Sorry for the break... again, but I had to deal with some people that wouldn't stop following me, making threats. When they followed up on them I took them to court and they're rotting in a cell. Well, one is, the other two are in juvie.

Only half of what I promised, but I need to do some research and this seemed like a good place to end it.

But you don't want to hear me whine, you want the next chapter.

Tyrion I

No offence to the late Lord Arryn, but Tyrion hated the man's wife. He was so cold he could almost feel frost pricking his skin, he was more starved than he could ever remember being, and above all else he really wanted to kill his fat, thickheaded, sadistic gaoler. In hindsight, it may have been a bad idea to say he would kill Mord himself, when the simpleton could throw him out to the blue as easily as he might flick a fly off his arm, but Tyrion found it hard to care. He cared more about his dinner, his plate of cold beans flying hundreds of feet under him and out of sight even had he cared to look. Yet it had either been that, or risk the giant oaf 'accidentally' bumping him off the edge with that large belly of his.

Tyrion would take the cold, hungry, slowly-driven-to-madness alternative, thank you very much.

The wind teased his thin blanket, and him along with it. Only five feet from wall to cliff, a particularly strong blast could tug the Imp away and send him splattering into the rocks below, nothing more than a brighter splotch of red, scarlet amongst a sea of russet. He wished he were stuck in the Black Cells, just slightly warmer, with no fresh air, no lovely blue sky and bright sunshine above him, and no moon and stars winking away happily at night, but at least he needn't worry about falling off the edge in his sleep. Still, if nothing else, he was allowed to leave whenever he wanted. That was the level of grace Lysa Arryn had shown him. Indeed, any prisoner could escape their captivity, so long as they had the desire.

Of course, a pair of wings would not be amiss, either.

Gods save me, was written above Tyrion's head, the blue is calling. How long had the poor fool been here?

In fact, how long had he been here? And how had the prisoner left? How would he leave? Tyrion did not particularly want to know the answers, save for the last.

Near on twoscore days had passed since Catelyn Stark had taken him prisoner, thirty-something days since he had known freedom. Thirty-something days since he had been branded a child's would-be assassin and kidnapped to be 'sentenced'.

And now Tyrion looked up at a skinny, sickly-pale, shaking six-year-old from under his swollen shelf of brow. A stuffed doll was in his hands, and his eyes were rheumy as they watched the stunted monster from atop his stack of soft fat pillows. His mother had an arm around him, perched hawkishly on the weirwood throne, shaking as much as her son, though from anger rather than illness. What had Tyrion done to deserve such hate?

Oh, of course, he remembered dryly, same as I did to my sweet sister. Be born a dwarf. How great and terrible a crime.

"Is that the bad man?"

"He is," Lysa Arryn had agreed, draped in blue. She wore more perfume and powder than Varys the Eunuch; it tickled Tyrion's nose.

The Lord Paramount of the Vale giggled happily. "He's so small." The boy's mouth stretched oddly with each word, and for some reason it set Tyrion's jaw in place.

Lady Catelyn had remained stiff and silent, watching Tyrion with a quiet fury that burned through her Tully-blue eyes. Her sister, however, was not to be distracted. "This is Tyrion the Imp," she told her son, "of House Lannister, who murdered your father." She turned and leered at the Imp, raised her voice so it carried down the length of the High Hall of the Eyrie, ringing off the milk-white walls and the slender pillars, so every man could hear it. "He slew the Hand of the King!"

A pang of anger shot through Tyrion, and he snarked, "Oh, did I kill him, too?" First little Bran Stark who never stopped climbing, now the Lord of the Eyrie, Lord Paramount of the Vale, Warden of the East and Hand of the King. Or rather, the other way around. My standards seem to have fallen so sharply in so short a space of time. He could not keep the bitterness from his tongue. "It would seem I've been a busy little fellow." Quiet, you fool! Yet he continued. "I wonder when I found the time to do all this slaying and murdering." He immediately regretted it.

The Lady Lysa glared down at him hatefully, her sister stiffer than ever. "Imp," Arryn warned slowly, "you will guard that mocking tongue of yours and speak to my son politely, or I promise you-"

But what Lysa Arryn promised, he would never find out, for at that second the doors burst open behind him, and in marched men clad in red and silver clutching bows already nocked with arrows. When Tyrion spun, he saw the roaring lion on their shields, his heart leapt, a grin spreading wide across his squashed face.

Then it sank as he saw his son at their head.

Sword-slim and pretty as ever, the boy's smirk stirred an old sadness in him, which was replaced by horror at the leather patch over his blue eye. Her eye. When had that happened? How had that happened? A thousand possibilities ran instantly through Tyrion's head, each worse than the last. Clad in dark leather armour, he leered up at Lysa and little Lord Robert, a hand on the hilt of his slim blade. It was sheathed in a smoke-grey scabbard that ill-fitted it, just a tad too tight, but loose enough that he could pull it out at a moment's notice.

Ser Talion Storm was by his side, all hair like pitch and eyes like stars, stood sentinel beside his master. Loyal as a dog, he was, and with a thirst for ale to rival his skill on the field; there were few others Tyrion would trust more with his son's welfare. My son's. Mine. Not yours. Behind them were a group of arrows, all aimed at the little Lord Robert.

"Let's make this as easy as possible," Tybolt Lannister chose for his greeting, ever-smirking as always, but there was something off about it. There was a tightness in his stance, a warning in his voice; his entire being screamed the threat and his green eye, once calculating but kind, was now outright colder than ice. "I do so despise the sight of blood."

Lysa Arryn immediately shot to her feet. "Wha-ho-how did you get in here?" she demanded furiously, glancing behind them for guards to rush in. "Guards! Guards!" Yet no one came.

A low chuckle escaped Storm's lips, and he cracked his neck in a satisfied manner. There was a spot of red on his cheek that Tyrion did not think was wine. Lysa turned frantically to the knights already in the room.

"What are you waiting for!" she screeched. She pointed a bony finger at Tybolt. "Kill him! Kill them all!" Around a score of swords rang through the heavy air as they slipped from their sheathes. Tybolt only wagged a finger, as though they were exceptionally-misbehaved children. A few were as old as Jon Arryn had been, faced with the horrors of war and death since their birth.

"I wouldn't," he suggested lightly, though his leering gaze betrayed the danger of the position. "Lest you want me to kill your lord here and now? Shall we see what fish are made of when they spend their lives out of water?" His smile cut through the air. He was clearly aiming for a protracted silence, but that was ruined.

"You can't hurt us!" Robert Arryn screamed. He was on his feet and red in the face. He had dropped his doll and was beginning to twitch. "No one can hurt us here! Tell him, Mother, tell him he can't hurt us here!" Lysa began to nod vehemently and declare that the Eyrie was impenetrable, though that had little to do with the situation. Brat, Tyrion thought idly.

Clearly his son thought the same, and he was quite irritated by the interruption. Tybolt dropped his smirk and looked coldly up at the boy. "Little brat," he muttered angrily, before raising his voice. Gods, boy, don't do that! "I hold the future of the Vale in this finger." He held up his left pointer, and his men pulled their arrows back just a little tighter, the creaking reverberating off the high marble pillars, like the cracking of a thousand bones. "No, wait." He smirked again, sharp as steel. "You do." He glanced around. "My dear lords and ladies, knights and squires, merchants and household. The future of your lives, and that of your children and their children, is in your hands. You can kill us here and now, to be sure. Cut off my head and send it to my grandfather. But before you do both the Lord of the Vale and his lady mother will be dead." He twitched his finger slightly, not even an inch, and gave a tiny amused sound at Lysa's flinch. "Now, no doubt that would ease your daily suffering of this horrific shit and the madwoman that spat him out, but who does that leave? As I recall, Robert's heir has not yet been chosen. With no lord to succeed him the Vale will fall into anarchy, civil war no less. Contestant after contestant will fight it out, more will rise, more will fall and even more opportunists will vie for that admittedly stylish wooden chair." Tybolt looked around, a single elegant brow raised in condemnation. "Thousands upon thousands will die." He spoke slowly, his high tones ringing as the men and women gathered began to realise the picture being painted. "You will die, your children will die. Friends and brothers and sisters and cousins and all their fucking horses will tear each other apart and yet, this can be avoided. This needn't be your fate. If the dwarf comes with me no one needs to die. Thousands needn't be impaled on spears or have their heads decorating castle walls." He turned his gaze to Catelyn Stark, who watched him intently. "I'll even stop my grandfather's raping of your homeland. That sounds like a sweeter cup to drink from, than a cup of sorrow, no? A cup of tears. A cup of death."

The lords and ladies were silent, the pale colours they dressed in likening them to ghosts, fading into the background. The knights had not advanced. Catelyn Stark let out a furious breath through her nose, but remained otherwise quiet, stone-like and statuesque. And Lysa Arryn was shaking worse than her son, leering down at Tybolt with such a rage that Tyrion feared failure.

But she eventually sighed, and crumpled defeatedly onto her throne. "Get out," she whispered, holding a confused Robert tightly. The doll lay forgotten on the floor. "Get out and take that monster with you."

Tyrion quickly waddled over to his son, stopping only to let Mord release him with a grunt of displeasure. "You free," he grumbled in his simpleton's language.

The dwarf grinned. "Me free," he agreed, though he patted the giant on the shoulder. His shackles clanked loudly as they hit the stone floor, and Tyrion rubbed his wrists gently as he hobbled behind Tybolt.

His son spread his arms wide and bowed deeply. "We'll have to do this again sometime," he drawled, grinning. "It's been such fun." He turned, stopped, and looked to Lady Stark. "Do give Robb my best wishes. Tell him Tybolt Lannister sends his regards."

Once Tybolt and Tyrion had swept from the hall, Talion had the men relax their bows and follow.

And there we go. Shorter than usual, but I felt like this was a good place to end it. And besides, I need to do some research for the next chapter.

As for how Tybolt was able to reach the High Hall of the Eyrie undetected, well... they weren't undetected. This is kinda the point of 'twenty good men' - they act as a sort of spec ops team; one goes in, takes out one, another takes out a second, and so forth, and they make their way quietly through the castle. And aside from the 'honour guard' no one was killed.

As for Bronn, he followed them and joined up, just to be clear. He offered his services and Tyrion took him up on it. It's not as logical as in canon, but for the first few seasons you can't have Tyrion without Bronn.

Next chapter: Meeting with Tywin, a discovery is made, and an army rides out for home.