Chapter Text
“Shall I tell you a story, sweetling?” He circled the pink of her firm nipple, tongue slick against the soft pinch of her neck, spare hand rummaging the moist skin beneath her breast. Her moans came with half a giggle at first, her pale slender leg draped atop his own with a single finger brushing the stiff vein of his manhood in taunt. When her long locks of honey-gold fell across his face in scents of cinnamon and civet, his jaws found flesh, her moans half-groan and half-shriek as Tyrion exulted.
Breathlessly, she wore her sweetest voice, “Always telling stories. How do you know so many?”
“This one I know all too well. As well as a septon and his sermon. My father’s favourite.“
Her lopsided smile was sly. “What about a septon and his sin?”
“Clever girl. But surely they sing the Rains of Castemere in these halls?” The shade of her thicket fell darker than gold, his fingers like snakes as he slithered closer to his prize.
“Oh yes,” she managed, lips bitten near to blood. “All you Lannister men sing it.”
“Then you should know the tale well enough.”
She grabbed his searching hand and suckled on his ring finger. “I have never heard it finished, m’lord. All those men seem to…” slowly, she prowled towards his stiff member, lathering his body with her tongue, “…forget it.”
“Might that I humble you with a true telling.”
She giggled again with green-eyed glint. “Might that you try.”
The imp grinned wickedly with a handful of of her hair as she made her attack. “Our lion’s roar was not always so… formidable. Oh, my, you may have me beat. Ahh… my grandsire… he was a sheep in a lion’s pen, with cubs fiercer than his trembling tail. But the West was home to many shades of lion then, and the Reynes of Castle Castemere saw a toothless beast in Lord Tytos’ prancing softheart. A bold mistake, but mistakes are rarely bold for long. Ahh… oh… my father, my father is not one to be made of a mockery of. Lady Ellyn learned it well, and her red-bold brothers boasted of a blood-coat sigil. They took my father’s silence for victory, and found the hymn of their defiance turned a watery dirge. They wept and wept, until their tears had long joined the waters that drowned them. And then—“ a rush of pleasure rushed him from groin to skull, eyes rolled back as he squirted his seed deep into her throat. Damn.
His chest heaved with quick defeat, “Might that I try again.”
She grinned, relishing at her victory with her lips around her finger. “Finish the story, then.”
Tyrion shrugged, “My father had done his work, and now the rains weep o’ their halls.” The fire blazed for a day and a night after, townsfolk watching as the red lion banner burned in gold flame. Ghosts sweltered, their debt paid, their castle left a heaping mass of black stone and black blood. A mightily poor imitation of Harren’s hubris, but no less cursed. Forever in Lord Tywin Lannister’s name.
And now it is mine. He was hardly drunk enough to laugh in his bitter rage.
The gilded oak door of the chamber swung open with a gushing cold wind that forced Tyrion beneath the red-velvet sheets with a curse. “Hear, hear. The runaway lord,” called Ser Jaime Lannister, though less a knight now without his white cloak. He wore a crimson silk tunic embroidered with gold lions, his black boots and black gloves joined with a thick black oilcloth cloak.
Tyrion blew a raspberry. “Shall I remind you the meaning of a closed door in a whorehouse, brother?”
Jaime feigned a befuddled look. “I must have missed it. Besides, if I let a closed door prevent the capture of a common brigand, I would be a mightily poor knight.” His grin revealed his bright perfect teeth, and Tyrion could see the lust in the whore’s emerald eye.
“A knight in a brothel. Which of us is the brigand now?” Tyrion drawled.
“The Brigand Brothers has a tune to it, no? Perhaps I should sell the name to a mummer’s troupe and reap our reward.”
“I am reaping my reward. As we speak, in fact,” he took her nipple in his mouth like a wineskin, but ignored his limp cock beneath the velvet.
“He can stay. I’ve never had two brothers at once,” the whore purred. I’ve forgotten her name, Tyrion realised, watching her eyes undress her brother with her eyes unabashedly. You’re not half as blonde for his taste, and I have no intend on being made a cuckold this morn.
Tyrion huffed. “Could an hour more not do? One hour more, Jaime! I’m hardly half-spent.”
Jaime snorted. “You have been here since dawn, little brother! Any more spent, and you’d be spurting blood for a week.”
How lovely. “As I am wont to do. I paid these ones myself, brother. Don’t fret. And it’s my nameday! I should be allowed such frivolities.”
“It is your nameday,” Jaime said wryly, tossing an extra silver stag that land square on the whore’s bosom. “There’s your first gift of three.” Her eyes turned wide, and Tyrion relented. His brother was as stubborn as a mule given the chance.
The golden-haired whore took her chance, kissing his cheek quickly and disappearing in a robe of silk red. She had fucked him blind, heard his japes and his stories and laughed a sweet laugh like the honey between her legs. Then she took her coin and left without a second glance for him. I gave you three stags, not a dragon. You only fucked me.
The scarlet-tint window clattered with a wave of summer storm. The rain flowed down upon the glass in rivers, and the beams above were swollen. Drip, drip, drip, fell the droplets slowly.
For a moment, Tyrion wondered what Lord Reyne thought of the first trickles in his soon-to-be tomb.
“You owe me a flagon of wine in recompense,” he muttered as he sprawled across the sheets in half-exhaustion.
“You’ll have a dozen barrels if you change quickly,” his brother replied, leaving him to an empty bed.
King’s Landing enjoyed its cruel little jokes, he quickly realised. A tirade of thunder greeted him with a wet embrace, laughing like a jester god. All manner of vermin swam in flooded cobbles down the Street of Silk to Fleabottom as Tyrion trotted on a grey garron beside his knightly brother, half-soaked with a cloak that would surely stink of rank damp for days. Soon he would be free of this wretched city, but that thought alone was a mighty mix of bitter contradiction. The mildew muck of King’s Landing proved a comelier sight than the black rot and burn of Castemere’s sunken halls. Only a leaning half-crumbled tower and the mountain rookery stood now, and the only whores to ravish in Lord Reyne’s tomb were those that drowned with him.
Halfway down the Streets of Sisters on an offshoot alley, a triple-storey tavern rose with a leaning tilt, built in half-stone half-timber with wet gabled roofs, checkered with black-white walls and bolted stag banners. The iron antler signed rattled and the lamplight snuffed out in the strong wind as they entered, the tavern alight with bustling music and a dozen barmaids in bodices too tight to claim chastity. The king’s tavern, they had dubbed it. Tyrion was begrudged to visit that fat fool’s drunken hideaway. “We should fuck his boars and hunt his whores, too,” he told Jaime once. But no alewife in the city compared to the drink flowing from the hundred barrels set upon the walls, and he supposed even a crowned lecher needed taste.
“Shall I find your second gift amongst this muck, dear brother?”
Jaime crossed his heart. “You wound me. I am capable of standards. Of course not, I left that one in your chambers.” Tyrion gave him a pointed look. “Mistrusting today, aren’t you little brother? It was a book! The Hundred Tricks and Turns of Lann the Clever, by Septon… Lannis.”
Tyrion guffawed. “Old Creylen finally let it loose, did he? Niggardly old bastard. Uncle Gerion had to beg the man for but a glance at the damn thing. How did you manage that?”
“I am not without mine own charm. To be frank, I was certain it was a jokebook until I laid eyes on it myself.”
“Hmm. I’ve decided, brother, that I shall forgive you for your terrible crime this morn.” He called for the inkeep and added lowly, “And the kestrels.”
“Oh, enough with the birds, Tyrion. I beg you. My featherbed still reeks of their droppings.”
Tyrion shrugged. “I rather enjoyed them.”
“Selmy did not. Perhaps next time I’ll let you stomach his wroth. Withered old fool. Besides, I’ve not a clue why you wasted your hours on anything but the simple cousins.”
“They’re a challenge.”
“They’re stubborn. Try your luck with ravens. Better yet, pigeons.”
“You have to run before you crawl, Jaime. And ravens have better purpose. My kestrels were… a simple parting gift.”
“A parting gift. For Cersei’s wardrobe, I’d wager.”
“You wound me, brother. I am capable of letting enmity rest. We are only as strong as the weakest in the shield wall.“
“For a time.”
“For a time. It was for the king.“
Jaime barked a laugh. “Now you have me in a regretful mood.”
Tyrion clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Always sword first with you.”
Jaime had let the birds free much to his dismay, but Tyrion was not without his other spiteful reprisals. The night of the king’s royal honours upon his queen-sister, he had snuck into the cellars and loosened the cogs of King Oaf’s favourite wines. Just a turn before he scrambled away, woken promptly to the scream of murder as the drink had flooded the kitchen floor in shades of blood.
The wine in his silver goblet now seemed the same shade of black betrayal. Swirling and swirling like the golden chalice he had held in Lord Tywin’s makeshift solar.
He shoved the thought aside. Worse yet to let his father ruin his latest nameday.
Half-a-hundred queer characters littered the long hall. Off-duty goldcloaks dotted the long benches at the end with landed knights and pimple-faced squires, minor lords and second sons and peasants who had surely stolen some silk surcoat and fooled the doorman. Tyrion spotted a band of westermen by the counter in sigils of flaming tree and brindled boar, a barrel heaved atop the big one’s shoulder.
“Lord Imp,” said a grizzled regular. Tyrion turned to find the fat fiend, Thoros of Myr, with his crusty beard riddled with grease and meat scrap. “We’ve not shared a cup in some time.”
“The last we did, Prince Oberyn had you keeled over naked in a cow dung. I’d have thought you learned your lesson. Still playing tricks at the melee?”
The Myrishman’s voice turned dark “I no longer hold King Robert’s favour. Your gods saw to that.”
“Start with the clothes. An easy tell for a red wizard to wear red robes.”
“Then I would be no balder nor drunker than the common man. Hard to sell a spell without the garb.”
“Mayhaps a pointed hat and a rabbit,” Tyrion muttered dryly.
“Or a dwarf. Can you twirl and flip?”
Might that I wring your neck instead. The dwarf that slew a wizard sounded a better song than the red drunkard. The poor priest laughed and called for mead as the Lannister pair brushed past to a longtable at the farside.
“Ser Jaime Lannister!” A voice shouted in approach, his lopsided smile raised at the sight of the Imp. “And the man of the moment, Lord Tyrion Lannister.”
“Ser Addam. Come to pay homage?” Tyrion jested. The westerman’s shoulder-length hair was tied back neatly, strong jaw smiling with a mug of ale in hand.
“Of course. Do you think me such a poor neighbour?”
“Spare me your empty-handed platitudes.”
“Empty-handed, he says.” Addam Marbrand smiled and gestured to the burly man and barrel. Lyle Crakehall flashed an ugly grin, opened the keg and poured wine into a gold-band horn near a large as Tyrion. Ser Addam gave Jaime a light shove, “this coxcomb’s not half-as-clever, nor can he hold half the weight as you, I hear. I’ll raise my cup to you, Lord Tyrion.”
“Hear, hear,” spread across the hall. His father’s people stared at him as equals. Marbrand, Strongboar, weak-chinned Steffon Swyft, some Freyson of Aunt Genna and another gold-haired cousin with a name too lowly to remember. “Hear, hear,” they cried. Hear hear, Tyrion sneered as he quaffed his goblet and readied himself beneath the horn. Tyrion Lannister, once heir of the great Casterly Rock, turned the lord of japes and jokes. Get on with it, you sons of whores.
The hours tolled by in a mix of feast, game and wine. Tyrion wore a pot-crown of brass with ale in half the cups as his belly bulged like a boulder, so filled he could feel the swish of his stomach’s sea with each step. He retched twice into stray buckets and once into a woollen rug as he collapsed onto the long seat in Jaime’s innchamber. His brother sat in slack-jawed stupor, a draught of bitter herbs and another of posset still steaming. Tyrion downed them, swallowing his bile with it as hearty song still echoed from drunken fools and sobered newcomers.
Crimson wine pooled over the table. He found his mismatched stare muddled within, the torchlight summoning his father’s emerald-gold flecks. Drip, drip, drip, fell the droplets briskly.
Tyrion turned away groaning. “I hope your last gift is of such fine quality. Though, now I may settle for a very large bucket.”
Jaime chuckled groggily. “My last gift was no thought of my own, I must admit…” he paused, staring through Tyrion before he cleared his throat. “A hundred men. Sappers, stonemasons, stewards, some carpenters. A dozen quarrymen, miners. Good men. Paid in perpetuity.”
“Ah. Then I shall thank Lord Tywin for his generosities. A hundred men to rebirth the legend at last.” Tyrion snorted sardonically, renouncing his crown as he poured the drink into a pint before he fell into a fit of bitter laughter.
“Lay your thanks at Aunt Genna’s feet. She picked out each man herself.”
Shrewd and supple Aunt Genna likely did more than just pick them. “Well, I shall be sure to thank her.” He toasted Jaime’s furrowed brow.
The knight placed his palm to Tyrion’s cup, “One too many, little brother.”
His laugh turned to growl as he slammed the table, pulling his pint from his brother’s grip. “A jape is best told drunk. And there is no better jape than this.”
The chamber had been cold despite the summer day. A scarlet sky fell on the horizon as the world glowed in blood red. Cersei had sat beside their father, grinning like a halfwit. Jon Arryn sat across him, old and frail and useless as the rumours told with letters sealed in the king’s restitution. The Hand’s solar, yet there was no question of who truly ruled. “You will be a lord,” Lord Tywin commended. “Castamere.” Bestowed upon Tyrion’s name with a thousand gold chains tied upon his neck to match his red-bloated face. Ink on parchment, seal and wax, the golden lion ripped from his doublet with Lord Tywin’s generous word.
My father’s generosities. The wine swirled the same as that day. Bottomless with a tasteless poison. His father was an unyielding man. Grimmer than any. But Tyrion swore he had seen a smile, a flicker of a laugh.
“It won’t be so—“ Jaime began.
Tyrion slammed the mug down. “Don’t… don’t start with the mummer’s farce, Jaime. Will you blither about how it not a slight? A gift, an honour? Oh, I am well aware what his honours pertain. I only hope Tommen is as fit a son as the one he envisioned in me.” The boy was already the image of Cersei, a green-eyed little thing with strong legs and a head well-fitted for his pudgy body. He would undoubtedly grow tall and strong like his father.
Jaime frowned. “Cersei will never let father have Tommen.”
Tyrion chuckled. “I am glad you’ve caught on. Cersei will certainly refuse him when he is finally a man. And father? Tommen Baratheon of Casterly Rock?” His sister would covet the boy now. Whisper in his ear and suckle him at her full breasts long into boyhood. You have lost your son, he wanted to retort. But she had grinned alongside her father’s phantom smile, and Jaime could never refuse her. How does our sister’s cunt taste, brother? A shame you never thought to share.
“A knight of the Kinsguard is sworn for life,” Jaime insisted.
“You’re as big a fool as Moon Boy. At least that ninny bastard has mind enough to know his face in the mirror. Father will have his way. He built this honour himself, and was kind enough to let it stew for my rise. Castemere is a ruin now, but worry not. I shall put the ghosts to work. Perhaps even beseech a drowned priest for their favour. And if all else fails, I shall take a little skiff, with little oars for my little arms, loll on the waters and pray for a little drought. A little red waste for my little red castle. ‘Oh, Tyrion, oh, Tyrion, kind that you are,’ the gods shall lament, blessing my little land with their love.” The Lord of Castemere burst into a coughing fit of laughter, choking down the rest of his ale with half spilled onto his stained doublet.
“I suppose I shall have to take a wife, too. Shall Lord Tywin gift me a bride to be? No maiden shall take the Imp’s bed. Perhaps a poor widow. A shame the Lady Ellyn is but ashes. We would make a fine pair apiece… why the grim look, dear brother? At least this time, I shall have a noble lady, not a whore.” How high shall the bride price rise? Even a sullied lady deserved more more than a handful of silvers too many and a single dragon.
His mug was empty. Tyrion rose with a stifle, vomiting across the table before falling to the floor. Tallow candlelight swayed from the ceiling, and when he reached for it, his brother helped him up and shook his shoulders down.
Tyrion slapped him away. “I am not your squire.”
“No, but you are my brother.”
The dwarf scoffed, stumbling away with a drunken dance in his step.
“Where are you going?” Jaime called.
Tyrion twirled around, spread his arms wide and bowed like a mummer on stage. “Why, to my castle of cripples, bastards and broken things. There is work to be done.”
The main hall still reeked of song and story as he staggered past. The storm outside raged and roared with a virile taunt, and his grey garron had come loose from the stable yard. Tyrion could only cackle as the rain lashed his face and filled his mouth. Drip, drip, drip, fell the droplets furiously.
“Tyrion!” called his brother. He rushed out into the street cloaked and tossed Tyrion his own. A silence fell between them, and stray chortles still escaped the imp’s lips.
“Tyrion,” Jaime said softly, his hand on Tyrion’s arm as he squeezed gently. “Do not think so unkindly of me. I am not filled with such dishonour as to usurp my brother’s birthright. I will speak to father. I will make him listen.” He wore a foolish lopsided smile, but the rain made it seem as if he wept. “Say, you may even geld me to sell the part.”
Oh, Jaime. You are a fool, he thought sadly. Tyrion sighed, but mustered the truest smile he could and nodded. “Well, you can start by finding my garron. Pesky thing sought freedom.”
As his brother trotted off, his bladder cramped desperately.
The alley beside the tavern winded through mud-ridden puddles, shattered carts, and even a buried lichyard off in the distance. The kissing rooftops protected him from the storm, and when he dropped his breeches, he groaned as he pissed liquid gold onto lightning-cracked cobbles. A small groan escaped him as he swung his cock about in circles, last little leaks staining his hose.
When he moved to leave, a one-eyed one-eared arse brayed loudly. An ugly moan followed as a lumbering old giant with beard and breeches brown with shit stumbled out of a narrow wynd. His long pecker throbbed as a young woman cradled it, her mouth chewing hungrily upon his lips. Tyrion watched absently as she reached into her embroidered cloak and rubbed the blood red of her sex across his lips, voice sweet and girlish.
A lucky fool ravishing some lost lord’s daughter. Her grinning pale eyes fell dark as she spotted Tyrion, the ugly snarl spreading across her face matching her gnawed crescent scar that jutted from temple to chin. The raven calls the crow black, Tyrion mused bitterly, smiling smugly.
“I didn’t ask for an audience,” she huffed, face hooded as he pushed the man back and made for the street. Her lavender perfumes clashed with alley stench, stopping above Tyrion with a queer, deformed look to her once-pretty face.
“Will you dream with me, my lord?” His heart leapt oddly as she sped past him and he shook his face.
The man growled, red upon his lips brighter as be twitched oddly.
Tyrion laughed. “Worry not, there’s a dozen whores cheaper and prettier than that marked hag.”
“Bugger off, dwarf,” he grunted, pushing Tyrion hard, face-first into a shit-filled puddle before riding off into the street.
His Lannister crimsons and golds turned to a tainted black and ugly yellow as his back and twisted leg cramped. Tyrion writhed like some common whore’s bastard as his mouth swelled with slough and spit, and when he searched the puddle, his father’s face cackled at his red-run rage. I’ll have you fed your own cock, you pox-born ass. Both of you.
When he finally rose, he screamed. He screamed until his throat tore and his fists bloodied against the brick.
“Brother!” Jaime called with a laugh, horse whickering mere inches beyond his sight. “You would not believe where I found your—“ His brother choked, fallen to knees instantly as he wiped the mud from Tyrion’s face. “Gods, Tyrion, what—“
The imp pushed him back with a giant’s strength. “That fucking knave. The wretch with the arse. Where is he?” Tyrion gritted.
His brother lurched back in confusion, swiftly fallen to angered understanding. “Down to the Dragon’s Square, I think.”
Catch him. “Go!” Tyrion growled. I’ll kill him myself.
Jaime lifted Tyrion like a feather and plopped him on his garron, leaving his own free for the city. In an instant, they pelted down the wet cobbles of the Street of Silk. The world blurred past him, the only smell the rain and his brother behind. Storm clouds thundered and cracked the sky open. In that moment he smiled, something euphoric, exulting as it kissed his face. Do it, his mind bellowed. Do it, father. Send your streams and your storms. I will not drown. I will not drown.
A soaked mob flowed from the the Street of Sisters. Down the middle, a riot tore them from their mount. Jaime shielded Tyrion tight, their eyes transfixed on the same lumbering peasant with his fists crimson and rage black. He struck septa, septon and stranger in a blind rampage, snarling like a hound with mottled blood blisters ripe upon his lips. A swarm of gold cloaks buzzed past them, spears singing as they gutted the beast. He squirmed and screeched and screamed as Tyrion relished in his life splayed against the storm-hammered street.
Beside them, a dragon of red flame burned against the rain’s wet spears in a clash of the elements. The building ablaze crumbled to a black ruin, and from its flaming maw, a score of immolated men sought the sky.