The flight of the Imp
Prologue: Tyrion
"He is a bigger man than he seems, I think."
-Garlan Tyrell
Someone had once told him that, when you are about to die, your entire life passes before your eyes. From the most important events, to the smallest joys and pains of your daily life, and all in a few seconds.
All bullshit, thought Tyrion as he fell. Whoever said that must have been a fool or simply drunk. All I can see is the sky and the rocks. And the tree on the edge of the precipice. Shame I didn't see that, though.
If only that seven-times-damned Stark woman had armed him. Tyrion wasn't a fighter, he'd never been in a real battle, but at least with some kind of weapon he could have tried to do something. He could have faced the mountain clansmen. But Catelyn Stark had not trusted him. And so he had been forced to hide somewhere, like Marillion. He'd chosen a nearby tree, one that was big enough and surrounded by bushes. He'd thought he could stay there and wait for the fight to end, whoever won.
But instead of a safe hiding place, he'd found out that the bushes and the tree were in fact already hiding something else: a precipice. He had tried to grab on to a branch, and for a brief moment he had even hoped he'd be able to survive to tell someone about this little misadventure of his. Unfortunately, a few seconds later the branch had snapped under his weight.
And so it was that he found himself falling to his death, the sounds of the battle between Catelyn Stark's party and the mountain clansmen echoing in the distance.
Tyrion sighed. Why did it have to end like this? As if his life hadn't been shitty enough. This is not how I wanted to die. He had wanted to end his days as an old man, in his own bed. With a belly full of wine and a maiden's mouth around his cock. Not in a forgotten corner of the Vale, falling from a precipice toward some ugly-looking rocks where he would undoubtedly get all of his bones broken.
Gods, what a shitty way to die...
