It really, really wasn't fair.
But, of course, since when had his life ever been fair?
He wasn't destined for happiness; a twisted, bitter little man like him didn't deserve such things, he'd been told it before.
Since a young age, his siblings - with the exception of perhaps his brother Jaime, when he wasn't too busy taking their sister's side - had treated him with nothing but derision, aided by their father. He was the source of the family's shame, the very reason his mother had died. Tywin would never forgive him for that, he knew. It wasn't only the fact that he was a dwarf; no, that was only the icing on the cake.
When he was four, and should have been far too young to know what pain and suffering was, his sister Cersei had pushed him forcefully down the stairs leading to the wine cellar. She was barely more than a girl herself, but someone with a stature as small as Tyrion's was easily toppled by even she, and as he bounced painfully and unceremoniously down the stone steps, the small curly-haired blond boy with the stunted legs couldn't help but wonder why she hated him so.
He landed in a small heap at the bottom, body aching, and he felt the stinging of tears behind his eyes. But no, he wouldn't cry; he was a Lannister, and to cry would be unacceptable. (Nevermind that Tyrion was four.)
The steps were long, or at least they seemed so to such a small boy, and at the top of them stood Cersei, looking for all the world like a proud little queen even at her young age. She'd mastered the art of the regal scowl, arching an eyebrow high as she frowned down at the little misshapen brother she wished had never been born. Tyrion shivered both with the cold of the cellar and with a slight twinge of fear.
Those famous green Lannister eyes - of which he only had one hidden under a mop of curls, the other eye mismatched and a deep shade of black - glared back at him; in a flash of blonde hair she was gone, the heavy door falling into place behind her, and he was cast into darkness.
He kicked at the door and screamed until his little legs ached and his throat was raw and sore, but Cersei's laughter only mocked him as his knees buckled and he fell, swiping at his tear-filled eyes with short little arms clad in the Lannister colors of red and gold.
It was a while until he finally fell silent, little whimpers dwindling down to silence in the dark as a very young Tyrion drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them, the iron door hard against his spine and cold even through his clothes.
It wasn't until much later that day that the cellar door creaked open to free him, and there was Tywin, looking down at his youngest child with disappointment burning in his green eyes.
Tyrion wondered what it would have been like to have a mother.
It had seemed that, as Tyrion grew older and his personality more sarcastic, his fortune became better and better. He escaped his family's notice, something he considered himself lucky for. Nobody really noticed when he smuggled goat shit into his uncle's boots, and they even took his word for it when he blamed the entire incident on the squire. Yes, he really was lucky, Tyrion thought - well, as lucky as a dwarf could be.
Sometimes, though, he thought of becoming more, and how as Tywin's son he ought to become heir and Lord of Casterly Rock one day, too. But his lordly father had scorned him, slapping the teenaged boy across the face for even daring to think of being something more than just a misshapen dwarf.
He gave up on earning his father's love then. No, no, he corrected himself - he gave up on earning the love of his family.
He'd thought of finding romantic love once, too, before that fantasy had been cruelly and rudely ripped away from him. Nobody could ever love him, romantically or otherwise, he realized, and drank himself into a stupor that night, Tysha gone, his bed cold and his trust betrayed; his lips still tingled from the way that she had kissed him.
Sometimes, he blamed himself for the way Joffrey turned out; until he realized that the fault didn't lie with him, not truly. There was only so much the boy's uncle could do to set him on the right line. No, the true blame lay with Cersei, and perhaps even Jaime to some extent. But, he reasoned, Tommen and Myrcella were their children too, and they were alright - kind and caring and everything that Joffrey was not. He took a sip of his wine, and decided it didn't matter whose fault it was; the boy king was still nothing more than a monster.
Some nights, lost amongst bottles and bottles of wine, he thought about Tysha, and even about Shae. Those were the nights he drank the most, he found, tipping back glass after glass until his consciousness went dim and his thoughts finally went numb.
Some nights, although not always the same nights that he overindulged on the dark maroon liquid that practically ran through his veins, he even dreamed about Tysha, the love he had once had. Yet, every time he drew close to her form, she faded, the tips of her chestnut brown hair seemingly slipping through his very fingers as he reached for her, and then she was gone.
It wasn't fair that he should be forced into marriage, and even less fair that Sansa Stark should be forced into marriage alongside him. Nobody had ever wanted to marry him - except Tysha, and look where that marriage had gotten the both of them - and nobody ever would want to marry him.
But there was no going against Tywin's orders, as much as Tyrion might have wished to, both for his sake and the Stark girl's, or there were very much worse fates that could await.
So he was going to have to marry her, he was going to have to force a poor innocent girl - barely more than a child! - into a loveless marriage with him, an ugly monster and a Lannister. And he hated himself for it.
So Tyrion drank.
He swirled the wine in his faceted glass goblet, watching the near blood-red droplets splash high along the rim, before taking a sip. Perhaps his sorrows wouldn't seem so severe after a glass or two, Tyrion thought bitterly as he took a second sip, feeling the liquid wash over his tongue. As drunk as he could get, it didn't matter.
It wasn't as if he could become any more of a family disappointment.