Hi ! This was supposed to be a very short story for a personnal challenge, but I guess it's going to be a bit longer (though I guess it's going to be shorter than 10 000 words). The challenge was to write seven original deaths for Tywin Lannister; here is the first one, The Black Lion, in which Tywin joined the Night's Watch after being defeated under the walls of Castamere.
For those who followed Tywin's ward, I WILL finish the fic. I have been awefully occupied by my studies and still am, but I'm determined to finish it, especially since I've sorted a lot of personnal issues. I hope to deliver the end of the first arc for the beginning of the year.
A final note regarding Tywin Lannister as a character: I will not use datas from A World of Ice and Fire (since the book wasn't written by GRR Martin) and do not use datas that are not in the novels unless I like them. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that those datas tend to show up after I fill the gap (ex: Tywin's mother, who basically started to exist one month after I spent hours searching for her; well too bad, I'm not going to change everything for datas showing up from gods know where). Since the diverging point of the Black Lion is quite far away, it won't be much of an issue here, but it may be for further fics.
That being said, I wish you a pleasant read. As usual feel free to point out mistakes, review if you want, don't if you don't, and a happy Xmas to all!
EDIT : So apparently FFnet ate my horizontal lines. Well well.
Tywin Lannister was eighteen years old when he joined the Night's Watch, but he felt old, older than the Wall, and colder too.
My father is dead. My brothers are dead. I should be dead.
But he wasn't. He had failed Tygett first. The boy had wanted to squire for his elder, to be there when Tywin would bring the Tarbecks and Reynes down. But the battle had been lost, despite the unyielding trust gleaming in the boy's eyes; he, the golden son, the hope of his house, the ultimately disappointing Tywin Lannister had seen Tygett bleed to death from a severed arm.
They said his father had cried, cried so hard when he heard his twelve years old boy. The old toothless lion had wanted to surrender, his castle for his son, stupid, idiotic Tywin who was rotting in a cell, only Kevan hadn't let him. Not yet a knight, not even fifteen, the boy had foolishly led what men remained to their death under the walls of the Rock. The Lord of Castamere had laughed when he told Tywin: He was fighting for you. This is what you did to them. The sound echoed in Tywin's nightmares years after his defeat. He had fought to stop these people from cackling at his family, but still they laughed, and after some time in his cell, Tywin finally understood the truth: he couldn't do anything. His had been a lost battle from the start. His family –he – would forever be the laughing stock of Westeros.
They said his father hadn't cried for Kevan. No; his heart failed him, the doors were opened, the Rock despoiled for the first time in a thousand years.
And now here he was, standing in Castle Black, shivering in the cold. It felt good. Perhaps Tywin could freeze his shame in ice and snow. Perhaps the North could freeze the memory of himself sinking to his knees in front of Lord Roger Reyne, or how relieved he had been to be given a choice: to take the black or to be slaughtered with whatever remained of his family.
Gerion sniffed. The boy was probably the youngest man to swear his way into the Night's Watch since Aegon's conquest. Tywin squeezed his shoulder softly, accepting his brother's weakness: he was responsible for Gerion's endless sobs, and there was no need to be strong anymore. He had gone as far as to hold him in strong embraces when the boy woke up from some bad dream or another, when the dark allowed them to do so in peace. Never by day, never: they would laugh, those who walked North with them, and Tywin couldn't bear the sound.
The Lannisters were finished.
Tywin Lannister was fifty-six when he met King Rhaegar for the first time, in the great hall of Winterfell.
The feast was bound to be a strained affair. Ned Stark had bent the knee after the Rebellion some fifteen years ago, yet the wounds were still fresh. Tywin was inclined to sympathize with Stark rather than with the silver-haired king: Rhaegar owned his victory to the Lord of Castamere, and while loyalty to the king was a given, Rhaegar himself had caused the rebellion by running away with Lyanna Stark. What kind of crown prince was a man who destroyed the peace for the sake of a pair of…
"Why have I been summoned?" Tywin whispered to Lord Stark as they settled at the high table. As the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, he would sit left of Ned Stark, a great honor considering the sheer number of noblemen Rhaegar had brought north. Thinking of Stark's beloved sister breasts when he was sitting by him felt gross, even if Stark couldn't read his thoughts.
You've feasted with too many wildlings, Tywin. You're dining south of the Wall today, and you'll be entertaining rotting flowers, not half-beasts.
Sometimes he even forgot he had been one of those flowers. Once. A very long time ago.
"The King never paid interest to us. If it wasn't for Winterfell, my men would number less than the Queen's chambermaids."
Ned Stark gave him a crisp smile. They weren't friend, but they shared many things. Stark disdained the South, didn't think much of the king, believed the threats behind the Wall were real and liked to do the dirty work himself.
"The King didn't say. Curiosity, perhaps."
I don't want his curiosity. I need men, iron and timber.
Instead, Tywin offered clumsy condolences for the death of Jon Arryn. He wasn't good for this kind of niceties, never had been. Most people thought he was being a hypocrite and didn't care, which was true most of the time. He just couldn't fake.
"I know he was dear to you."
Ned Stark only nodded, as the King and Queen were announced.
The King was a handsome, sad looking man. His hair was a silver mane braided with black and red ribbons under a crown of gold and black diamonds, his eyes a striking purple. He was the very likeness of Prince Aerys, or least the older Aerys Tywin who sometimes haunted Tywin's dreams: Rhaegar's father had been half a boy when Tywin had seen him last. Even more striking was Rhaegar's queen. Lady Cersei Goldfyre was his half-sister, the daughter of Aerys and his favourite, Lady Joanna Lannister. Rhaegar resembled his father, but Cersei was Joanna made flesh.
Tywin swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth. He had loved Joanna once, long before Aerys could grant the girl her copper crown, and this Cersei girl was… no. She and her husband, the both of them brought back memories of the boy he once was. I shall take no wife. I shall have no children. She could never have been mine. Thinking of the past, of the South made him nervous. It felt like calling back the darkness of the cell, the…
Stop. Keep your thoughts north of the Wall. You are the sword in the darkness, you do not fear the shadows.
Rhaegar sat at Ned Stark's right, taking the most honored seat at the high table. Empty talks followed, speeches so boring Tywin whished he was back at the Wall. It was harder for him to remember his youth when he was with his brothers, even with Gerion. Gerion had been six years old they left for Castle Black: he recalled absolutely nothing from his old life and never asked. Being there turned him back to a nervous, scared lad all over again. He couldn't allow it. Not after all he had done to prove himself he was still able to function.
"Lord Commander," Rhaegar finally addressed him, a good two hours after the beginning of the feast. "I heard you were a friend to my father."
"I was, your Grace," Tywin answered, polite but cold. He didn't want the King to ask about Aerys, or Rhaella, or anything that wasn't Night's Watch material. "But I left a long time ago. You weren't even born yet."
"He told me once he regretted your… departure. He had hoped to make you his Hand. A rare sign of friendship and trust."
My departure? My defeat, you mean. And neither his friendship nor his trust changed anything in the end.
"I would not know, your Grace."
Again, Tywin was polite but sour. Yet the King didn't catch the implicit message, unless he just choose to ignore it. Kings, after all, could ignore anything that wasn't as dire as an armed rebellion.
"My father's madness caused the rebellion that shook our beloved Seven Kingdom," Rhaegar started. Tywin drowned his frown in his wine, while Ned Stark's jaw clenched so hard Tywin was surprised he didn't break a tooth or two. Aerys had been mad, yes, but his son was hardly better. "Yet he was bright in his youth, and renowned for his wisdom. I have lost Jon Arryn, who was a most able Hand. I would have you in King's Landing to replace him, Lord Commander."
Silence. Tywin felt his bowel grow cold, colder even than the Wall.
Please. Please do not make me go south again. I was a boy then.
"Your Grace, it is a great honor, but…"
Rhaegar threw him a warning glance. Obviously, the King wasn't used to people refusing him, especially in front of a room that had suddenly turned silent. Tywin, however, didn't fear the King: he was the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and the very idea of keeping him away from the Wall was ludicrous.
"I vowed to guard the Wall, and I shall not stop until my death."
"I respect your vow, but the Night's Watch obeys the King. I came North to make this proposal, and I intend to go South with a new Hand. You shall come to my solar tonight. We will talk, and I will tell you what I will expect of you."
The solar was Ned Stark's, and Rhaegar looked like a stranger behind the oak desk. Tywin wanted nothing more than to refuse him. He had sworn never to go south again when he had been driven away from home. The men of the Night's Watch were his brothers, his followers, ultimately his protectors, and there was nothing north of the Wall he feared like he feared the South, nothing the wildling could do to him that was worse than… nothing.
"Jon Arryn was murdered," Rhaegar told him gravely. "By whom I do not know. I need someone I can trust, someone who isn't involved at court."
"Then name Lord Stark, Your Grace. If there ever was a man who doesn't…"
Rhaegar cut him short.
"Stark was Robert's thing. He still hates me for what happened to his sister. Do you think I do not know what they say of me, here in the North? Do you think I don't remember what dreadful losses my foolishness caused?"
He shook his head. A King couldn't be weak, couldn't doubt, couldn't show guilt, just like Tywin himself hadn't allowed himself to be weak until all was these few seconds of unguarded guilt were only this: an instant, short and soon gone.
"I need someone new. If you are half the man you were forty years ago, you will be exactly what King's Landing need. I do not need you to stay long. Go South, clear my court of the snakes that linger here and I will allow you to go back to your beloved Wall. In the meantime… think. There is much you can do at court for the Watch. Go South with me, Tywin Lannister, Lord-Commander of the Watch, and I will give you everything you ask."
But I am not that man, your Grace, Tywin wanted to scream. And the snakes of your court are what broke me. I'll be powerless against them.
He didn't scream.
Kings never took no for an answer.