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[Cersei and Lancel are having one of their rendezvous in her bedchamber.]
Jaime choked on air.
"Lancel too?" Joanna questioned in disgust.
"Guess our sister isn't just interested in you, dear brother" Tyrion grinned at his glaring brother.
"I'll gut that twit" Jaime swore. How dare he do that to Cersei? His Cersei!
[Cersei is reading a message while Lancel speaks, naked.]
"I can't believe we're actually at war. Was it this exciting last time, when you were young? What does it say? Have we captured Robb Stark yet? What's our next move?]
"Stop talking. Get back into bed."
Jaime baulked and was soon replaced by dread as his heart raced. No, nobody could force themselves on Cersei... Which could mean only one thing...
He inhaled deeply and shoved the thought aside.
[Back in the Riverlands, we sit with the Lannister war meeting. Tywin, Tyrion and Kevan are in assistance.]
"The Stark boy appears to be less green than we'd hoped."
"I've heard his wolf killed a dozen men and as many horses."
Robb's chest flared with pride and sick contentment.
"Both Baratheon brothers have taken up against us. Jaime captured, his armies scattered. It's a catastrophe. Perhaps we should sue for peace."
Tyrion threw the cup of wine he was holding on the ground "There's your peace. Joffrey saw to that when he decided to remove Ned Stark's head. You'll have an easier time drinking from that cup than you will bringing Robb Stark to the table now. He's winning - in case you hadn't noticed."
"And soon he'd gut you and send your head to the bastard King!" Arya shouted at the Wall, her words eliciting a roar from her siblings and a few of the older people.
"The first order of business is ransoming Ser Jaime."
"First we must return to Casterly Rock to raise -"
[Tywin Lannister shouting.]
"They have my son! Get out, all of you. Not you Tyrion. You were right about Eddard Stark. If he were alive, we could have used him to broker peace with Winterfell and Riverrun, which would have given us more time to deal with Robert's brothers. But now - madness. Madness and stupidity. I always thought you were a stunted fool. Perhaps I was wrong."
Tyrion gaped in shock and surprise. Was his father finally acknowledging him?
"Half wrong. I'm new to strategy, but unless we want to be surrounded by three armies, it appears we can't stay here."
"No one will stay here. Ser Gregor will head out with 500 riders and set the Riverland on fire from God's Eye to the Red Fork. The rest of us will regroup at Harrenhal. And you will go to King's Landing."
"And do what?"
"Rule. You will serve as Hand of the King in my stead. You will bring that boy king to heel, and his mother too, if needs be. And if you get so much as a whiff of treason from any of the rest - Baelish, Varys, Pycelle..."
"I-must be dreaming," Tyrion said in disbelief.
"No. Father is finally seeing you for who you really are beneath the debauchery and snark" Jaime forced a smile for his brother. Cersei was still prevalent in his mind after all.
"Heads, spikes, walls. Why not my uncle? Why not anyone? Why me?"
"You're my son."
Perhaps something had gotten into Tyrion's eyes because the former Imp was suddenly tearing up.
Joanna watched her youngest with a small smile. She reached out and gently ran her fingers through his hair.
Tyrion turned to his mother, oddly emotional.
"You have made your father acknowledge you. Now exceed his expectations. Show him that you are as much Lannister as he is" Joanna whispered to him fiercely but warmly.
Tyrion swallowed and gave a shallow nod.
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[Across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys is sleeping inside a yurt. Jorah is sitting beside her when she wakes up.]
"Ser Jorah?"
"Gently, gently."
"My son - where is he? I want him. Where is he?"
"The boy did not live."
"I'm so sorry" Rhaegar whispered to his sister.
Daenerys did not meet her brother's gaze or react to his condolences.
She was too busy staring at the viewing wall, a hand over her belly. She had lost her son, or will lose him in the future. She'd conceived him with that horse lord Drogo, she shouldn't feel anything for the boy because for one she did not like the circumstances of her marriage with his father and because he did not and will not exist.
Yet at the same time she wanted to cry. Tears gathered in her eyes and she quickly rubbed the tears away. There was no use crying over children who'd never be.
"How did my son die?"
"He never lived, my princess. The women say- They say the child was-"
[Mirri Maz Duur enters the tent]
[Monstrous, twisted. I pulled him out myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him the skin fell from his bones. Inside he was full of graveworms. I warned you that only death can pay for life. You knew the price."
"That had little to do with the witch's spell" Rhaegar spoke, perhaps to try and console his sister. "Every stillborn Targaryen child has come out like that. The magic in our blood makes the child go through those stages of development so they might turn out as viable Dragonriders. Your son did not live past that stage sadly."
Elia rolled her eyes and whacked her husband on the back of his head.
"Now is not the time for a lecture" the woman hissed, motioning to a sad Daenerys who did not look any better.
Rhaegar winced.
"Where is Khal Drogo? Show him to me. Show me what I bought with my son's life."
"As you command, lady. Come. I will take you to him."
[They leave the tent/yurt, following Mirri Maz Duur to the place where Drogo is lying.]
"It's all so empty" Shireen commented.
"The Khal's condition must not have improved then" Stannis mused, "the Dothraki do not have loyalty like we do. If their leader turns out ineffective, they will abandon him."
"That's not very good of them" the girl frowned.
"They are not very good people," the father told his daughter.
[In Dothraki, to Drogo.]
"Drogo! My sun and stars."
[In the Common Tongue, to the rest present.]
"Why is he out here alone?"
"He doesn't look alive" Brandon the younger pointed out.
"He is neither dead nor alive, while both at the same time" Varys explained loud for the boy, "a cruel trick the witch played on the poor Princess."
Daenerys felt, even if she didn't want to, her blood boil at being deceived. How dare she? And that too after Daenerys had taken her under her protection.
"He seems to like the warmth, Princess."
"He lives. You asked for life, you paid for life."
"This is not life. When will he be as he was?"
"When the sun rises in the west, sets in the east. When the seas go dry. When the mountains blow in the wind like leaves."
"Leave us."
[Daenerys and Mirri Maz Duur have a conversation alone.]
"You knew what I was buying and you knew the price."
"It was wrong of them to burn my temple. It angered the Great Shepherd."
"Angered" Varys spat. "Using her god to justify her actions. She is no better than those savages!"
"This is not God's work. My child was innocent."
"Innocent? He would have been The Stallion Who Mounts The World. Now he will burn no cities. Now his khalasar will trample no nations into dust."
"The Stallion Who Mounts The World" Tyrion snorted, "he was a child and she let prejudice and some prophecy cloud her judgement. Spoken like the illiterate cow she is."
"The prophecy could be real" Rhaegar pointed out.
"A Stallion That Mounts The World is just as likely as me becoming better fighter than my brother all of a sudden or my father accepting things that I wish for myself" Tyrion shook his head. "Prophecy is nonsense words spoken from one person to the next with nothing to base it words spoken from one person to the next with nothing to base it from."
"You would say this even after magic being so alive and prevalent? Even after the words of my ancestor Aegon I became true?" Rhaegar questioned.
"I would say both of you are correct" Jon Snow spoke.
Tyrion turned towards Jon Snow and asked "What do you mean?"