"My Lady, have you decided to accept the offer from the Greyjoys?"

"Indeed I have," replied Danaerys Targaryen, tucking a stray lock of white-blond hair behind her ear. "Yara Greyjoy seems capable, and her younger brother quite harmless."

Tyrion grunted in reply. It was true, Yara Greyjoy seemed to be an effective leader - very put together and self-assured. Moreover, she was a woman, and she had gotten her sailors to choose her over her uncle. One half of the female leaders he knew were good at their job, a fraction much higher than that of competent male leaders, so he could trust in Yara Greyjoy.

But her brother Theon was a different matter. Yes, he had been castrated and generally had gone through quite a transformation, but Tyrion could not shake off his contempt for the boy who jeered at him in Winterfell so many years ago. The boy who turned his back on the noble family that raised him with love. The boy who betrayed them by slaughtering their two youngest children, one of them a cripple. Tyrion remembered the special saddle he had designed for Brandon Stark. He wondered if the boy had ever been able to use it before his death.

"My Lady, do you know anything about House Stark?"

She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, her eyes flashing.

"The Usurpers," she hissed. "They helped kill my father."

Tyrion sighed. His Lady really did need to get a grasp on the current political situation in Westeros. Come to think of it, Tyrion himself had been absent for so long that he needed an update. Perhaps he could ask the Greyjoys…that is, Yara Greyjoy. But for now, he had to fill his Lady in.

"Well you may have heard that Ned – the main Usurper, to you – was dead. Killed by my family, in fact," he started. "His daughters were left in King's Landing, his eldest son and wife waging a war of vengeance on the Lannisters. His two youngest, one a cripple and one a toddler, were the only ones left at their castle in the north."

Danaerys Targaryen let out an impatient sigh.

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

"Because Theon Greyjoy was raised by the Starks," he replied. Taking in her startled expression, he kept on. "Raised in a loving family as one of their own. But what did he do to them in return? Abandoned the eldest son's military campaign, reclaimed the castle of Winterfell, and slaughtered the two little boys," he spat.

Her face was pensive throughout his speech, her eyes hardened. She sat still for a moment, but finally spoke.

"You mean to say," she began, "that if he so easily betrayed a family that treated him with love and respect, how do we know if he is loyal to us?" she finished her thought, phrasing it as a statement rather than a question. She sat down, her mind spinning.

After a minute or so, she stood up again.

"I can trust Yara Greyjoy," she stated at last. "But I will keep an eye on Theon. Oh, and Tyrion?"

"Yes, my Lady?"

"Thank you for your counsel."