The Rabbit
Tywin Lannister sat across his desk from his most hated son and took a sip of his wine. They had been sitting in his office, a chamber off of the audience hall of Casterly Rock, and staring at each other in anger. Tywin knew the source of his own rage, over the last three weeks forty of his men had been assassinated in horrific and brutal ways.
Tyrion's anger was even easier to pin down.
The Lord of Casterly Rock knew that his son hated him with a passion he had never seen in anyone else. The boy was still smarting from the abject lesson he'd had to teach him only half a year ago. And it was for that lesson that he knew that Tyrion was to blame for the deaths of his men.
Each of the men tortured and murdered had been one of the number that took the dwarf's whore in the courtyard. Even the Mountain that Rides counted amongst the dead, as impossible as that seemed. Now, all Tywin wanted to know was, "How?"
Tyrion, who for anyone else would have said something clever, only replied, "A Lannister always pays his debts."
"There was no debt," Tywin growls, a low sound that for twenty years had cowed any man or woman foolish enough to cross him.
"To me there was a fortune," Tyrion disagrees, "One you had your men take. A debt was owed."
"She was a whore," Tywin spits, disgusted.
Tyrion's eyes narrow, that seething hatred boiling into them with such fine control that Tywin, for all his faults, knew that the dwarf was more his son than Jamie. It was something he would never admit, neve acknowledge, but he knew in his soul that there was more of him in Tyrion than anyone else he could have sired. The dwarf had his intellect, his drive, and his deep capacity to hold grudges.
"She was my wife," the little lion tells him, "A common girl no longer, and never a whore."
"Your brother told you-"
"Jamie has already told me that he lied," Tyrion cuts his father off.
None had ever dared do that before, and for a second Tywin was speechless. He blinked twice down at the Imp, as so many called the wretched creature, and his own eyes narrowed in return, "You will tell me how you killed forty of my best men."
"I do what Lannisters do," Tyrion tells him, "I hired the best."
Tywin raises an eyebrow, and thinks on what his son might mean with that. He had been having the servants report on his son's movement, and aside from a single Braavosii sellsword that had been bought and then dismissed just as quickly, Tyrion had hired no-
A Braavossi sellsword.
"You sent a man to the House of Black and White?" Tywin could scarcely believe that his son would do so. Tywin had always believed in getting his own men to do the dirty work, it inspired fear in enemies and demanded respect in allies. The House of Black and White was little more than a myth to most in Westeros, but Tywin knew better.
When one dealt with the Iron Bank as closely as he did, one learned all they could about the city they were dealing with and the organizations within. The famed house of assassins had stood since the dawn of Braavos, and helped ensure its continued existence by ending more assaults on its gates than had ever been contemplated.
To court them, was to court death, it was said.
"What did you offer them?" Tywin demands
"Gold, at first," Tyrion tells him, "And when they said no, I had my man tell them my reasons. They agreed to do it for free."
"Your reasons? And what possible reason could you have for having forty good men killed?" Tywin demands. Sure, they had been monsters, and louts, and sometimes even cowards, but they were good at killing, and that was all that mattered.
"You and I have very different definitions of what good is, father," Tyrion tells him, then slides off his chair to leave the office.
Tywin launches to his feet, "I did not give you lea-"
There is a lurch in the world and Tywin has to catch himself on his desk, blinking away the dark spots in his eyes. He looks down, and his eyes catch his wine, they widen when he sees that Tyrion's own goblet had remained unsipped, "You didn't?"
"I did," Tyrion tells him, "You didn't think I'd stop without finishing the set, did you?"
When word of Tywin Lannister's death spread, it was said that he had been poisoned by remnants of the Reynes. It was a lie, one that most believed, but there were some who doubted. It was no secret that Tywin and his son Tyrion had hated each other, and more fervently in the last months of the former Warden of the West's life. It became, after a few years, something of an open if unproven secret that Tyrion Lannister had his father and forty men killed for the desecration of his wife.
The new Lord of Casterly Rock, for that was what Tyrion became through the line of succession, with his elder brother a Kingsguard and his sister the Queen, wasted little time and secured his place as Lord of the Westerlands. He did it with kinder words and subtler threats than his late father ever could. The Queen had tried to make a fuss about giving the Imp Casterly Rock, and about him killing their father, but King Robert cared less for her and her words the longer she spent with her and Jon Arryn advised on securing the Westerlands with a clear Warden of the West.
As a result, the "Reynes of Castamere" were not the only songs that inspired fear of the Lannisters. Joining the famous ballad was "The Rabbit," which acted more in euphemism than anything else, was fun for children and chilling for adults.