After careful consideration, I've arrived at two conclusions on the nature of my existence:

1. There is a God.

2. He is laughing uncontrollably.

I mean seriously, what the hell did I do to deserve this? I was a good Catholic (mostly), I went to church on Sundays (mostly), I didn't eat meat on Fridays during Lent (mostly)! Is God a Protestant or Mormon or Jewish and this is my punishment for apostasy? Is George R.R. Martin actually Satan and is this Hell? Maybe the Hindus were right and I got reincarnated in some alternate dimension? I don't fucking know.

Okay, breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. You can do this. You've handled plenty of shit before, you can handle this just fine. It's not like you were MAGICALLY PUT IN THE BODY OF A FANTASY WAR CRIMINAL OR ANYTHING.

No, I can totally handle this. Yeah, I'll be fine. I just need to keep my cool, don't let on that anything out of the ordinary is-

"Pardon, milord."

"EeeAAGH!" Jesus Christ, I'm jumpy as hell. Pull it together, dude, you can't have your own friggin' page thinking you're more psycho than Aerys. That's how all the rumors start. "Apologies..." Shit, what's his name?

Pate.

Thank you, Tywin's memories.

"Apologies, Pate. It was, er, night terrors. Couldn't get a wink of sleep, I feel a bit on edge this morning." Holy shit, I even have the English accent and all.

"The other lords are convening to discuss strategies for the siege at the command tent in an hour's turn and request your presence, milord." With that, the page curtly bowed and bolted out of the tent.

That's when I realized that neither of us been speaking English. If people say that German is a harsh-sounding language, I'd love to make them hear Andal. It sounded like someone threw Old English and Dutch in a blender, liberally mixed in some Basque, made everyone use that phlegmy kkhh sound in Hebrew, and garnished it with some loanwords from a Greek stroke victim.

I had taken Spanish classes in high school, and I was decent at it, but I was helpless in any conversation that lasted longer than two minutes. Yet here I was, conversing and kkhhing like I had been speaking this linguistic monstrosity my entire life (though technically, my body had). I didn't even need to mentally translate between the languages, I just needed to speak.

Holy shit, is this what being bilingual is like? This is awesome.

Great, that means I can keep notes in English without being snooped on. Okay, there's a stack of paper - parchment? whatever - now I just need a pen. Pen, pen, pen, pen, pen...

Quill.

Right, a quill. Quill, quill, quill, quill, quill... here! Thank God/Yahweh/Vishnu/Hong Xiuquan/whoever's up there that Tywin is such a neat freak.

Okay, time to start taking some notes:

Things I need to invent so life here sucks less:

- Jethro Tull's seed drill. Little plow makes divot in dirt, spinny thing deposits seed, gets covered up at the back. Powered by movement of wheels, pulled by an ox.

- Crop rotation. Four crops, rotated every year: wheat, barley, turnips, clover(?). See if peanuts exist.

- Make the Westerlands more self-sufficient (or less reliant on outside imports). Make local farming viable. Tariffs on Reach grain. Stop Essosi mercantilism, start producing manufactured goods locally. Cotton manufacturing (cotton gin: box + spiky wheel = profit). Buy & free skilled slaves from Free Cities to set up own industry?

- Printing press. Probably repurpose wine presses, just need movable type. Basic literacy for smallfolk = propaganda.

- Concrete. Two parts water, one part sand, one part gravel, one part quicklime(?). Check with a maester to see if something similar exists and how common it is. Valyrians probably already did it.

- HYGIENE. Regular hand-washing, soaps, bathing at least twice a week, don't shit where you sleep, sanitary food preparation. Commission microscopes from Myr, introduce basic germ theory to the Citadel. Dysentery sucks.

- Banking. Investors pool money (or just have Lannisters fund it), give out loans WITH GUARANTEES OF COLLATERAL. Fractional reserves. Don't step on the Iron Bank's toes. Don't loan to the Crown or Lords Paramount (directly, at least). Faceless Men assassinations suck.

- Begin gearing up for war. The Westerlands don't have a martial tradition? Create one. Pike squares, gunpowder (too risky?), volunteer standing army (pull trainers from Goldcloaks/sellswords?), conscription and reserves. I want to turn this country into Prussia, or at least Switzerland.

- Faster communication. Towers communicating by semaphore/morse code? along shoreline - warn about ironborn attack.

- Win the smallfolk. Basic declaration of human rights. Abolish corvee labor - institute sharecropping? Worked in that one fic. I have a demesne, I can trial-and-error this.

Things I need to do to keep the peace:

- Get in on the He-lord Aerys-hater's club. Only Steffon Baratheon and Jon Arryn are ruling, the rest of the 'older' LPs (Rickard, Mace, Doran, Hoster, me) aren't in power yet. Start reaching out now?

- Get advantageous marriages for me & brothers. Rickard Stark's sister Branda(?), Alerie Hightower (probably still a kid), Mace Tyrell has (will have?) younger sisters.

- Marriages for my kids. Assume canon arrangements are occupied. That leaves Elbert Arryn, Stannis & Renly, Ned and/or Benjen Stark, Lysa & Edmure Tully, and Oberyn Martell. Anyone younger's probably gonna be butterflied away.

- The Frey issue. Cull when prudent. Get Genna out of the marriage to Emmon (pray to God she hasn't had kids yet), remarry to someone who's useful.

- CONTAIN AERYS. Pros of becoming Hand: can rein in his craziness, closer eye on him, marriage contract with kids who I can get far, far away from him, can encourage midwives to wash hands and minimize stillbirths. Cons of becoming Hand: I'm babysitting an incestuous murderous paranoid pyromaniac with delusions of grandeur, he might decide to make my sons join the Kingsguard, I might kickstart the rebellion early by saying the wrong thing.

- Form a power bloc with like-minded lords (and not just asskissers trying to get on my good side). Is 'the young lions' too on-the-nose?

- White Walkers first appear ~298 AC. That gives me 40 years (give or take 5) before I have to start sending armies north. Send engineers to start refurbishing NW castles?

- Pray to every god there is that my inevitable kids aren't incestuous freaks.

- Gregor Cleagane. Pros: strong, tall as fuck, skilled, obedient soldier. Cons: prone to violence and excessive cruelty when unsupervised. Get him under my wing ASAP, use him sparingly.

- Contain the Ironborn. Support Quellon, try and eliminate Balon. Victarion is conservative, but malleable- see about having him as a ward. Don't bother to contain Euron, just kill him.

- PEOPLE TO WATCH OUT FOR: Varys (convince my interest = realm interest), Olenna (befriend, convince I'm not hostile toward the Reach, acknowledge her son's idiocy), Baelish (KILL ON SIGHT - HE WILL FUCK EVERYTHING UP), Doran (do NOT cross him), Euron Greyjoy (see above), Ramsay Bolton (wait until Domeric is born first), Qyburn (Beria + Mengele + Mr. Rogers - useful ally, but need to minimize his influence over others)

Feeling satisfied, I put the quill down, gave the parchment a minute to dry, and got dressing. I was just happy that Tywin felt autonomous enough to not have servants dress him in the field. I mean, it's not like I'm going to battle or anything now, right?

Daaayum, Tywin has good taste. Myrish silk smallclothes, custom-fit leather boots, and a velvet doublet with gold threading? I could get used to wearing this.

Now, Pate said something about a siege. Siege, siege, siege, siege, siege...

Memories came rushing into my mind, memories that made my blood boil at the mere suggestion that the events they describe happened. Raising the bannermen behind father's back. The meeting with some of the like-minded lords. The plume of ash and dust that rose into the sky as Tarbeck Hall's roof came down. Lord Roger's army, routed, fleeing in panic to their home. To Castamere.

I scrambled over to my parchment and added one last bullet point.

- FUCK THE REYNES.

"Ah, Lord Tywin!" Lord Westerling added some fake cheer to his voice as I strolled into the command tent. "One of Lord Reyne's pages came up and offered terms. We were waiting for you to arrive before we looked at them." He gestured to the scroll on the table, its red wax seal unbroken.

I immediately picked it up, broke it, and scanned the contents, promptly before bursting out into laughter. The other lords were taken aback for a moment, which I was okay with. What's the point in having underlings if you can't keep them on their toes every now and then?

Eventually, the laughter fit subsided, I wiped a tear from my eye, set the parchment on the table, and reverted my face to stone cold seriousness. "Alright, my lords, very funny. Where are the real terms that Lord Reyne sent?"

"My lord," Lord Marbrand gulped nervously, "those are the terms Lord Reyne sent, I saw the page bring them myself!"

"Then that leaves me with two possibilities." I stated, "Either Lord Roger's wound has made him more delirious than we thought, or he thought us stupid enough to return his lands and make us his hostages when we have the upper hand."

Lord Plumm tried to interject, "Lord Tywin, shall we send-"

I held up my hand. "There will be no counter-offer. If Lord Reyne mocks us with his terms, then we shall not dignify him with a response." At last, I turned to the table. "Shall we begin our strategy?"

Upon the war table sat a large parchment map showing the layout of Castamere and the surrounding land. A bunch of wooden red pegs were stacked over several buildings (with the largest over squares labeled 'gatehouse' and 'low keep', while scores of gold, purple, white, and orange pegs surrounded the line denoting the castle walls.

I took a deep breath, knowing that what I was going to say next would be very long. "The north side of Castamere is against the slope of the mountain, so that makes an assault from that direction fundamentally impossible. The south wall features its main gate, but the Reynes have almost certainly placed the majority of their above-ground men there. The eastern side has the high keep, but the terrain makes it difficult for our siege engines to function properly and will give them time to mount a stronger defense. Therefore, the only viable strategy..." I shifted several pegs shaped like miniature catapults "Is to concentrate all our siege engines on the western walls. We create multiple small breaches, send in our forces, and sweep away whichever forces survived Tarbeck Hall."

"But what of the mines? They probably have provisions for months down there!" Lord Westerling asked again, clearly trying to ingratiate himself with me before I can fully exercise power against him. This guy's probably Gawen's father; dude's clearly too old to be the Lord of the Crag by 298.

"I'm aware that they can take shelter in their mines, it's what I hope they do, in fact. They say the doors of Castamere are six inches of ironwood covered with another inch of steel, that Lann the Clever himself planted the trees they used to make it, that it can't be burnt, broken, or hacked open. But you know what they never call it?"

I place my finger on a blob of blue ink labeled 'the Reynewater'.

"Watertight."