"Joffrey is scary sometimes," you blurt out. Almost immediately you regret the words, wishing you could put them in your mouth and swallow them back into the secret they once were.
Uncle Tyrion slowly turns. He waddles back toward you and tips your chin down so that you're face-to-face. His mismatched eyes are inches away from yours. For a moment you're terrified that he'll slap you across the face and call you a worthless coward bastard like Joffrey does whenever you annoy him. You flinch back slightly, bracing yourself for a vicious slap across the face and a reminder that you're a prince and that princes don't cry.
But instead, he chuckles. His breath smells like foul wine. "Aye. He's a vicious idiot and a bully. Someday he'll be your king. Then nobody can protect you from him. Not even your mother."
You're silent. You've always known that Joff will be king someday, but it had always simply lurked there like a cloud in the background. It's not until Uncle Tyrion says it out loud that you realize what it means.
"He's never really hurt me," you say quickly. And it's true. Joffrey's never followed up on his scarier threats, but that doesn't stop you from lying awake every night wondering if today will be the day he'll put raw horse innards in your soup. "Joff is my brother."
"So?" His shaggy blonde-gray beard almost succeeds in hiding his twisted grin. "Your dear mother is my sister. Does it look like she gives a shit?"
"Maybe I'll run away," you say, with as much fierceness as you can muster. This is enough to elicit a full-on laugh from your uncle.
"Run from what? Your own family? Good luck. Better just to stay here and keep an eye on your brother. When your mother and I are long gone, you just might be the only one left who can stop him." His eyes are cold and dark. For a moment you see how he sees the world. Old and bitter. Stuck helplessly in the place he hates. Forever.
"It's not fair," you say. Tears are dangerously close to leaking out, and you clench your fists and bite your lip. You won't cry because Joffrey's wrong. You're not a weakling or a coward. You're not.
"Life isn't fair. That's just the way it is." Uncle Tyrion is still smiling, lips stretched taut into a grimace that is terrifyingly despairing.
You shake your head. "Maybe I'll be like Uncle Jaime and be part of the Kingsguard. Or maybe I'll be like the Mountain and win all the tourneys and get rich. Then Joffrey won't hurt me. He's scared of the Mountain." You don't add that you're scared of the Mountain, too.
"You'd best work on your swordplay, then." The tense bitterness in Uncle Tyrion's tone dissipates. He cracks a real grin, the kind he never has around Mother or Joff. "Right now you wouldn't even scare a rat." He pokes you in the stomach. Successfully tickled, you giggle, quickly forgetting the whole conversation.
"Just watch. Someday, I'll be as big as the Hound!"