Catelyn x Tywin —> an AU in which Catelyn is kept alive and Tyrion doesn’t kill Tywin
The Winter’s Song (Part XXVII)
“He’s a plump, little thing,” Jaime noted upon inspecting the boy. “I’ve always found it remarkable how…defenseless children look at this age.”
Catelyn shifted Tyson in her arms. He reached out in an attempt to grab at Jaime’s nose, but fell short by a few inches. “Well it is a good thing then that this is one of the most protected children in the Seven Kingdoms.” It could be said that Tyson was almost just as protected as King Tommen, with the exception that Tywin had found better men in the gold cloaks’ ranks than the men in the Kingsguard.
The smile on Jaime’s face was genuine, if not a little jesting. “And to think, I was once like this, just some little…blob, couldn’t even hold a finger, much less a sword. Gods, he’s small. I don’t think even Tyrion was this small when he was born.”
He stopped, blinking slowly as he looked at the child, and then straightened his posture. Out of everyone, Jaime was the one most likely to talk about Tyrion. Tywin rarely ever brought him up and Cersei was intent on pretending she didn’t have another brother besides Jaime. Even Tommen seemed wary of bringing him up, if only because he did not want to upset anyone. She was once again reminded that this child, her child, had replaced Jaime’s brother in their father’s eyes. Though only a few days old, Tyson would take what should have been Tyrion’s birthright. Once again, it struck her to ask him how he felt about all of this, but she knew that he would only deflect.
“He will grow up strong and brave,” Catelyn said as she laid Tyson back in his crib. She would make sure of it. He would be fierce and proud and kind-hearted and quick. He would live to an old age, wise and far beyond his years even at his deathbed. He would outlast her and everyone would remember him: a lion, a Lannister, but so much more.
“I have no doubt about that, my lady,” Jaime replied. “If he grows to be anything like you, he will be a force to be reckoned with. And with the great Tywin Lannister as his father…”
It didn’t need to be said.
i like how we forget that tywin lannister ACTIVELY HATES tyrion in comparison to jaime and cersei
and then people are like oh he can totally stand up to tywin
no
he
can’t
#well technically he can #but maybe people need to reread ADWD to see what…
(For madamdoesnothing using this prompt - OK, so this is a sequel to The Pack Survives, Seeing, and The Caged Wolf and I really need to come up with a name for this random chaptered fic, but whatever. Basically, all you need to know is that Arya was brought to King’s Landing after the Red Wedding, Catelyn lived and was forced to marry Tywin, and…yeah go read those fics. This is super freaking long and it’s kind of crappy because I’m so out of touch with my writing. Also the ending is whatever because I’m freaking tired. It’s 6 am. I’ve got a final in life 5 hours but I have to get up in 3. OOPS. What’s college mean anyways? And I know I said that I’d finish this tomorrow, BUT I WAS IN THE MOOD TO WRITE. So here you go, ten million years [or six months] later.)
N O T I N B L O O D B U T I N B O N D
Arya grimaced as her handmaiden put yet another pin in her hair. She’d lost count what felt like ages ago, pins upon pins in her long, dark brown hair, and even a few blue flowers as well. She hated it, of course, but kept her mouth shut. Today was supposed to be a special day. It would be the day that Lord Tywin announced her betrothal to… Oh, she didn’t know. Tywin had kept her informed on who her possible matches would be, but in the end, she had despondently told him that she did not want to know.
Another pin in her hair, this time pricking her scalp, and Arya jerked away, turning to glare heatedly at the handmaiden. “I think you’re finished.”
“But m’lady, your hair is not all–”
“No, I think it is.” Arya stood from her seat, took one look at her hair which looked more than finished to her, and then walked out of the room without so much as a dismissal. She knew it was rude and that the girl was only doing her job, but Arya was tired and frustrated and had spent her entire morning getting ready for an event she did not welcome. She didn’t care that the blue flowers in her hair matched perfectly with the blue gown she had been given or that she looked almost as nice as Sansa did on her bad days. All she wanted to do was run outside, ride her horse as fast as possible to loose her hair, play in the snow like a child though she was no longer one.
I am older than Robb ever was, she thought as she swept past the small council room that Lord Tywin used for the meetings.
Since she could not run off, she was fully planning on hiding in her mother’s bedchambers until the ceremony began. Surely Lady Catelyn would understand Arya’s pain. Her mother had been betrothed as well, and when her suitor had died, she had married a stranger, Arya’s own father. They were both dead now though, and her mother had been forced to marry a stranger yet again. That had been years though and while things were still strange and her mother still had bouts of sadness things were…warmer between husband and wife. There was even a baby now, a half-brother to Arya and this one not a bastard. Her mother would be able to give her the best advice and a nice hug.
Instead, Arya rounded the corner and bumped into something smaller than her, something that made a sound like, “Oomph!”
“Watch yourself! You could ruin my dress!” she snarled, despite not caring one lick about whether or not her dress was ruined. When she looked up at the offender (who was really the victim here), she was startled to find that it was not a handmaiden or a child but actually Tyrion Lannister, the Master of Coin and Lord Tywin’s second son. “Oh, I am sorry, my lord. I did not know it was you. Are you alright?”
“Not to worry, child,” Lord Tyrion sighed as he awkwardly stood up and brushed himself off, “worse things than a young girl have tried to kill me and failed. I’m quite alright.”
The nasty-looking scar on his face, complete with a bit of his nose missing, was proof enough of that, but Arya kept that to herself. It had scared her at first, seeing his face like that when she had first come to King’s Landing, but years had allowed her to grow used to it, to the point where she barely seemed to notice it at times no matter its size.
Tyrion eyed her. “Perhaps I should ask if you are alright, my lady. You look…distressed.”
“I’m just…excited, is all,” Arya replied, somewhat lamely.
What would Sansa do? was the reoccurring thought, more and more as her time in King’s Landing progressed. Sansa would know what to do; Sansa would know what to say. She had played all these people like a fiddle in the end. She had known all the right things to do when she had been betrothed and later married to Willas Tyrell. But thinking that did not help Arya one bit. She wasn’t Sansa. She was Arya Stark and Arya was no better at playing the game in King’s Landing than a dog was.
“Excited, yes, I’m sure,” Tyrion deadpanned. “Every girl dreams about the day she’s sold off like a cow.”
Arya scowled. “I’m not a cow.”
“Of course you’re not,” he said, a little smile on his face. “You’ve grown into a remarkably pretty young woman, most definitely not a cow. Boys will be lining up for you at the gate and fathers will greedily ask for you for their sons.”
Despite herself, despite everything in her, her face fell. “Only because I am a Stark and my step-father is the Hand of the King and a Lannister. I’m not much of a match for anyone’s son without my name.”
“You must look on the bright side, my lady.”
“And what’s that?”
“Why think of all the lovely children you’ll be forced to whelp!”
A smile broke out onto Arya’s face. It was an awful thing to think of – her worth only being her name and the amount of children she had – but the grand way in which Tyrion had said it, how he’d thrown his hands in the air and smiled almost gruesomely, brought the smile to her face. He had a fancy way of talking sometimes, almost as if he enjoyed irritating his father, but Arya loved it. Everything was transformed into a story by Tyrion Lannister and she loved listening to him talk, just as Sansa had loved hearing all the songs and stories about knights and maidens. But Lord Tyrion’s stories were dark and gritty and absolutely fascinating, nothing like the stories of her childhood. He never censored himself in front of her, except for when her mother and Lord Tywin were around, and then he would wink at her when neither were looking and whisper that he’d tell her more later.
“Fret not, Arya,” Tyrion told her. “I know you are worried – and you have every right to be – but rest assured my father will not force some terrible and idiotic lad on you. While he may care little for me, he does not want any harm to come to you. He is…fond of you.”
“Fond.” Arya snored at the thought.
“If he wasn’t, you would have already been married off by now instead of just now being betrothed,” Tyrion explained. When she gave him a puzzled yet curious look, he shrugged his shoulders. “There is a reason he has been holding off, keeping you here. It makes your mother happy and it makes you happy and gods be good he seems to actually like having you both happy.”
Arya chewed on her bottom lip and looked to the ground, thinking of all the times Tywin had said that she was not ready to be betrothed and that she needed more time. To do what, she’d never had a clue, perhaps mature or just grow up and get over herself. “I suppose…”
Tyrion pat her on the arm. “When all the hubbub is done, we’ll have a cup of wine to properly celebrate and drown out any sorrows you might have.”
Truth be told, she wanted the cup of wine now, to calm her nerves, but she knew that wouldn’t be the best thing to do. Her mother and Lord Tywin let her have a cup of wine every now and then, considering she was six and ten and quite old enough, but the only time she’d been drunk had been with Tyrion. She had been miserable and in an awful state after getting into an argument with her mother and Lord Tywin reprimanding her. Tyrion had shown up with a few sound words of advice and two skins of wine. By the end of the night, both of them had been drunk and laughing and made plans to go visit a whorehouse just to scandalize everyone.
They hadn’t done that yet. And perhaps they never would. That made her terribly sad again just thinking about it.
*
She doesn’t think too highly of them, men in general, in fact. She thinks the world would be better if it were run by women.
