are silent together for a while.

“It was nice of you,” she says eventually.

I was not being nice, he thinks. I was angry. He is still angry, always angry as of late. Things have changed since Mother died, they have changed and the castle has changed and he can hear it everywhere: the talk of Father's follies, of the liege lords who dare to protest openly, who question Father's orders because he gives them without power. The castle is rife with muted mockery. It seems at times as though the rock itself whispers of how Lord Tytos's whoring is draining the treasury once and for all, of how Lord Tarbeck is borrowing money indefinitely, of how the colours of all the paintings in the Hall of Heroes are fading away because the times for heroes are long past them and all that remains is a house full of cowards and drunkards. He speaks louder and louder, hoping to be heard above it but sometimes all he hears is the waves hitting the rocks below them, singing the song of nothing at all.

“It did not matter,” he says, sighing.

“I thought you were really brave.”

He doesn't know what to say in response to that, so he kicks away a small pebble with his toe. “Lady Tarbeck is an old hag,” he mutters. “She ought to bend the knee for Father.”

“They will bend the knee for you,” Genna says and her voice is full of admiration, but it's not enough to soften him, not tonight.

If they don't bow, I will bring them to their knees, he thinks solemnly, swearing an oath to himself with the images of the feast hall appearing behind his eyes.

His sister looks thoughtful, scraping her feet on the mossy tiles under them. Then she glances at him. “They are laughing at Father, not at you.”

Tywin purses his lips, pressing his teeth together with such a force that his head hurts. “It's the same thing.”

“He is just a boy,” Father says again, his voice harder this time. “You know what he is like, my dear.”

They stand in the corridor outside the chambers that now seems to belong to Father's mistress – she's clutching a necklace in her hand and Tywin stares at it, as though it holds power over him like a curse. It's Mother's necklace, he knows. The heirloom she wore even in the sept as they stood vigil for her and Tywin had stooped over the brier, had watched her and tried to remember what she was like before it would be too late. Now, all that he recalls is the string of glittering red stones in their golden chain; this is the extent of his mother's impact on his memory: a necklace and the scent of roses.

“She has stolen Mother's necklace.” He hears how the fury in his own voice is sharpening it, morphing it into a blade.

“You can hear for yourself what it is he accuses me of, Tytos-”

“You ought to call him my lord,” Tywin snaps, taking a step forward before Father suddenly stands between them, eyes flashing with that harsh edge of disapproval that seems to be branded into his features lately. At least when he is speaking to Tywin. When he was a very small boy, not much older than Gerion, Tywin had fallen from a tree, and broken something in his hand. He had been climbing one moment and then the next he was on the ground, crying and screaming and his father had ran to him then, had scooped him up in his strong arms and carried him inside; then he had kept talking to keep Tywin distracted while Maester Daron had examined his hand and bandaged it. Let us sing of the brave King Loren; no don't look down, look at me. It's the only time that Tywin can remember Father having been anything but disappointed in his presence.

“Tywin. Be quiet.” He turns to his mistress. “Let me see this wretched necklace.”

Father's whore is a candlemaker's daughter; she's nobody and Father cannot make a wife out of someone who is nothing at all so he keeps her here among them, lets her stay like an honoured guest. She dines with them in the evenings; her voice is grating and ridiculous and her stories long and tedious. The only reason Gerion finds them funny is because he's too young to know better.

There's a glint of familiarity in Father's gaze as he studies the necklace and for a heartbeat Tywin thinks he will nod and say he's right. But then the usual veil settles in his eyes, the shadows in him where he hides. He looks at his mistress and something passes between them.

“I bought this for her, Tywin,” comes Father's verdict, after a pause. “Now you ought to apologise for your behaviour. Theft is a serious crime to accuse someone of.”

“Yes.”

“It is quite all right, Tytos.” Father's mistress smiles at them both, the triumph spelled out in her face. “Now that we have settled this matter.”

My lord, Tywin thinks, swallowing his anger. You ought to call him my lord. You're nothing, nothing, nothing.

“My apologies,” he says instead and forces himself to meet the woman's eyes.

She smiles affectedly, leaning forward to touch his shoulder in a gesture of forced understanding. She's old, he thinks when she comes closer. She's old and ugly and fat. He wonders if his father finds her as beautiful as Mother. Tywin can smell an abundance of scented oils on her skin and even as she leaves, arm in arm with Father, a trace of her scent remains.

The long autumn of his thirteenth year, Tywin spends almost solely at his father's side, being educated in the matters of ruling over Casterly Rock.

They sit together in Father's office where the large windows are facing the water and the walls are proudly displaying ancestors and their deeds and Tywin wills himself to listen without interruptions. Listen, while Father speaks of the legal niceties of taxes and laws of the Westerlands, the patronage and power of the court, the concerns of smallfolk and lords – it feels like he's a boy again and listens to Maester Daron, except Maester Daron would offer him more praise for answering his questions correctly. Father barely notices behind his humming and nodding and the scraping sound of ink on paper, his long lectures on the simplest of matters.

Tywin already knows the texts and facts and what he wants, what he craves, is to be shown how it all comes together in reality, but his father is not a man of action and so Tywin's restlessness grows as the days pass. One morning, he watches Father decline a suggestion from their Captain of the Fleet to have three new ships built. When Tywin asks why, his father merely sighs.

“We cannot afford expensive rearmament in times of peace,” he says.

It seems to Tywin as times of peace would serve as the best opportunities for just that, but he also knows that their fortune is slipping out of his father's hands, one mistake at the time. He doesn't like to talk about it, but the rest of the castle do.

“Then we will have to increase our taxes, won't we?” Tywin picks up a dry quill and spins it between his fingers. Father gives him an irritated glare.

“No,” he says, curtly.

“Why?”

Father is silent for a moment, finishing a paragraph of his reply to the Captain of the Fleet. “Because we will not stir our bannermen and trouble our lords merely because the fleet desires new ships.”

At times Tywin wonders, not without bitterness, how much better Casterly Rock would fare if only Father showed a fraction of the same spirit in his governing of it as he does arguing about it with his heir. There's a flare of something in his gaze as Tywin lashes out; when he is provoked, his father can still roar like a lion even if he is an old, toothless one to the rest of the world. Inside this room this autumn, Tywin has spotted glimpses of a man he vaguely remembers, but speaking to him is a bit like reaching for something at the horizon.

“There is greatness in being a Warden, too, Tywin.” Father suddenly looks very tired, as though he has worn himself out by writing a simple letter. “In protecting and guarding one's land.”

“But if there is nothing left to ward?” he asks, staring at the letter that denies their fleet to expand. They are speaking of separate matters: his father wants to smooth over holes and fractions, repairing what has been broken; Tywin wants to tear down all the castles conjured out of thin air and begin anew, building on the immovable rocks beneath them.

“There is.”

And for once there's such conviction in his father's voice that Tywin refrains from making another comment.

Later that year, Father takes Lord Tarbeck hostage for breaking his word and when Tywin demands to know which vow he had forsworn, he is met with silence.

“It hardly matters,” his father says, which usually means his motivation comes from his whore. Tywin doesn't ask any more about it since he learned a long time ago it is as meaningless as trying to make him listen to Tywin's ideas and suggestions. “What matters is that his lady wife has taken three Lannisters hostage in return.”

“Three?” Tywin frowns.

“She has overstepped her boundaries,” Kevan cuts in.

They stand in Father's office, a jumbled Lannister war council trying to make sense of a situation that seems to be missing several pieces of information.

Father scratches his head, walking up to the desk in the room, where the message left by the rider remains among other letters and maps. “It need not come to bloodshed, at least. She proposes an exchange.”

“Surely you are not agreeing to it?” Tywin's voice is loud and sharp, the frustration rendering it harder, more frantic. He takes a deep breath. In the corner of his eye he can spot his lord uncle and his family, pale and solemn all of them. “She is insulting you with this proposal.”

Taking Lord Tarbeck hostage in the first place is madness, Tywin thinks with increasing anger. A criminal among the vassals ought to hang or be sent to the Wall, not be traded for three overlords in a shady proposal built on an overwhelming lack of respect. But his father shies away from outright punishments, claiming them to be overly harsh.

“What would you have us do, then?” It's uncle Tyrion who speaks. He steps forward to stand beside his brother. They bear such semblance to one another, Tywin thinks, two pieces cut out from the same fabric. Old, tired lions surrendering their Rock not to the dragons, but to disrespectful vassals.

“I would return Lady Tarbeck's precious husband in three pieces,” he says.

“And start an open conflict with House Tarbeck?”

“We have no reason to fear them on the battlefield.” Tywin looks at his father, wishing he could force him to listen to the heir to Casterly Rock, the one who soon will be leading their armies and exacting their justice. But he is just a boy, and there's such disapproval behind the words, every time he hears Father pronounce them in his head.

“It would put us at too much of a risk-”

“One can only risk something if one has something to lose.” Tywin's words seem to swell in his mouth, their size enormous. He may be a boy, but he knows that he is right. He knows that wars are won with steel, not compromises. He knows that Lady Tarbeck is a proud old hag who doesn't suffer slights to her honour; he knows, too, that people are treated the way they allow themselves to be treated and that if you want others to respect and fear you, you have to give them a reason. “What do you have left to lose? Our vassals mock us, the treasury is empty-”

“Enough!” Father slams his hand down on the desk with such force that the ink bottle falls and splotches all over the old parchments and maps, rendering them useless. For a brief moment as their eyes meet, Tywin thinks his father is going to hit him; strangely, he almost wishes he would. “You speak like an arrogant pup of great and terrible matters that you do not understand! Your cousin Stafford sits in one of her cells. Is his life worth so little to you that you are willing to risk it for our pride's sake? Is he nothing worth losing?”

“I think what Tywin means-” Kevan begins, but he is cut off.

“You are mere boys, playing at war.” Father walks past them, his expression calmer now as he puts on his lord's face to go and officially deal with the situation. “You have too much pride and too little sense.”

“I agree with them,” their cousin Joanna says suddenly, crossing the floor with a defiant expression on her face. Tywin blinks. “It is not my place to be interfering, my lord, but it seems preposterous that we should let Lady Tarbeck dictate our next move.”

“Joanna, dearest girl.” Uncle Tyrion sounds as tired as Father looks. “Please.”

She makes a non-committal gesture with her hand that seems to state that she's obeying – for the moment being.

“I will send a message to Lady Tarbeck, to inform her that I accept the exchange of prisoners,” Father says, seemingly without having heard her at all. Tywin bites back another remark.

As Father walks out of the room, Joanna catches Tywin's gaze and he can almost feel her thoughts in his body, their shared anger a thread between them.

“Thank you, Tywin,” Joanna says to him, several days later when the prisoners are returned and Father can pretend he has successfully averted a conflict. “For standing up for us.”

“You stood up for yourself, as far as I recall.” He still hasn't forgotten the way she had looked then, striding forward to protest against Father's decision, disregarding form and practice. She had been magnificent - smooth and fierce like a lioness. “Very well at that.”

She smiles, a quick and distant sort of smile. Joanna is one year his senior and almost a woman grown, by all accounts. And much like him, she is being sent away. He knows she is to be summoned to court in hopes of increasing her chances of making a good match for herself – unlike his own Father, hers seems intent on strengthening his family's power through marriage. Or perhaps, Tywin thinks, uncle Tyrion merely wants to mind his business undisturbed by his intelligent, unafraid daughter.

“How do you think you will like King's Landing?” he asks, to have something to say.

“It's certainly going to be more exciting than remaining at home,” she says pleasantly. “Mother was at court before she married Father, so she has educated me thoroughly. Father is mostly worried I will embarrass him, I suspect.”

“I don't think you will.” Tywin looks at her. It's difficult to imagine that anything about her could be embarrassing.

“Father says I must 'heed the wisdom of my elders'.” She speaks in a mocking drawl, imitating Uncle Tyrion's voice to perfection.

Tywin can't hold back a smile.

“I am being sent to Dragonstone in a fortnight.”

“Ah, yes. Father mentioned that.” There's that quick smile again, lighting up her face. “I hope you can come visit us at King's Landing soon.”

iii.

The Castle at the mouth of Blackwater Bay is as strange and oddly magnificent as the legends state and Tywin who has rode the last stretch of the journey dismounts without taking his eyes off the towers that reach up from the mountain. It's not much larger than Casterly Rock and not as outwardly beautiful to his mind, but this dragon castle is an impressive, beckoning shape against the sky nonetheless. It is fitted for the Prince, he knows. The heir apparent. But it's said that Prince Duncan will give up his crown for a common woman; Tygett has spoken of Prince Duncan with admiration and wonder ever since he unhorsed his first knight in a tournament at the age of ten and he speaks of these rumours too, when given a chance. He is the boldest of all the Targaryens. And chivalrous too!

“Welcome to Dragonstone, my lord.” The guards greet him as he walks past them.

Tywin has been told that Aerys, the only grandson of King Aegon, needs the company of boys his own age; he has been informed that the boy is a true Targaryen for good or ill and he keeps his eyes open for the him to show up when they walk inside the corridors. But the only faces he sees are those belonging to servants and guards.

It's a peculiar place on the inside, as well. He looks up at the carvings along every wall: dragons, everywhere. He wonders if they serve as proud memories or warnings, if the history they are taught by their maesters differs from the one Maester Daron taught them in the Stone Garden. Stories where soldiers, lands and resources burnt to ashes under Aegon's dragons, and many years passed before the land could be ruled by anyone. He wonders what Aerys Targaryen feels when he drags his fingers over the lines of his family's history, if he can perceive that pulsating, low current in his blood, demanding things from him. Sometimes when Tywin stands in the Hall of Heroes or looks at the paintings in the Golden Gallery, he imagines he can feel the castle in his own body - mirroring the way the sound of sea is captured within the walls - the duties and boundaries of it falling down over his shoulders.

He has to wait until supper that evening to meet Aerys who already sits at the table when Tywin enters what he has been told is the smallest dining hall in the whole of Stone Keep, having been held up by the embarrassing difficulties of navigate corridors that follow no familiar pattern.

The moment Tywin enters the room, the boy at the table looks up, smiling brightly. “You got lost, did you not? Everyone does at first. The last lord who squired here is said to have been lost for most of his first day. I will show you around after supper!”

Later that evening, after the grand tour of the castle, Aerys asks Tywin to practice archery with him so they do, for several long hours while Aerys tells stories and asks questions and by the time Tywin slips down beneath his sheets in the quietude of his own chamber, he feels as though he has been at Dragonstone for half his life.

“Come, I want to show you something!” Aeyrs declares when Tywin has already lived at the castle for several moon turns and they have bruised and wounded each other with both wooden swords and real ones, in practice sessions that seems to intensify with every parry, every winning stroke. Neither of them admits defeat: Aerys is quick and fierce, Tywin strong and unyielding – give it a rest before one of you take it one step too far, the master-at-arms always says and shakes his head.

“It's the best room in the entire castle,” Aerys adds, when Tywin doesn't seem appropriately excited at the prospect. He is exhausting to be around, but almost impossible not to find appealing, Tywin thinks, not for the first time. There's a force in him, a fire.

They walk up the stairs to the highest level of the Stone Keep where the walls are scales and Tywin has to stop trying to follow their patterns with his gaze for fear of losing his balance as they continue in circles. On both sides of the door where they finally stop, gargoyles greet them, their mouths open and their teeth bared.

“This is the Chamber of the Painted Table.” Aerys unlocks the door and stands there, palms outstretched and a sly grin playing on his lips. He has most likely stolen the keys from his father, Tywin realises, and looks over the other boy's shoulder into what unfolds before him as a surprisingly large room of an intricate design, even for this castle.

“A war room?”

Aerys nods. “Aegon had it made before the Conquest.”

They step inside; Tywin's gaze immediately travels to the massive table at the heart of the room, a physical map of Westeros that appears even more impressive by the way the light enhances it, falling from north and south, from east and west. It's a war room made to conquer the whole of the world, he thinks, leaning forward to locate at Casterly Rock.

“Impressive,” he offers.

Aerys looks proud. “It is, isn't it? Does it make your war room seem pale in comparison?”

It does, but Tywin isn't going to admit that so instead he walks around the table, looking at it from the opposite side. He looks at the curves of the mountains, the plains and lakes and narrowing roads through forests and beyond. It seems to beckon, to want to pull them into its promises and possibilities. He thinks about the Hall of Heroes where he had played war games as a boy. Games of maps and history, of challenging Kevan to defend the West in imaginary scenarios where Tywin invaded him from the South, from the North, from across the sea sometimes. Kevan had held his territory - ever the dutiful warden - but Tywin had always won, because his imaginary forces conquered vast expanses of land on their way across the map, outnumbering Kevan's by far.

They had played that game for days at times, untiringly and unaware of everything else, just the two of them, forming a world of their own.

“Dragonstone is at the heart of the map, just as it should be,” Aerys says, not quite catching on to the game when Tywin explains it to him. “From here, Aegon controlled the seven kingdoms.”

A while later, as they have fought their war and gone back and forth with their armies, Tywin looks at Aerys's hand on the table, how the Blackwater Bay engulfs it. “Dragonstone barely has soldiers,” he points out, levelly. “How many lords are under your command here?”

“I hold the power of King's Landing.” Aerys avoids the question, his hand travelling hungrily over the water and up towards the land, putting Duskendale and Rosby under his palm before he pauses in front of the largest formation on the table.

“My forces can take King's Landing.” Tywin says it calmly, moving to stand behind the depiction of his home, the rock that looks small here but holds considerable power, he thinks to himself. Seeing it like this, towering over the Westerlands, reminds him of it. “Because your small army leave certain distances wide-open-” he shows Aerys on the map, “-I will have no trouble moving through the Riverlands here, summoning even more soldiers.”

He moves again, towards the raised seat that is at the precise location of Dragonstone. From there, he understands, one will be able to see the entire map unfold like a revelation. There is something about this room that reminds him of a sept, something ritual about its construction and purpose; he can almost see Aegon the Conqurer kneeling here in prayer for the upcoming battles.

“It doesn't matter,” Aerys says, his voice suddenly heated, jealous. “Your army of farmers and lesser lords is not going to take King's Landing from the King on the Iron Throne.”

“I did.” Tywin takes the seat, keeping his eyes on his opponent. He can switch so quickly, like the flames suddenly go out in him and he becomes cool ice instead.

Aerys draws a sharp breath.

Then he sits down too, so forcefully he is almost upsetting Tywin's balance – which is much more than he has ever managed during sword practice – before he regains it and pushes back. As their eyes meet, Aerys bursts into laughter and the sound of it is filling the entire room. If anyone were to witness them now, Tywin thinks, they would resemble much younger boys at play, trying to push each other off a mythical seat. Aerys gets to his feet again.

“You have nerve,” he says, still laughing.

Tywin eyes him, not laughing but smiling, almost in spite of himself.

And Aerys slaps his shoulder and speaks of the wonders they will do together. The dragon and the lion, he says, laughing heartily.

It's a game to him, this seat they share.

It's a game because whatever happens, he has already won.

For the traditional tourney that winter, Tywin travels to King's Landing with Prince Jaehaerys and Aerys who is the one who has been looking forward to the event the most.

“My uncle is participating, against my grandfather's wishes,” Aerys says, climbing into their carriage. “He won his first joust when before he was even a man grown.”

“My brother Kevan wrote to tell me he is jousting, as well.” Tywin suspects that it's Tygett or Gerion who truly wishes to enter the tournament but that Father finds them too young, still. Kevan is a good rider and an even better swordsman, but as far as Tywin knows, he has no dreams of being a champion.

“Then perhaps we shall see the two of them meet in combat,” Jaehaerys says pleasantly. He's an odd man, difficult to form an opinion on since he is rarely present at Dragonstone; over the past few months, Tywin has had no more than a handful of conversations with Aerys's father. Now he leans back in his seat and closes his eyes before Tywin has time to say anything.

“One day I would like to visit Casterly Rock,” Aerys announces as their carriage slowly makes its way along the winding roads leading down from the mountain. “Will you have me as a guest there, Tywin?”

Tywin thinks of Father and his whores, thinks of the one who has moved in, the one who he had caught giving orders to Father's knights mere days before Tywin's departure. He thinks of the wealth of Dragonstone and the lesser lords all around Lannisport, emptying Father's treasury. It's a stitch in him, a permanent sort of worry.

“It would be my pleasure, of course,” he answers correctly. “One day.”

Aerys looks satisfied with the answer and for much of the remaining journey, they pass time by discussing historical battles taking place in the lands they travel through while Jaehaerys sleeps. A fractured and unsound sleep, judging by the sounds emerging his lips and the way he frequently jerks awake.

“Father is not well,” Aerys says it evenly when he catches Tywin looking at him. “He has never been strong, they say.”

There is something disturbingly gentle in the way he cares for the pale, sickly man. Something oddly accepting in his movements and words, as though he finds it perfectly common that sons have to tend to their fathers like a mother would tend to a child. Tywin assumes it is the Targaryen way. In hopes of keeping their blood pure, they have poisoned it and will forever bear the consequences. For every great Targaryen warrior there are twenty madmen, Father says in his head.

Jaehaerys groans in his sleep before opening his eyes, looking utterly disoriented for a moment.

“Forgive me, Aerys,” he mumbles.

“Don't worry, Father.” Aerys looks down at his father who has closed his eyes again; he suddenly seems older, Tywin thinks. Less of a wilful child, more of a man who might become king one day.

At the Red Keep, the feast after the tournament is as grand as expected, surpassing everyone's expectations, Tywin understands from the way the high lords and ladies are talking to each other. He feels a sudden gratefulness as he learns that Father is absent from the occasion, that he's sent Kevan and Tygett with Genna and the Freys. The memory of Father's last visit to court still lingers in his mind as the time when he finally did what everyone had been waiting for and brought his whore with him, promptly earning himself a new title: the toothless old lecher. In Lannisport they still laugh about it, or so they say.

Grinding his teeth, Tywin pushes back the trail of thought as he stands outside the feast hall, searching for his brothers in the crowd around him.

“Cousin,” a voice says. When he turns around, it's Joanna who stands there instead, tall and beautiful and imposing, just the way he remembers her. She is arm in arm with a dark-haired woman of the same age – the Princess of Dorne, he understands after they have exchanged pleasantries.

“He is just as handsome as you described him,” the Princess of Dorne says with a smile.

“Naturally.” Joanna smiles back at her friend, giving Tywin a quick glance that he cannot interpret which makes him feel oddly unsettled. “He's a lion of Lannister, after all. We are a striking lot of lords and ladies.”

The Princess of Dorne giggles and Tywin says nothing because he doesn't know the game they are playing.

Hours later, their paths cross again on the dance floor where the dancing couples appears to have had one goblet of wine too many for their own good. Tywin catches Joanna's gaze over a loudly affectionate lord and his new wife who has claimed a bench for their dealings; to his relief she nods towards the door, he crosses the floor and they make their escape.

It's still warm for a winter's night as they come out of the darkening castle; he offers Joanna his arm when they walk down the steps to the garden in the centre of the Red Keep, their arms still linked. Joanna speaks of court and all its correct, well-behaved drama. It amuses him more than he lets show, listening to her stories, her way of turning a common scene into something worth telling.

In return, she asks him about Dragonstone and they compare experiences from the Targaryen households like children comparing notes before being questioned by their maesters. Tywin observes her as she talks, her face full of life and passion and her voice rising and falling with her words. She makes for excellent company, he thinks, not for the first time but with a new wistfulness creeping inside the thought. There's an almost thrilling precision to her movements and words, the same kind of perfectly measured composure that follows her whatever she does.

“I hear the wedding is planned for the end of next year,” she says, leaning against the back of a stone bench. Tywin remains standing, facing her. He is just as handsome as you described him, the Princess of Dorne says in his memory again and Joanna smiles.

He clears his throat. “Yes.”

“The bride is still so shy you would never imagine she soon will stand before a whole hall of people and declare her love.” She makes an amused little noise. “We all expect her to faint during the ceremony.”

Tywin has seen Rhaella Targaryen a few times and he is prone to agree. Aerys has informed him his sister was summoned to court by their grandfather to break her habit of intense shyness, temper her against the bustling court life. Judging by evidence from the occasions where Tywin has met the young woman, it has helped very little.

“Aerys is uninhibited for them both,” he says, looking from Joanna to a flurry of frosted flowers to her right. They seem to have been preserved exactly the way they were when the first chill came.

She smiles. “He is a little bit overwhelming, is he not?”

“Just ever so slightly,” Tywin agrees, not bothering to keep the sarcasm out of his tone and is rewarded with a soft laugh. The sound of it stays in him. No one laughs quite like Joanna, of this he is certain. It is unlike any other laughter, entirely different from the mocking laughter of his childhood and bearing no resemblance to the sort of laughter that characterizes fools and coy simpletons who will laugh for nothing at all.

He wonders if she remembers the summer of their childhood when she had visited Casterly Rock with her father and Tywin, wanting to impress his older cousin, had told her of the old lion deep down in the cells of the castle. Legend says it will only follow kin, he had told her, watching her eyes widen. When she is released she will wreck havoc on the her enemies but bow her head to the true creatures of the Rock. Joanna had demanded to see it and they had, he remembers, they had been running along the damp corridors where their footfall woke half-forgotten prisoners and sleeping bats; her hand had all but touched the lion's mane, he remembers, too. The lion had looked them both in the eye, not moving. Then, the great animal had lowered its head and Joanna had grabbed Tywin's arm, terrified and delighted, before they ran as fast as they could towards the light from the sun.

When he thinks of his childhood, he doesn't remember laughing, but he had laughed then, slumped in the grass outside the castle, their arms and legs criss-crossed, their hearts racing.

“Oh, and Kevan did well in the tournament.” Her voice nearly startles him; he drags himself out of the follies of his own mind. “I saw a couple of young ladies looking at him when he unhorsed his second knight.”

“He is the knight of the family.”

“Not you then? I believe you would make a finer champion.” She raises an eyebrow, half-teasing, half-inquiring and Tywin isn't certain he knows where the conversation is headed. He searches for traces of mockery in her tone, in the same way he still holds the remark made by the Princess of Dorne in his mind, weighing it. When he doesn't answer, Joanna starts walking again and he has the distinct impression he ought to have done something differently though he cannot say what.

“Will you return to Lannisport after the wedding?” he asks instead.

“Yes. I suppose I shall have to wed, too.” The lack of enthusiasm in her voice is flagrant and she does not seem to bother hiding it; he tries to meet her gaze but she looks straight ahead. “Father is negotiating with the Leffords for Stefford and me both.”

“The Tooth.” Tywin averts his eyes.

“Yes. The Starks turned Father down,” she says.

“Unsurprising.”

There is no reason the Starks would bind themselves to a house in decline, not with such a promising heir as Rickard Stark.

“Certainly. And it's for the best anyway,” Joanna says, a touch of forced light-heartedness in her voice. “I cannot imagine a worse fate than Winterfell. The name alone sends a chill down my spine.”

He tries to imagine her in the North, wrapped in wolf's fur to ward off the cold. Her fiery spirit tempered by the frosty silence of the woods up there, its stern, joyless people.

“The Golden Tooth will suit you better,” he offers even if that, too, is half a lie.

She frowns and a small shadow crosses her face. “My brother is marrying their daughter; her fortune is as good as his already and he doesn't mind. I hardly think I ought to suffer the dull Lord Lefford for the rest of my life because of military strategy.”

People have wed for far worse reasons than that and moreover she is a noblewoman and thus expected to supply their house with an alliance to a man of good birth and give him a couple of children; it is hardly such a terrible fate, it is a fate they all share. Tywin means to say this, but he finds it surprisingly difficult to form the words because he does not agree with them. Not here, not now. Not for her. He pictures Joanna being wed to Lord Lefford and it is enough to make him clench his hands behind his back.

“No, you are quite right.” He looks at her for a long while, wondering if any man could ever grow tired of the sight, wondering if Leo Lefford will. It is said that he is as sour as he is rich - a plump, lethargic sort of man who will fit Tywin's cousin as badly as Emmund Frey fits Genna. “You deserve a far better husband than that.”

“That is kind of you to say.” Joanna looks up.

“I was not being kind,” he protests, caught between his own conflicting emotions which twists his voice, hardens it. “It was merely a reflection on your qualities.”

“Thank you, all the same.”

And he wants to say something more - something that will make her smile again, but he has never been good at entertaining people so the worlds remain in him, unspoken.

“Tell me more of your cousin Joanna,” Aerys begs of him on the way back to Dragonstone.

“I do not know Lady Joanna very well,” Tywin lies, because he can spot the seed of covetousness in Aerys's gaze, the dark edges of it already fortified in the way he speaks her name. His face is the same as it had been on the seat of Dragonstone when his hands were outlining the maps of his realm; the expression he wears when he is reaching for something, taking aim, and he won't give it up. Tywin pushes the thoughts of Joanna to the back of his mind.

Aerys smirks but says nothing else.

IV.

He returns to Casterly Rock like a hero from a song.

It's not summer and he is ill-suited to wear the virtues of a knight even at eighteen, but as he spurs his horse along the kingsroad, Tywin at the very least feels the weight of myth and expectation accompany him. It's the season for it, apparently. Aerys had been named Prince of Dragonstone since the tragedy at Summerhall left the Targaryens bereaved of their heir and while the event had left a taste of something bitter in Tywin's mouth, he had offered his condolences without betraying anything other than the formal and expected compassion.

When the rider had stormed into the Red Keep to search for Tywin, Aerys had done the same. I wish you luck, my friend.

“I think we had better leave immediately, my lord,” his father's knight had said, handing him the message he had been sent to King's Landing to deliver.

And so they had.

Kevan greets him at the Lion's Mouth. He's fully armoured, carrying the Valyrian steel Tywin had custom-made for his last nameday and sent from Dragonstone. It gleams in the faint sunlight that reaches them through the stretched-out spring clouds.

“Tywin.” He smiles, placing a hand on Tywin's shoulder. “It's good to see you. Father wishes to speak with you before we do anything else.”

Nodding, Tywin walks with his younger brother up the stairs, thinking it odd to be back home while at the same time he feels as though he has never left at all, that he will never truly leave it. This place is in their blood; this is their home, their core, their purpose.

He sees his father at a distance and as he approaches, the sight of him something familiar and strange at the same time. When did he get so old and fat? While Lord Tytos has never been a man made for battlefields, he had at least been a good swordsman and an even better archer for as long as Tywin can remember. The man appearing in front of him now looks like someone who wouldn't be able to fend off a single enemy, let alone raise his banners and march into battle.

“I give you command over our armies, Tywin,” Father says immediately, as though he can read Tywin's mind. “The Tarbecks have rebelled and last we heard, it appears they have made common cause with the Reynes.”

You discarded their honour when you gave your only daughter to the Freys, he thinks, but doesn't say.

“Kevan tells me we have lost fifty men already,” he says instead.

Father nods, slowly. “I'm afraid we have. They managed to take advantage of the element of surprise.”

They hold a war council of sorts in the same room where Father once refused to execute Lord Tarbeck for fear of starting an open conflict. It seems very long ago. Tywin looks at the map of the closest keeps around Lannisport and thinks of the boy he was, the boy who had stood in this room then, thinks of how his father had turned on his heel and left, disregarding all counsel. The old irritation washes over him, fragments in his mind of words already said return to him, but he finds that they pale somewhat in the light of the present situation.

This time, they all listen to him.

The first thing he does is ordering fifty new men from the lords nearby to replace the fallen soldiers. He writes the letter without hesitation, asking for men fitted and kitted to march under his command against Tarbeck Hall the following day and hands it to the rider without as much as a word. It's not until the man has disappeared that he wonders, for a second, if the number is too high, if he demands too much. But it's not an invitation to a Spring feast, he tells himself. It's a muster. He is a high lord summoning his sworn men to his cause and the important thing is that he does it in such a way as to leave no doubt, no trace of hesitation in the minds of his vassals, that he can be trusted to lead them to victory. And that he will not tolerate anyone refusing his orders.

In these decisions, he knows with sudden and perfect clarity, their whole fate is bound.

As he is leaving, he feels his father's hand on his arm and turns around. They look at each other for a moment, both of them silent. Everyone has always told him that he has his mother's face and his father's eyes and as he looks into them now, he tries to see something of himself in there, tries to follow the trace of him in the older man. He sees nothing.

“Good luck, Tywin,” Father says and there is an apology between the words, laid bare in the way his father lowers his gaze momentarily, like an animal admitting defeat. Tywin remembers a journey to King's Landing, remembers Jaehaerys asking his son for forgiveness and the strange scene that had played out between them; he remembers thinking that no father should ever ask his son for forgiveness, begging like a child. Aerys had patted his father's arm, offered reassurance.

His mouth twisting with disgust, Tywin nods; he is not meeting his father's eyes.

They reach Twinbrook Keep early the following morning and Tywin is almost impressed to see the crowd that has gathered around it.

The men who stand here are fighting as he bids, he realises for the first time, letting his gaze sweep over them. These are his men, the currency of his war. And they are not doing it for honour, they are not doing it for him or because they care about the fate of the Lannisters, they are doing it because he owns their fields, their cottages, their fishing boats. Casterly Rock owns the mills where they grind their corn, the inns where they drink their ale pays taxes to him and most of the commoners in this area will never, not once in their lives, travel beyond a territory that does not directly or indirectly belong to the Lannisters.

The Lord of Casterly Rock offers coin for their swords in battle, reasonable compensation for their widows and children if they fall and that is all they ask for. In return, they fight when he tells them to. He has no right to demand any more from them and they have no right to defy him. It's a simple agreement though rarely popular. Few men enjoy the thought of death; few men enjoy ordering the death of others.

Such is the burden of command. His father would return to those words during the long hours they spent in his office because Father has never been able to stand the idea of being hated, Tywin knows, and so he tries to avoid mustering the commoners and fights with his own guardsmen, his own knights, his endless compromises stretching thin over their lands. Tywin is not his father. The men that have gathered here hate him without hesitation; Tywin sees it in their eyes. Their wives hate him. The children would hate him if they understood. To the lord of the keep Tywin's call for men means his own land will suffer for as long as the fight continues and far beyond it if they are unsuccessful.

He feels their dislike spur him on as he rides up to them, feels it settle around him as a set of armour, of conviction. People hurry to forget the hardships of war when the land stops burning just as they forget the rigours of winter with the first ray of spring sun – but they will never forget a weak leader. Father's shadow hangs over these lands, but Tywin is not his father's son and he is eager to prove it.

He swings down from the house and goes to Lord Twinbrook who gives a curt bow.

“This is what I could muster up, my lord.”

Tywin looks at the men and nods back. “You have done well.”

A faint flicker of surprise passes over the man's feature before he nods again, only this time he bids farewell.

“I shall pray for your victory, my lord.”

On the first day of battle, they defeat two dozen men fighting under the banner of Castamere.

On the seventh day of battle, they corner a small part of Lord Tarbeck's forces in a glen, forcing a battle that leaves the Lannisters with a few losses but the enemy flattened. Tywin divides his army into two and sends Kevan with one large troop to surround the remaining army at Tarbeck Hall and starve them out. A very bold move, Ser Payne, the young Captain of the Guards, tells him. Or a very foolish one.

On the twentieth day, the battle comes to a halt as Ser Payne and Tywin captures Lady Reyne, fleeing the castle with her three sons. Payne rides back to their camp with the woman who remains silent all the way, while it falls upon Tywin and Tygett to hoard the boys. The youngest sits in front of Tywin on the saddle, crying quietly and he wonders if the boy's father will bend the knee without a struggle; as the boy turns his head and looks at him, wide-eyed and pale, he almost hopes for it.

On the thirtieth day of battle, Tywin stands face to face with the Red Lion of Castamere who eyes him with a half-smile. He stands surrounded by Lannister guards, overpowered and disarmed, but unbowed.

“I have not seen you since you were a suckling babe,” he says, spitting blood on the ground between them. “It was not so long ago.”

“You have lost,” Tywin says, calmly. “Will you accept my terms of surrender and bend the knee?”

Lord Reyne scoffs. “No stripling boy will play lord over me.”

“I understand.” Tywin nods.

The following day at dawn, Lord Reyne hangs together with his entire household. The boy that rode with him hangs beside his mother and Tywin allows himself to look at him one last time before he orders the men to take everything of value from the small castle before they leave.

On the final day of battle, they ride up the alley leading to Tarbeck Hall where Kevan waits for them and Tywin feels a rush of relief at the sight of his brother.

“You're a boy, playing at war,” Lady Tarbeck curses when Tywin enters the keep. The Lannisters have defeated all of the soldiers sworn to the Tarbeck and their cause, have taken their estates and pillaged their lands and the only thing that remains is a bitter old woman and her half-dead husband who are both holding on out of sheer stubbornness.

“Lord Reyne would disagree,” Ser Payne interjects. “Well, he would, if he still had his head.”

Her death, he thinks, is long overdue and he would march up to her and cut her throat himself but this is not the way it's done. He is surrounded by men, watched by his brothers and his Captain of the Guard and he will show them today, just as he has shown them every other day of this war they've fought, what a Lannister of Casterly Rock truly is.

Tywin takes a step forward. “Do you accept my terms of surrender-”

“Never, boy.”

Again, Tywin nods, before turning on his heel.

Later, they stand on top of a hill in the dusk, their gazes straight ahead not to miss a second of the scene taking place before them. There's a chill in the air but he can nearly pretend that the flames from the fire are enough to warm him up, their heat reaching over the entire land. It's over. A slice of history is done with, forever extinct and he is the reason. He has changed a portion of the Westerlands with his deeds; he has made a difference, forged it. When he closes his eyes tonight, he will see this, he knows. This: the fire, the destruction, the faces of those who did not bend to his will, the faces of everyone who fought on his orders and won - their wild relief. He will see it and he will remember everything.

Here's to you, father, he thinks as he watches the towers of Tarbeck Hall crash to the ground with a rumbling, thunderous groan; the sound of victory like a thunder in him, too, leaving its distinct mark in his bones, spelled out in blood.

“Seven hells, brother,” Tygett comments, riding up behind him.

“Hear us roar,” Kevan adds and gives a short laugh.

Turning his head from the destruction, Tywin looks at him, looks at the smile that appears beneath a thick layer of dirt and blood and ashes on his brother's face and suddenly – feeling more light-hearted than he has in years - he smiles, too.

Before he returns to Casterly Rock as a victorious commander of his father's army – such brilliant ruthlessness, Ser Payne says in his memory, his voice thick with admiration – Tywin makes a stop at uncle Tyrion's estate.

Joanna is the one who greets him, her steps hurried as she walks down the stairs and she stops in front of him, close enough for him to feel her breath on his skin.

“You won.” The relief in her voice is so evident, so overwhelming that he almost loses his composure immediately.

“Yes,” he says, thinking it a rather foolish thing to affirm.

She steps even closer, studying him. There are servants about, walking past them; there is a noise coming from the great hall of the keep and Tywin is certain he had seen a glimpse of his lord uncle as he entered. And furthermore, this is a foolish indulgence no matter what uncle Tyrion says, no matter what Genna has convinced Father to agree to: marriages are made out of politics, not passion. Yet he stands here, seeing nothing but her, with no desire for anything beyond exactly this. She smells of rose water and spices and he has just won his first victory, it hits him again here like a jolt to his chest; Joanna seems to read his mind because she smiles, raising one hand to the crest on his breastplate. Her fingers look pale against the golden lion.

“I hoped you might come before you went to battle. I wanted to wish you luck.”

Tywin holds her gaze. He certainly is ill suited for gallantry and courting, now more than ever before, but Seven help him if he isn't going to try at least once. “Would you have given your favour?” he asks, wondering if his discomfort is visible.

She laughs, a soft and uncharacteristically gentle sound.

“By the look of things you don't need my favour,” she says. “But you always have it, dearest cousin.”

A rare hope unfurls in his chest at her words, spreading like flames from a fire. He doesn't know what Genna has said or to what extent she has intervened, but he knows that he does not intend to bind Joanna to him in a marriage mirroring his sister's. And he knows that he is not going to disgrace her with any castles built on air and lies and the follies of his father.

“My father has not left me with much,” he says bluntly, feeling her gaze on him while he speaks. “But I – we – could change that. I will change things. And I would do right by you, Joanna, I swear it.”

Joanna looks at him for a long time, her hand that rested on his chest before is moving up to touch his cheek, very lightly. “I have never doubted that.”

He is no longer a boy, innocence is long past him, and on the eve of the feast thrown in celebration of his victory over the Raynes and the Tarbecks, Tywin finds his father in the Stone Garden. It's late; most of the visitors have gone home and those who have not are sleeping in their chambers for the night.

Father sits slumped on a bench in the middle of the garden, like an overgrown child who has escaped his own bedtime.

“Tywin, hello.” Even his smile is unsteady; he had at least five cups of wine during the supper and by the look of it, he has had at least another five since then. He appears softened in more ways than one, in more ways than Tywin can remember from before he left for Dragonstone. He's fatter and the edges of his features are blurred, but the change is on the inside more than anything, it's inwardly, looking at Tywin from behind those watery, bloodshot eyes. “Did you enjoy your celebration? It was a good feast, wasn't it? That song...” he shakes his head, as though in disbelief. “They have written a song about you and you are barely a man grown.”

There's a sadness in his voice that has always been there. Tywin can see now as if from a distance; he can see the ugly swelling behind his father's words, a blend of guilt and endless pity for his own fate. There's something greedy about it; it leaves nothing but contempt for everyone else.

“Go inside, Father. The servants will find you here-”

Father waves his hand dismissively. “What do I care if they find me?”

Looking around, Tywin almost expects to see Father's whore somewhere as well but the garden is empty except for the two of them. While he was away, his brothers have told him, she had taken even further liberties with the servants and Kevan has seen her entertain at least one of the knights. Even Gerion had sounded troubled by the way things are.

“I wanted to speak to you, Father,” Tywin says, swallowing his resentment.

Father's gaze is faraway, roaming over the contours of the rocks forming a mountain in miniature in the north of their garden. “We are speaking.”

“I wish to have your permission to marry.”

There is a long pause, then his father's voice hardens. “I hardly think you require my approval any longer."

I cannot remember ever having it.

“You are the Lord of Casterly Rock,” Tywin retorts, sharper than intended.

“That I am.” Father raises an eyebrow as though this is a revelation to him. It might as well be, for all he seems to care about it. “So you wish to have my permission to marry? Am I wrong in assuming it is your cousin Joanna you wish to wed?”

“No,” he looks out over the garden. “That would be correct.”

“She's a lovely girl, your cousin,” Father concedes.

No, Tywin thinks. Joanna isn't lovely. There is nothing loveable about her at all - she is remarkable.

It had been Genna who sought him out the night before he rode off to Tarbeck Hall; it had been Genna who had taken the issue in her hands, stripped it of all other implications and associations and simplified it by asking him if he could imagine anyone but Joanna as the Lady of Casterly Rock - his lady of Casterly Rock. On the eve of battle, the choice had been simple.

It still is. Out of all the choices he has made in his life, all the choices he is yet to make, he cannot imagine anything being simpler than this.