ii.
The call to retrieve the Hand of the King came in the hours just before dawn.
As he hurried to dress, Lord Tywin carried a firm suspicion regarding the reasons for such rush and panic. He knew from experience that this type of missive came only with imminent death; his experience also determined that this most recent alarm was for the benefit of either a mother or a babe - or both.
Queen Sansa was not alone in her chamber when the Hand arrived; the King and Queen Regent had been notified as he had been - yet their locations had been closer. He entered in time to hear Joffrey ruthlessly slight his wife.
"It's a wonder I allow you in my bed to begin with! Northern blood will always be cold and weak." He leered at her pale, prone form and sneered, "Like the rest of you."
The Queen laid there, her head turned from them, her muscles completely still. For what she had gone through, losing a babe at almost five moons into her pregnancy, there were no tears either. Just an eerie quiet and her throat working to swallow while the King tore through her with his words.
The old lion said nothing. Instead he observed his daughter and her son bandy the dignity and negligible value of the Queen between them; much like they were animals, scraping and gnawing at her self-respect for the prospect of seeing her bleeding and wounded. The two knew better than to seek to include him in their banter. After all, it would have meant less opportunity to hear themselves speak.
With courage plucked from the air around her, Queen Sansa finally turned her head toward those in the room; Tywin ground his teeth as the means to express his disappointment.
Her eyes remained drawn to the bed linen, but did not impede the view of the side of her face, the side that had been turned away from him prior. From her temple to her jaw were overlapping blots of red and bruising; the loose end of her gown's sleeve that had pushed up to her forearm as she shifted uncovered the telltale burn of rope.
The Queen's wounds sat raw and open to the air, and still there was no lull in the torrents of vitriol.
Tywin would scarcely have to guess how far and where those injuries traveled on her body for the Queen to have ended up here and now. The King's penchant for sadistic brutality was no secret, and if he had the time and the means to inflict that cruelty on two beings instead of only one... it would be a temptation far too substantial to overlook.
Admittedly, half a year ago her injuries would have been no different, save a babe, and half a year ago he could not have cared less one way or the other if the treatment of her allowed life or proved fatal. As it was, the fact now stood that Queen Sansa was far more a central cog in the mechanics of his manipulated regency than merely a shear pin - overlooked and disposable.
Unfeigned blue eyes skittered to resolute green, reading right into him; directly through him, maybe.
The instant they met, Tywin felt a mass of emotions collide: anger that she might open her mouth and damn them both, annoyance that she might think to employ some ill-pondered wish for him to commiserate the loss of the babe, but the most prominent of them all was a sickly pang of anxiousness.
A bloody foolish concern is what it is, he thought. Foolishness that he may read on her face some dulled resignation that she would have to meet him again; would have to endure his intimacy again.
The Great Lion abruptly left the room. As he did so, he retained two certainties. The first was that there would be another attempt for an heir; it was irrefutable, and he knew the Queen herself would deduce as much. The second was that there no sign of resignation in her features. However, what was there was distressing all the same.
The Queen had proffered the Hand a look of worry.
Lord Tywin knew well the intricacy of man's condition, he knew how to interpret slight nods and subtle glints…
He winced in recognition.
Her worry was for him, not of him, and it rendered him stricken.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Queen had no need of a note the second time she was to approach the Hand of the King. It was he who sent for her on their appointed evening. More precisely, it was Ser Kevan who led Queen Sansa cautiously, silently, in the dead of night to an oft ignored tower edging the furthest corner on the southwest side of the Red Keep.
Lord Tywin's brother was the essence of every Lannister Sansa found herself surrounded by - shrouded in an air of authority and arrogance - only, he was not so conceited as to be drowning in those attributes. He was the only one to smile in a genuine way, not something forced or displayed for her favour or as an offer of pity. And when compared to the older of the brothers, Sansa knew to take the younger's absence of pretense to heart.
She trusted him with their secret.
The higher they climbed, the more Sansa clung to the arm of Ser Kevan. She had heard tell stories of towers, more than enough involving the name Stark, and none ended favourably.
Their halt ended her worries.
Ser Kevan leaning away, opening a door to a dark passageway began them anew.
"It's alright, Your Grace. He's waiting," Ser Kevan said in a low tone, gently shepherding her toward the soft glow of light at the end the inky corridor.
A subtle thump of wood told her Ser Kevan had closed the door behind her; it also told her she was now alone on her cursory journey into the meager room.
Lord Tywin stood in the fringe of light cast from a solitary lamp set upon the mantle of an unlit hearth. The illumination struggled to blanket the room and its contents. Though sparse - a table, solitary chair, and a bed - each became sizable in that trick of light. But the surprise was Lord Tywin, who wore a posture and demeanour remarkably subdued - pensive perhaps. Even as he watched her enter and approach, the lion had an easy look about him; his doublet laid on the small table as he presented himself in breeches, boots and an untucked tunic.
Such a tiny detail, his being informal, but it was everything to her.
Until he spoke.
Gesturing to the bed, fitted tight into the corner of the room, the voice that greeted her felt of nothing short of contempt.
"You'll find this contraption a little more conducive to our needs than a grove and a handful of tree bark."
Sansa looked to the bed, then back to Lord Tywin - his overall disposition had not changed despite quarrel in his words - and she couldn't help but wonder if this was an attempt at levity. It would make sense that his humour would be deprecating and his manner unmoving - how absurd, she thought.
Without malice, Sansa huffed out a quick nervous laugh and was rewarded with an odd little incline of his head as though to say her reaction was correct.
Humour in the shadow of scrutiny. How absurd, indeed.
She managed a small, lopsided grin as she felt herself relax some; the lion didn't seem to mind, so she made the effort to keep it.
Without word or indication of intent, Lord Tywin closed the distance between them. His green eyes glittered as they flicked and searched her face, from her eyes to her lips and back again. When his mouth seemed to lower, Sansa's breath caught, but it was the whole of him that was sinking. Before she could discern his motives, she felt the air in the room touch her under her gown.
Lord Tywin rose, Sansa's eyes stayed fixed, and with him, in one hand, were the long skirts impeding his goal.
The room felt hot, though there was no fire in the hearth; her gown felt too small, though it was cut to fit.
Sansa had never experienced this kind of tingling anticipation and wondered if it was a condition Lord Tywin was somehow permitting. Yet as she watched him bring the fingers of his free hand to his mouth and run the tips over his tongue - wetting them - she conceded with a jolt of that same raw thrill that the man was but a catalyst, and the cause was her own need clawing its way to the surface, making itself known.
He touched her slit and her mouth fell open; whatever howl that should have emitted was mute and caused him to smirk. But his ego fell completely away when he ran his fingers down her cleft to find her wet and ready.
Groaning at her, Tywin cupped his hand on her mound and used that leverage to shuffle her backward to the bed.
"Lay back."
His voice was gravel, and his mind was a fickle thing, all he wanted was to be inside her.
Sansa took her time lying down, as if she was aiming for some measure of comfort the straw pallet and furs didn't already provide.
The delay was to Tywin's advantage; affording him time to unlace his breeches and stroke his cock as he readied.
"Lift your skirts, Your Grace."
His voice was no longer his own, full of want and hunger as it was.
Eyes pointed solely to the ceiling, the Queen slowly raised her skirts to swathe about her waist; a scene more beautifully lewd than Tywin had bore witness to in more years than the girl had been alive.
His cock ached.
Tywin crawled over her, he had to feel her, and laid his prick lengthwise, moaning as he settled into her groove. Rocking steadily through her slick wet, over her hard little bump, the lion was oblivious to everything save his own fervor - even the suffering of others.
Retreat from a familiar pain or speak to ensure a new pleasure. Simple decisions to some were enigmas to the Queen. Sansa recalled a time when asking for something self-gratifying was easy, tokens of happiness from a time when she was surrounded by smiles, a time when love was prominent. But those memories were never a frame for reference now. No. In her reality she knows that requesting betterment of any kind only prolongs the hurt or encourages new forms of it.
Sansa went away inside herself then, and so genuinely disappointed was she in that feeling less pain required her to feel nothing at all, she could not stop the short-lived tears that fell quickly down her temples.
Tywin was adrift in his pleasure; eyes closed, groaning at the feel of his cock against her. He failed to notice the strained grimace on his Queen's face that had become more prominent with every movement he made, nor the burst of tears as her awareness coasted someplace distant. He opened his eyes expecting to see the same slumbering fulfillment he had witnessed in the godswood, instead he found a girl with her head turned away from him in something akin to disgust.
His arousal began to drain, softening him. When he shifted atop her trying to retain it, his burden was to observe her flinch.
"Does it hurt?"
The question was genuine, yet he looked on as the girl beneath him slipped away leaving nothing but a shell. Admittedly he had never been known for soft words, and just now his tone was gruff though not all that severe, but it came out very much like a taunt... Whatever the cause and effect, it did not matter. Not now. Tywin could not understand her reaction, and that cluttered his patience to the point of anger.
"Say something," he snarled aggressively.
"I like it, Your Majesty."
Her voice that of the dead, her words addressed another man entirely - one the who sought only to destroy her.
Lord Tywin felt the skin prickle on the back of his neck.
...he only finds his pleasure when I scream…
With absolutely no finesse, the old lion scrambled off the girl and subsequently from the bed.
She lay there, staring off to somewhere not remotely in the room. The only proof of life were her fingers making tiny clawing motions into the linens.
Whatever her distress, he finally concluded, it was not about him but something he brought about.
Hastily tucking his cock away he leaned over his Queen and lightly gripped each of her upper arms - maneuvering her tractable body to stand. She was shivering under his grasp, whether in cold or shock was unclear, but his remedy was the same either way. His hands were warm, tracing the length of her arms in calming sweeps. Tywin concentrated on the soft material grazing his palms as he repeated the motion, taken by the satisfying way his Queen pulled in deeper breaths, how the quivering of her muscles faded with every pass.
It felt an indulgence that he could do that for her - rescue her from a living hell...
A bloody foolish concern…
The Great Lion shook himself from whatever fancy he figured himself trapped in, and although the girl was not quite firm-footed, he was compelled to end the game he initiated against himself.
"We shall postpone this matter for another time, Your Grace-"
"No!"
The intensity of her reply startled him.
Even though her range of view remained diverted, her hands reached out to take hold of him at his tunic; fingers snatching at the fabric, coiling themselves in it. The display was not in desperation, more near to ownership or possession. Baffled only momentarily, Tywin made the step to be closer to her. To bear the grip she felt she needed - whether it was on him or on the world around them, he wasn't wont to know.
She shuffled forward, lessening the gap even more. Queen Sansa did not seek to embrace him, it seemed. More to the truth, the girl was taking comfort in him. Her breathing deepened, and her fists in his tunic loosened some though they stayed where they laid upon his chest. In light of that, it seemed a natural tendency to gently sweep his fingers down her sides - aiming to rest on her waist or her hips. But unlike his smooth caresses down her arms - over the silk of her sleeves - his paths along her ribs were stuttered by a tacky resistance. The silken material had curious swatches that felt cold to the touch, almost like they were made of something damp...
Tywin splayed one hand palm-up and examined his fingertips in the soft light. Even in the room's dimness he could see the darker, near-to-dry smudges, and tilted his view to see for himself.
The crimson of her gown was deep enough to be Lannister, and might be the Queen planned it as such, but with the lamplight at the proper angle, Tywin saw all too well the murky lines that had seeped through the fabric.
"Was this tonight?" He inquired as gently as he could muster.
Her eyes were still leagues away, her voice not much closer, she said, "Yes, my lord."
At the very least she knew his title - who he was. That thought beseeched his duty to the foreground, and Tywin did the only thing he knew to be right. Making use of her hold on him and his hands at her sides, Tywin slowly stepped backward - watching to ensure her feet made the same journey. It was a slow, if short dance to the lone chair in the room; one that saw the Great Lion first push aside the placket of his breeches, then reach back and pivot the seat to accommodate him.
Like their steps, he sat down in a measured way, allowing for her hands to stay on him as he descended. Instead of reaching low to the hem of her gown, Lord Tywin opted to bunch her skirts into his fists, enough to expose her mid-thigh.
The words to instruct her were on his tongue, but Queen Sansa knew his inclination and moved, borne along almost powerlessly, to straddle his lap before he could speak. He swallowed his voice after that, using only his hands to guide her in sitting snug against his freed and hardening cock; then to rub soothing, venturing circles over her bare thighs, hips, and arse.
"Close your eyes, Your Grace."
It was a serious command made in what he meant as a reassuring tone - she complied regardless.
Straightening his cock to lay pointed at his belly, he crooked a finger, nudging the bend at his knuckle down and around where he knew he could make his Queen wet, make her come.
From inside herself, from where she had hidden safe from the panic and hurt, Sansa could now feel distant flutters of something good. They seemed far away, those familiar ripples; the same ones she had felt each time she had stood alone in the dark and so close to Lord Tywin.
He was touching her in the way she enjoyed, enticing her from the place within that made her desolate without. But it was more than a bartering of flesh and gratification, it was what she wanted. What she wanted to feel. Spurned and revived, Sansa pushed her way toward Lord Tywin's sensual teasing with a determination she had not known she possessed, emerging to a peaceful certainty the likes of which had been stolen from her years prior.
Blinking away the shimmering haze in her eyes, she opened them to find the Great Lion peering up at her; neither expectant nor critical, but an intimate contact beyond anything she had ever felt physically. His face was ever serious, yet the lines that usually illustrated his disdain were gone and his eyes were hooded. When she moved against his touch his head lolled back ever so slightly, as though being pushed with an invisible force, but he never looked away.
Desire.
He was swimming in desire for her, andlike everything she had experienced in her minimal acquaintance with the man, this was altogether new. It was altogether wanted. Whether her choice of him was right or wrong was moot in comparison to the knowledge that she shared this precious time with someone who craved her; who wanted more from her than her anguish - and was willing to give of themselves, not merely take.
She was squirming in her delight, but every time she would move too suddenly, her injuries reasserted themselves causing her to hiss in pain. Keeping one hand on her hip - ushering her continued sway - Tywin pulled his other hand loose of her skirts, worked his fingers through her thick auburn hair, and deliberately tarried at the base of her skull.
He was awash in subtle awe at the look of her sheer appreciation as he cradled her body true to his own, her head nestled in a natural position on his shoulder. With an encouraging hold on her backside, the old lion used his hand to hunch her hips forward along the length of him. It took more than one try to find a rhythm, but the effort was worth it when Queen Sansa ground him into the wood of the chair chasing her pleasure, quietly.
The feel of her coming undone then slumping on top of him was all his smug pride needed. Smirking into the empty room, he lifted her slightly and moved his prick to a position behind her waiting quim.
He was there and she was ready - if not for sudden stiffening of her body.
Tywin thought momentarily that she was in distress again, but her eyes were clear and focused. She had brought her bottom lip to her teeth, and if the gesture hadn't flared his desire straight to his cock like a gods-damned greenboy, he may have inquired why she looked unsure.
The responsibility of their actions became crushing. Sansa was trying to become a mother by the worst possible design, in the worst possible environment, and she felt gutted by a sudden feeling of inadequacy.
"Let me in, Your Grace."
His voice soothed; a deep tone laced in his own form of sincerity as if he had heard her worried thoughts and was reassuring his presence. Of course Lord Tywin would be there to protect the child. Of course he knew the importance of their union. His fingers carefully, delicately brushed over the skin where they curled to rest just outside her entrance, and Sansa struggled not to forget that the simple act of touching could also mean comfort, could also mean safety.
"Let me in," he said again.
Sansa relaxed enough to give Tywin the pliability needed to tilt her hips, align himself, and part her flesh with a slow, upward thrust.
Meeting her body's natural bend forward, Tywin pushed into his Queen with short easy strokes - entering a little deeper every time - until she was breathing in fluttering pants. It was that same pattern of airy noise the old lion caught himself dreaming of since their first encounter; her silent pleasure.
Using a gradual rocking motion, Tywin managed to rub her against him in a way that provided the most stimulation. Her heavier pants and her fingernails curling into his tunic, catching skin, let him know she appreciated his efforts. He had to rally against his own psyche to understand why that specific confirmation affected him so. For all that she had endured, for all that she had been ridiculed - openly and savagely at times - Queen Sansa still welcomed him. Not just a stranger, but an enemy, and she welcomed him nonetheless - into her embrace, into her trust, into her body.
"Sansa."
Her name. Just her name. There was no title to create distance, and it made their intimacy somehow more permissible.
The arm she had been resting on his chest moved, embracing his neck and shoulder. The momentum from that shift straightened the rest of her; her face now nuzzled his throat. He could not help but to pull her closer, to tuck his own face into the soft, inviting stretch her neck offered. She smelled so sweet, so untainted; there was nothing of the bitter perfume that hangs heavy at court on the girl.
A scent he could only gather was naturally her.
It was this logic that compelled his mouth to press sparingly on her skin just under her jaw, and his tongue to tentatively lave. His mind soared at its find; his Queen tasted just as sweet - a discernment which caused the old lion to nearly forfeit what control he had. There was enough slack in his posture that it gave him the right amount of leverage to do the work and fuck his Queen unreservedly. He held her secure and let the sway and friction between their bodies stoke and build their arousal.
The sound was faint at first; Tywin reasoned what snagged his attention were drafts through the relic tower playing havoc with his hearing. But when the same tiny whine breezed over him again, his senses placed its origin.
The Queen.
He could hardly see her face, tucked against him as she was, but he could feel her breath and with it the burgeoning quivering moan that accompanied her exhale. What a strange and glorious victory - knowing his Queen's only voiced passion was with him - it was a battle he never knew, never acknowledged, he was fighting to win. Though he was aware he would make every effort to coax that sound from her repeatedly - that was cold fact. Every stroke, every thrust, every time he filled her that wispy moan swirled around him and settled directly on his conscience. By the time her body began to tense in preparation for its inevitable end, her soft, throaty call was being met and bested by his own.
When her body cinched tighter and the grip on him inside her cunt began to shudder, the airy moans just beside his ear stretched out long and went shaky with the rest. And though he was sure she was no louder than before, Queen Sansa may as well have been shouting her peak to the heavens above for the effect it had on him.
His thrusts became forceful; his hands fixed on her hip and on her nape hooked her firmly where he needed her: flush against him.
The warmth of her, the wet of her, the smell and the sound of her - it was all overwhelming.
She was overwhelming.
With a pitchy sigh that carried her name once again, Tywin buried himself as hard as he could, as deep as he could, and found his release inside his Queen.
Time did not matter, and neither could have said how long they rested - wrapped around one another, breathing hot onto each other's neck - but it was the tender brush of fingertips and fingernails along his sweaty nape that Tywin, all at once, shivered beneath and emerged from under.
Reality was cold.
As was the tower and the night, and the way they would never speak of this again.
Lord Tywin helped her gain her feet, to step away and straighten herself - allowing him the same courtesy.
Standing in the aftermath, Sansa noticed the scent of their indiscretion lingered around the room and on them individually. She supposed that kind of revelation should have impelled awkwardness, much like in the godswood, but it simply did not. Although, neither was there a parting gesture from the old lion this time, nor any attempt. He simply walked away from her speaking in a cool even tone from a narrow passageway tucked unnoticed next to the fireplace.
"Count to one hundred, Your Grace, and leave the way you entered."
With curt words and the click of a hidden door, the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms was left alone.
She gently lowered herself to sit in the chair that still held a shade of warmth from Lord Tywin.
Absently, she brushed her fingers across the line of her jaw, blinking in the acknowledgement that she could still feel his mouth there. Her other hand curled around her body, coming to lay carefully at her ribs. There she felt the reward of the other man who sought to mark her that night.
Queen Sansa swallowed thickly in the waning light of a forgotten little room and realized, to her dismay, that after years of living at the heart of misery it was a precarious taste of prosperity that hurt most of all.
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Lord Tywin's seed once again found purchase in the womb of his Queen. However, this time there was more importance and effort placed on the diversion of the King. Whores and tourneys were in greater number when the Queen was with child; to great success, as she was not called upon in those moons. Although, the instant she went to the birthing bed, King Joffrey went just as swiftly on a hunt; leaving his Hand the authority and rule of the realm in his stead.
As it so happened, the welcoming and welfare of his own babe counted amongst those duties Joffrey felt was better left to those who may care; whether or not that included his Hand was of no more a concern to him, less even, than the woman bearing the child.
After the ordeal of labour - once she was washed and fed and laid in the comfort of her own bed with her son in her arms - Queen Sansa observed in her periphery the first visitor entering her chambers. Turning her head to confirm, she watched with a mild look of confusion on her face as Lord Tywin made his way to her bedside.
She was expecting Cersei.
The Queen Regent hadn't been with her in the birthing chamber either, and Sansa presumed the older woman was reserving her goodwill for meeting her grandson.
Obviously mistaken, Sansa then suffered a mad instance of diffidence; blushing hot at her wearing only a bed gown and robe, then blushed hotter at her own foolishness - Lord Tywin had been privy to her in a way that altogether negated the immodesty of her wearing sleep attire in his company.
The man stood intimidatingly tall at the edge of her bed - one arm resting behind his back, the other at his side - and Sansa would have entertained smiling at him if he didn't look so put out or aggrieved in some way.
"He's strong, my lord," she muttered in a low voice. At the same time, she turned her attention back to her son and chided herself for such a lame greeting. Then forgot about it altogether when her lovingly tended bundle gurgled and wriggled.
Sansa smiled at her boy like he was the only thing that existed in the room - in the world.
The Great Lion gifted the Queen no reply, he barely seemed to notice. His focus, in fact, was the cumulation of honesty before him: the Queen was happy in a way he had never seen - never thought to distinguish - before, and the babe was pink and chubby and whole. Every bit the ideal health for an heir.
A prince, Tywin reminded himself.
Not merely an heir, never to be his heir, and that impression brought a well defined thrash of discomfort to the old lion. The son the Queen held was the one he needed, the one he so wanted, but the reality of it all cut hard and final: the son he sired was not his.
The boy belonged to the crown.
There was some appeasement there. As long as he lived, Tywin was the crown. Yet the infant within arms' reach - with light copper curls and a mouth puckered and set to suckle already - was not so easy to cast aside.
It took nothing to raise his arm somewhat, even less to draw the backs of his fingers in the softest of lines down the equally soft cheek of the baby - of his baby.
The war inside him, the one driving Tywin into his own thoughts, felt almost real. And when he shook off the muzzy distraction, he was apt to believe those shoves were true to life. For the tender caresses first bestowed on the son were now being carefully brushed upon the mother.
There should have been an embarrassment that fetched absolute fury at his blatant show of sentimentality. There would have been, but as he took in his Queen - her head leaning to his touch, her eyes closed, and her face a mask of unguarded contentment - the old lion bore an urgent, painful tug at the very heart of him. One that made it hurt to breathe.
For the truth, it seemed, had laid itself bare.
The babe was not the only one Queen Sansa had found her joy in.
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