Chapter 25: Memories

My memories devour me,

Like hungry lions their prey;

With new stories regale me

To keep these ghosts at bay.

Tyrion's father rarely called him. Occasionally, of course, Tyrion would receive a phone call from his parent; the brief conversations, however mundane in subject, always ended with either one of two questions: had he and his brother grown smart enough to return to the Lannisters & Co. and assume their rightful places as heirs? Or: was Tyrion ever going to propose to Margery Tyrell? Which of the questions Tywin would ask was unpredictable; it was entirely certain, however, that one of these (at times, even both) would be used in the concluding lines of their every conversation.

This time had been no different in what concerned the two catechisms Tyrion had been subjected to (years before, he had dreaded this brief round of interrogation, but now dismissed the inquiries with a certain nonchalance); however, it was somewhat odd that Tywin had personally invited Tyrion to pay him a visit the coming evening. Usually, the Lannister patriarch left the scheduling of his meetings — even those with his children — to his personal assistant. The strange sign of attention left Tyrion more anxious than pleased.

For as long as he could remember, Tyrion had wanted to make his father proud. Since he was a very young child, not old enough to understand that parents could be cold and children — dwarfs, he had sought Tywin's approbation. He knew that Jaime — and even Cersei — had wanted the same. Tyrion would make a drawing of an imaginary land and wait for the weekend, when father would return from King's Landing to Casterly Rock, to show it to him. He would overcome the intimidating sight of the huge door that led to Tywin's solar and knock; invited to come in by father's distracted voice, he would find him before the antique oak desk, which was weighted down by a laptop and piles of business papers. He would approach and wordlessly place the drawing before his father. Tywin would say that imagining lands that did not exist was a waste of time and tell him to study maps instead. By the weekend that followed, Tyrion would make a copy of a map of the Westerlands and Tywin would say that he could make a map of the entire Seven Kingdoms, could he not? So, Tyrion would work tirelessly, even shortening his time with Jaime — no small sacrifice for a young child short of friends — to make a detailed map of the Seven Kingdoms, copying it carefully with his uncertain, childish hand from a book too large for him to even lift (he had had to ask the maester, in charge of the Rock in father's absence, to get it for him from a shelf too high for him to reach). The evening of Friday would come, and with it his father, his tall, strong, powerful figure filling the space of the Lannisters' age-old residence like no one Tyrion had ever seen before or since could. Tyrion had always admired his father — his intelligent eyes, his powerful presence, his handsome, severe features, even his coldness. At the time, he had thought that, one day, he could break through this frigidity. Tyrion had waited excitedly for farther to return, thinking that, finally, Tywin would commend his achievements. Tywin did look at the map and noted absentmindedly that his youngest son had forgotten to indicate Sunspear. Tyrion had tasted bitter disappointment for the first time that evening; it was also the first time he had noticed that father avoided looking at him. That night, he could not comprehend why; later, when he had grown old enough to realize that fathers could be unloving, mothers dead and buried, and children — dwarfs, he understood; or at least, he thought he did.

The more he came up against his father's coldness, the more Tyrion came to depend on Jaime's kindness. Like their father, his elder brother was a sight to behold with his golden hair, strong built (even as a young boy), and sparkling green eyes; but Jaime was unlike father in one crucial respect — he was never distant and he never played down Tyrion's achievements, praising his little brother more than even Tyrion himself thought he deserved. Jaime's love, as unconditional as their father's coldness was inevitable, made Tyrion seek him out constantly, looking for and basking in his approval, regardless of how easy it was to gain.

Roaming the grounds of Casterly Rock, however slowly because of his small, stunted legs, Tyrion would find a large dead beetle, the yellow and green wings of which would seem beautiful to him (partly because the colors reminded him of his brother's eyes and golden hair), and he would seek out Jaime, who was puffing angrily while doing his homework, and show him the odd creature he had discovered. Jaime would leave aside his work to look at the beetle with Tyrion, despite the pressure he faced from father at performing well in academics notwithstanding his dyslexia, which, when first discovered a few years before, had for many months transformed Jaime's weekends into an unendurable hell, as father, cold and unperturbed, with a patience of the Stranger, sat him down to read for hours each day. The brothers would spend some time examining the dead beetle together, and then, somehow, they would be playing outside, laughing happily — one forgetting his dyslexia, the other his small stature — at least before Cersei would attempt to ruin the fun Jaime was having with someone other than her.

The affection his father, more absent from the residence than he was present, would not show him, and Jaime did, made Tyrion look to his brother for the love of a fatherly figure. In ways that he had grown to appreciate only much later, his brother, not many years older than he, had raised him. The younger Lannister would repay him with a devotion and a loyalty the degree of which even Jaime did not suspect. It was at this time, when he was five, that Tyrion had developed the habit of sneaking into his brother's room at night, when he himself could not sleep, and watch the peaceful beauty of Jaime's slumber.

Tyrion had never known his mother — a beautiful woman he had grown to love, looking at her face, which smiled at him from the pages of family photo albums, and hearing what little Jaime had by way of stories about Joanna Lannister. One day, Tyrion must have been four or five, he was inspecting the wedding photographs of his parents, examining with curiosity the happy smile on his father's face and the warmth in his eyes, when Tywin entered the drawing room where his youngest son was engrossed in the pictures.

"What are you doing there, Tyrion?" he asked.

Flustered, Tyrion could only turn the opened family album toward his father. When Tywin saw the photographs, Tyrion noticed for the first time something of warmth and something of pain flash in his father's eyes. Tywin came to sit in the armchair, next to which Tyrion had lain sprawled on the soft carpet, and extended his hand for the album; Tyrion immediately placed it in his father's hand, concealing as best he could the effort the action took his small body. Tywin turned the pages slowly, and Tyrion came to stand next to him, rising on tiptoes to glimpse the images that now engrossed his father. Noticing his son's effort, Tywin allowed Tyrion to climb onto his lap — the only time Tyrion remembered doing so in his life.
"That's your mother," Tywin said, and he had never sounded the way he did then: soft and loving. "She — " Suddenly, his father's voice caught, and he went rigid. Tyrion fixed him with his large eyes and watched Tywin's face turn cold again, as if it were becoming stone. "She died," Tywin said in his usual stern, unemotional voice.

"I know," was all Tyrion replied.

"Isn't it time you were in bed?" Tywin asked, getting up and placing his son on his feet. "Where is Miss Osha?"

"She's coming later," Tyrion explained. "My bedtime's not in an hour."

"Hmmm…" came from his father who, lost in his thoughts, avoided looking at his youngest child as he left the room.

Tyrion knew that mother had died giving birth to him — Cersei had informed him of the fact a year or so before, in a tone even more vicious than the one she usually used to address him. Jaime — enraged — had nearly slapped her and shook her as if to force some consideration into her, refusing to speak to her for days after spending hours consoling his younger sibling who had nearly drowned in silent, savage tears of despair, as he clung to Jaime's neck. That was when Tyrion had first learned self-loathing; when Jaime had first glimpsed Cersei's heartlessness.

Osha, their governess, did what she could to help Jaime bring Tyrion out of the darkness his sister's words had covered him with like a shroud. A woman from Beyond the Wall, who had come down South for reasons unknown to anyone and ended up in the Lannisters' household because, in ways none knew of, she had managed to convince the maester to hire her to look after the children, Osha was a powerful and unbreakable presence, unflinching even in the face of Tywin Lannister. Tyrion and Jaime had loved her from the moment she had first come, from her gruff voice and unmusical laughter to her odd Wildling ways. Looking back, Tyrion and Jaime had both wondered why father had tolerated her presence in Casterly Rock, particularly as the governess of his children. Her excellent degree from the Wall University and Medical School must have played a role, they had decided, as well as father's disinterest in them all, but the brothers remained puzzled nonetheless. Osha, despite her good heart, was fairly brutal even to those she cared for, and she could not give to the Lannister children the gentle affection they — the brothers, at least, — had desperately needed. Cersei, unlike her siblings, loathed the woman with a burning hatred, which often paved the way to loud confrontations between the women. In his entire life, Tyrion had not known anyone aside from father and Osha to be able to put Cersei in her place, and it was all the more reason he loved the Free Woman, as she called herself.

When Tyrion turned six — old enough to attend school — the three siblings, their belongings packed and in tow, were sent to join Tywin in King's Landing, along with Osha, who would care for them in the years to come. Jaime and Cersei's homeschooling came to an end, and the three of them were forced to face a world that was unforgiving even to the privileged children of the great Tywin Lannister.

With years, Tyrion, much like his siblings, had realized that father was a man hard to please and harder still to impress, but easy to disappoint. When the twins were fourteen, Tywin had come to Jaime's national sword fighting competition, in which his eldest son had overwhelmed the competition, easily winning gold, but all father had said was, "good," in a voice which indicated that anything else would have been unworthy of a Lannister. Tyrion had seen Jaime's triumphant smile fall at the words. The same year, the Lannister patriarch had come to Cersei' ballet performance, in which she had danced beautifully the leading part and, again, he had said, "good" in the same voice. When Tyrion was twelve, Tywin had come to the national debate competition in which his youngest son had triumphed. Tyrion had received the same "good" as his elder siblings and observed, as by then he was used to, how father avoided looking at him for too long. With time, Tyrion noticed how Tywin grew somewhat better at being able to lay his eyes on him, but, sooner or later, father would avert his gaze.

Cersei was the first to give up on seeking Tywin's approbation, silently disregarding his opinions and disobeying his orders. Jaime and Tyrion never quite could break the spell father had on them, adapting to feeling disappointed in and frustrated with themselves for their inability to make the lagoon green eyes shine with pride at their achievements. Unable to discard their need for father's approval, the brothers had learned to pretend that his opinion did not matter — even if, deep down, they knew it did. When, years later, Jaime and Tyrion had fought for their company — fought, essentially, against their farther and the claim he seemed to have on them as his heirs — they had fought, although neither would acknowledge this even to his brother, to prove to Tywin Lannister that his sons were capable of withstanding even his wrath. As if that could impress him.

Tyrion was pulled from his thoughts when the taxi had stopped before Tywin's mansion, the place where he had lived until, at the age of sixteen (to stay closer to Jaime, Tyrion had used his superior intellect to skip grades), he had exchanged the luxury of this house for the comparatively small room in King's Landing University dorms — much to father's annoyance; Jaime and Cersei had moved out two years before, and Tyrion would frequently sleep over at Jaime's place, regardless of the awkward encounters between the siblings this sometimes occasioned.

Tyrion paid the driver generously and ascended the long stairway to the entrance — as always, with considerable difficulty. Before he could even ring the bell, Ramsay Bolton opened the door: the personal assistant was as considerate as he seemed repugnant to Tyrion, despite the young man's polite smiles. Tyrion was led to one of the few smaller living rooms, where his father, a glass of scotch in his hand, was sitting before a raging fireplace. As his father aged, Tyrion had wondered if the infirmity of late years would eventually make him less intimidating, but even as the silver had replaced the gold of Tywin Lannister's hair, Tyrion had realized that the hope had been in vain. His father aged gracefully, never losing the power of either body or mind, his presence becoming oddly more impactful. Tyrion sat in the armchair to the right of his father, pressing his lips together in a greeting that was neither a smile nor a cold nod.

Tywin took a sip of his scotch, waiting a few minutes before speaking to his son, though he had acknowledged Tyrion with a movement of his eyes before restoring his gaze to the fire. His son waited patiently, having grown used to this odd ritual over the years. Finally, the Lannister patriarch inquired:

"How is the new ballet coming along?"

Tyrion knew the question was not about The Fountain of Tears but about Jaime and Sansa.

"It's going well," he said with pleasure.

"Is it?" Tywin asked, and the small hint of humor in his eyes, odd for Tyrion to see, indicated that his father was aware of the unspoken challenge in his son's refusal to breach the subject that interested them both. "I'm overjoyed," he said, though his voice did not support the statement. "And how is Margery?"

If there was one thing Tyrion could not reproach his father with, it was Tywin's utter consideration for Margery. Never had the older man failed to inquire after Tyrion's girlfriend or be attentive to her when she was in his presence. Granted, Margery was the first woman Tyrion was involved with to have been honored with father's regard, but the son appreciated it all the same. After all the lectures he had heard from his father about his relationships with women — and many of these relationships were only half as long as the conversations Tyrion had been forced to endure (Varys only knew how Tywin even found out about those) — Tyrion never would have guessed that he would merit his father's approval by his choice of woman. Occasionally, Tyrion even wondered — in spite of himself — whether Jaime was not a little envious of this considerable achievement.

"Margery's well, she sends her regards," he answered, and his father nodded in satisfaction.

"And Jaime?" Tywin continued.

Tyrion smiled — something he rarely had cause to do in his father's presence.

"He's all creative energy: we've started rehearsing a few weeks ago," he supplied.

"What about Sansa Stark?"

"Sansa is very well. She's adapting swiftly to her new role as one of the leading dancers in the company. A very talented young woman and very helpful with the choreography. Jaime listens to her more readily than to any one else, I think," he finished and realized that, unintentionally, he had provided the segue into the conversation Tywin wished to have, notwithstanding his previous decision not to do so. He wondered if he had caught a small smirk flash across his father's lips, or whether the reflections of flames on Tywin's features were playing tricks on his eyes.

"Good," Tywin said, and his voice indicated not that the opposite would have been unacceptable, but that, from this point forward, he expected events to develop even more favorably. "Are they spending enough time together?"

"Quite," answered Tyrion. "Or at least as much as possible for two people who, for now, are friendly colleagues and nothing else."

This time, there could be no question about it — Tywin Lannister definitely wore a pleased, if small, smile.

"Only a few weeks before, they were not yet friendly," he observed.

"I wouldn't say that," Tyrion disagreed. "Jaime kept teasing her — "

"Jaime teasing her and them both being friendly are two entirely different matters," Tywin stated with authority, and Tyrion preferred shrugging to acknowledging a certain truth in his father's words. "What is he like around her?"

"For now, I haven't noticed anything particularly different from a few weeks before: he's still admiring her, in spite of himself; he keeps teasing her, but not when she makes suggestions about the choreography."

"Good," Tywin repeated. "If there is any way of getting them to spend more time together, I trust you will not neglect the opportunity of making sure they do."

Tyrion nodded, acknowledging with an annoyed smile his father's orders. He did not need Tywin's instructions where Jaime and Sansa were concerned — as it was, he was doing everything he could without arousing suspicions; and he was certainly not doing it because his father had told him to. He was fighting his own, decades-long fight, against the ripping claws Cersei had buried deep into Jaime's soul. Meanwhile, Tywin spoke again.

"I plan to invite lady Sansa to lunch — I see no reason wasting time getting to know my future daughter-in-law," he declared.

Tyrion let out a small guffaw.

"Aren't you getting ahead of yourself? They're barely even friends," he objected.

Tywin sighed, a sound that combined resignation with slight condescension.

"Tyrion," he said in a voice that told the world of his infinite patience, "I have never seen Jaime look at any woman the way he watches Sansa Stark. Have you?" When his son shook his head, Tywin continued: "Believe me when I tell you, she will not remain a Stark for very much longer. When I met your mother — " his father's voice could never quite stay even whenever he mentioned his wife. "Well, let's just say, I'm quite certain I looked at her the same way." There was a pause before he asked: "And when are you going to propose to Margery?.."

Tyrion returned home with a sense of relief: meeting his father always caused him to mobilize all his mental and physical energy. It was quite late: Tywin was a night owl (though he rose early), and Tyrion had called on him at a time when the evening had already turned to night. His and Margery's apartment embraced him with a peaceful darkness. Margery, who, he guessed, had gone to bed, had left several small lamps on so that he could find his way easily to her. He walked toward the bedroom, following the path she had traced for him with the glowing lamps, turning them off as he past them. They led him to the bar, and he smiled softly: Margery knew he always needed a drink whenever he returned from his meetings with Tywin. Tyrion poured himself some whiskey. Watching the golden brown liquid fill his glass, he pondered his father's words. Tywin's certainty in Jaime's feelings gave Tyrion increased confidence. Of course, father did not know about Jaime's attachment to Cersei… On numerous occasions, Tyrion had even contemplated betraying the twins to Tywin in the hopes that their father might have enough influence on Jaime to put an end to the affair but always decided against it, fearful of losing his brother's trust. Tywin's ignorance of Jaime's decades-long love for her could make him more inclined to be hopeful than Tyrion considered reasonable. However, though he thought his father excessively optimistic, Tywin's belief still affected Tyrion's perception of reality, and the wings of his own hope grew stronger. He finished his drink, turned off the light near the bar, and continued walking toward the bedroom, darkening the other lamps one by one. They guided him to his walk-in closet, where he changed before going to their bed.

Margery lay on her side, curled like a cat, her back turned to the last lamp she had left on for him. He joined her under the enormous blanket and turned off the bedside light. It took her only a few minutes to turn to him, still mostly asleep, wrapping her limbs around him and burying her face in the crook of his neck.

"How… was… your… dad?.." she mumbled sleepily. Awake, she never referred to Tywin as his "dad," taking her cue from Tyrion and using the much more formal "father."

Her lover stroke her hair gently, always afraid in moments like these that, if he touched her, she would fade away like dreams always did.

"The usual," he answered for the sake of simplicity, though he did not think it quite true. Ever since he had seen Jaime with Sansa, something had changed in Tywin. Although, Tyrion mused as sleep began to claim him, perhaps seeing Sparkle with his brother had deepened a change that had come earlier — when Tywin had first been introduced to Margery Tyrell as his son's girlfriend.