Tywin I

The babe is asleep in the small transportable cradle he had had commissioned for his elder children, but four years ago. It can house two babes- Joanna had insisted on it, desperate for the need to keep their elder twins together- but at the moment he has the one. She is draped in red silk and golden, fine wool. It makes her whiteness all the more stark. Her eyes- Joanna's eyes- are closed. Starlight eyelashes flutter long and like bird wings, a shade darker then the paleness of her skin. Her lips thin and small, look almost blue trembling in her sleep.

"Tywin, your daughter is missing!" comes a voice, high and distressed.

Tywin flickers his gaze to his only sister, Genna Lannister (never a Frey) as she burst into his Solar without knocking or announcement from the guards positioned at the end of the hall. Her cheeks, full and rosey from exertion, are contorted in a frown, her dark green eyes wide with panic. Behind her is Maester Curwin, wheezing, holding onto the Imp. No doubt they has just come from the nursery, a few floors below his Solar. Tywin knows that Genna's assessing eyes had searched for the babes as he had greeted her home last night, just a tick mark after his own arrival. They had been mostly outlying family, preparing for the coming visit of the Princess of Dorne. Genna, with her little pathetic husband by her side, had looked for her newest relations, disapproval had been clear, the furrow in her brows as she had realized the babes were not in the greeting party. His excuse had been their young age, but the reality had been his disgust to show them to anyone. He was the ridicule of the Seven Kingdoms, again, from the birth of the twin monsterities. Genna had forced cheer to greet her four-year-old niece and nephew, her eyes searching but not scolding. But that had been before.

Before his unrest last night had driven him to the nursery.

Before he had heard her.

"Do you not knock, upon entering your Lord's solar?" is his response, calloused hands drifting, calmly making a show of refilling his quil. He tries to ignore that he has yet to touch his correspondence since he had woken up, fetched the girl from the Nursery just mere hours after he had left her.

Genna frown deepens, jiggles her second chin.

"Forgive me. Most uncouth of me," she gives a curtsy, golden and rosy hands flickering with her impatience. Behind her Curwin and the guards follow suit into deep bows, "But we had thought the girl taken!"

Curious eyes look to the mobile crib, her fine brows furrowing.

"Areli is in there, is she not?"

"Yes."

He does not explain himself. And he would not as was his right as Head of his House.

What could I say?

"It stands that you have taken the liberty to grab one of the newest of the Great House of Lannister and not the other. And told no one of it."

Tywin raises a brow of his own, carefully controlled mask still. He does not like the reprime he hears in his exasperated sister's voice.

"They are my children," the words are bitter on his tongue, his voice growing colder because of it, "I saw fit to bring the girl to my Solar. What is there question about that?"

He writes on fine vellum. His hand is steady, even if all he writes are the words to Joanna's song. He dismisses their concern completely to look as if he is in deep concentration.

Genna humms. It is not a happy sound, he can see at the edge of his vision that she has bared her teeth.

"I grant you that much my brother. But must you send your house in an uproar?" her voice, in her irritation, had grown louder, "We thought the baby GONE!"

Tywin puts his fine eagle feather quill down, carefully cleaning its nib free of his fine red ink. He even proceeds to sharpen it with the knife he keeps at his desk for the very purpose. He closes his inkwell.

He stands.

Genna, realizing her mistake, closes her lips over her exposed teeth. He carefully keeps the quill knife in hand. Genna's second chin wobbles.

"My Lord Lannister, my apologies," her voice still holds a touch of irritation, but the apology is true.

Tywin, as if he never heard her, puts away the quill knife. He looks at his sister, the Maester with the Imp in his frail arms. Part of Tywin wishes that he would drop the thing on his fragile head.

"Are you finished?"

Genna sighs.

"Tywin."

"Well?"

"Yes, brother."

"Good. Do not question me, my Lady."

Tywin sits. Palms on the desk. His gaze flickers to the baby. Something in Tywin's stomach coils as those starlight lashes flutter, as she macks those lips in drowsy motions. Then those green eyes clear, focus. The pale brows, hard to distinguish from her skin, furrow. He sees her panic, hands plump and showing her health despite the pallor of her skin, searching for her twin. She does not cry, only makes a brief sound of distress before she seems to swallow the noise forcibly down. He feels his own brow tighten, before carefully reaching out to press his hand on the girl's stomach. She is small. Smaller than Jaime had been, the smaller of the two twins, at her age. So small that her stomach fits the span of his fingertips. At the gesture, the girl stills. She even stops breathing.

Green eyes look to him.

Her little breath comes in a woosh. He feels her chest expand, through wool and silk. She is still entirely too still. Starlight lashes flutter.

"Tywin?"

He blinks, hand still on the girl, looking toward his sister.

"Are you alright?"

He frowns. And then he feels himself still as small fingertips curl around his. He turns back to the girl. Sees her, hands so different from his golden skin, holding carefully onto his thumb, his forefinger. Those starlight eyelashes flutter and she astounds him by sitting forward. She sits up, much sooner than either Jaime or Cersei, who Joanna had told him had been sitting at seven moons. It has been only five since the girl's birth.

"She's sitting!"

The girl is looking at him. Her mouth pulls into a frown. He stares back, intensely.

Sing. Sing again.

Tywin is nothing but control. But he wishes to hear the song again, in that voice.

"How amazing-" Genna falters. In her enthusiasm, she seemed to forgotten that she already has his ire. His sister, possibly the wisest of his siblings, falls silent.

The girl is still just staring at him. Does not make a sound, only breathes, before her gaze flicker to Genna, who had come around his desk to look. Genna stops. Nearly slips back in her silk slippers. The girl's gaze focues on Genna, her grip tightening on his thumb. Blue tinted lips tremble.

"Hello sweetling," the girl makes a noise, almost of protest at the endearment from his sister's mouth.

Genna reaches. The girl stares her down. Her hand returns to her side. The hold on his fingers tighten further.

"She has Joanna's eyes… But your gaze, brother."

He sees it. Never seen such a stern gaze from an infant, than again, he knew few babies. He had been in Royal Court for the majority of the year his first children had been born. He had paid little mind to the young princling years before, never mind any other babe at Court or within his House.

"So she does."

It is an acknowledgement. It is hard to articulate the struggle of admitting such a thing, even aloud. To think that she had come from him, as had her monstrous brother. But… The song. Tywin is not a sentimental nor fanciful man. But the sound of… His daughter's voice, singing his wife's song. Tywin is also an honest man, especially to himself.

And he wished to hear it again.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Joanna I

"You seem unsettled."

Areli shifted, cradled in a bed of red leaves. Blue lips tremble. The eyes that look at her are her own, a legacy of her own, given to her youngest daughter and her eldest son. Joanna Lannister smiles, knowing and humming beneath her breathe.

"He isn't supposed to be this way."

Joanna smiles, brilliantly. She knows that Areli is a gentle soul. She had, upon seeing her vestige of her past life, seen a that she also had a knowledge, if vague of the goings of Westeros. Of what the Great House of the West, of what the name Lannister meant. Especially when it came to her husband's more brutal tactics. But she suppose it was a shallow knowledge… Or a highly moralistic one. She sees it, in her daughter. The morality of a gentle world that new little strife and struggle on the scale of Westeros. She sees her good heart and good will, the brilliance and frankly the purity of her kindness and compassion.

Joanna adores her for it.

But she also knew her daughter was swayed by her kind emotions. A dangerous temperament, especially as a daughter of Tywin Lannister. She was, at best, in danger of being taken advantage of, and at worst a weak link. She, realizes, very early in their strange relationship, that Areli was much too similar to herself. Only Joanna had learned to temper her kinder impulses, learned at the feet of a princess within the Royal Court the intrigue and dangers that came with being a noble woman. And Tywin… Tywin had been Joanna's balance, much as she had been his.

Areli would find her balance, hopefully in a good match, if perhaps in a friend. She would also have to learn. She was a lioness of the Rock. She was a Lannister. The glory of the House, the greatness and power they held… Areli would learn and she would be glorious. Joanna felt it, understood that in death what her daughter would bring in her wake, even if she did not know the specifics. Her gentleness would perhaps hinder her, or give her a new perspective, but it would not paralyze her. Or have her deny her duty to her House, to her family. Tywin would make sure of it, if only for the sake of the house and perhaps, if Areli was able to sway him as Joanna once had, for Areli's sake. She hoped Areli would, not replace her, but rather sway her father in ways similar enough as she had in life. She did not think that Cersei, Jaime, nor Tyrion were capable of it.

"And what did you expect of him?"

"Not this. It's hard to gather fury and disgust in the wake of suffering."

Joanna hums, fingertips sliding through thick curls, pale and fine. Areli leans into it. As indifferent as she tries to act she thinks her daughter was not immune to her love and affection. It heartens her, gives her strength to return to her youngest's dreams. She, touched by the Stranger, bound to Joanna because of it, could not deny, at least on a subconscious level that they were truly mother and daughter.

"You want monsters and villains. And believe Tywin to be the best candidate for it."

"Yes. But it's more than that. I know what he's capable of. I know how he will treat his children-"

"You seem to forget that you are his daughter. You also seem to forget that you really do not know the man."

Pale brows furrow, and green eyes narrow.

"I guess I don't-"

Joanna smiles, sharply. She sees weakness. She sees hesitation. And she pounces upon it.

"Learn sweetling. Learn to know my husband, your father. He is not as monstrous as you think him."

He could be. Joanna is no fool and the strings of the Rains of Castamere, had never failed to unsettle her. But Joanna believes that all men had the capacity. Her husband was ruthless, ruled with fear and might. But she loved him. Loved the rare moments were the Great Lord of Casterly Rock had fallen away to show a young man burdened by the legacy of Kings and fools.

"How could you love him?" is her daughter's reply.

"He is a great man."

And he was. But it had always, always been more then that. He had chosen Joanna. A great man would have found a better match then a distant cousin from a minor branch of his own house. Should have done so. She remembers urging him to not be the fool, something he had never suffered well, and his stubborn refusal of her rejection…

"Choose more wisely my lord, for your bride. I am not enough to be the next Lady of the West, thought heartened as I am by your offer. You know your duty is to marry well, bring in influence from another Great House-"

"What greater House is there other then my own?"

"Your father would never allow it."

"My father is a fool that only cares for his whore and his wine."

"I cannot marry you."

"Cannot or will not?"

"What?"

"I am not worthy of you, Lady Joanna?"

"Of course! I am not worthy of you-"

"I deem you to be. I deem you to be more than worthy."

"That does not make him a good one."

Joanna hums.

"Perhaps not. But that is not for you to decide just now, sweetling. Perhaps it would be wise to learn him yourself."

Areli sighs.

"I know of no way of judging the future but by the past."

"Words, by no doubt someone very wise," said Joanna, raising a brow, "But you do not know the past."

Areli laughs. It is a musical sound. Joanna laughs with her.

"I suppose I don't."

"Then be patient, my little lioness. Be patient and learn. And remember-"

"I am right where I'm supposed to be."

Joanna smiles.