Author's Note:

Oh, summer. I love it. I love it like Cersei loves drinking wine and blowing up Tyrells. But man, it steals my weekend time and leaves very little for writing. *sad face*

Just looked at the date of my last update. Yikes. I'd love to say that I'm back on the regular schedule, but I'm making no promises until we get to August.

In other news, I see they've finally finished filming S8. Which means we'll get a new trailer in like 6-8 months? Well, a fangirl can dream. In the meantime, guess I'll just have to keep writing the Jorah/Dany approved version of how things actually went down ;)

I'll be back with a new Jorah chapter in a couple weeks (or maybe even next week if I magically find a couple spare moments)! Xo

Tyrion

"I don't understand why you thought it was your place to make that decision!" Sansa's anger was boiling over. She paced across the length of her chambers and back again like a prowling, scarlet-haired she-wolf, clenching her fists in frustration. She'd summoned him to her rooms so she could confront him alone—and alone, she felt no need to keep up the pretense of courtly manners. When she turned on him, Tyrion couldn't help but see Catelyn Stark glowering at him through her eldest daughter's eyes.

He was reminded of that moment in the Crossroads Inn and the steely look in Catelyn's eyes as she seized the debt she believed was owed—thinking it was he who had thrown Bran from the tower window, or at the very least, hired the assassin who tried to kill the crippled boy as he slept. He pled his innocence truthfully from the beginning but Lady Stark still took him captive, sparking a war that would spiral far beyond the control of either Lannister or Stark.

Tyrion winced on the unpleasant memory and on all the ones that followed—of a sky cell in the Vale and Lysa Tulley's idiot son demanding to see the half-man fly. They were strange times. But no stranger than the ones they found themselves in now. Winter, spring, summer and fall. The shadows of life could be found throughout the seasons.

Still, he stood firm, despite Sansa's towering presence and accusing glare.

"If I had known you would react this way, I would have asked you first," he answered, lying seamlessly. He'd decided to play the fool, despite knowing that Sansa had been groomed for years by Littlefinger and knew every trick of tongue and turn of phrase as well as any politician. One look and he knew she wasn't buying it.

"She's my sworn sword!" Sansa replied, adding emphatically, "And you are not Lord of Winterfell, Tyrion."

"No, I am not," Tyrion agreed immediately, his head dropping a degree, giving her the respect she demanded. And deserved. If he were able to explain, he would make it clear that this was no play for power or attempt to undermine her authority. Sansa was the Queen of the North. Queen of Winter. Perhaps even Queen of his heart.

The last title was an uncertain one, but he was self-aware enough to know that his admiration for her had only grown in the last few months and that he was as equally inclined to focus on her pretty face as her raging words, as she now stood fuming before him.

But he couldn't give her any explanation. The secret wasn't his. It was his brother's and Brienne of Tarth's—and the unborn child that had been given life in the darkest days of their generation.

"But why would you send her to Greywater Watch?" Sansa demanded, her tone softening slightly, desperate to understand his actions, unwilling to believe he acted against her. He understood the depth of her words too well.

The loneliness and despair that clutched at his heart since the battle at Winterfell clutched at hers as well. They were broken people, many times shattered. But in the final breaking, she thought they were finally beyond betrayals and intrigue…yet, here he was, Tyrion Lannister, seemingly sending her sworn sword on a clandestine mission that he failed to share with her.

Why Greywater Watch?

Brienne had asked him the same thing when he suggested she travel to the seat of House Reed to deliver the child. She had begged him to find her a place to go, as she was convinced that she could not have the baby at Winterfell. There were too many northerners here who had no love lost on the Kingslayer, despite the heroic actions of his last days. Jaime's child would not be welcome in these halls and the revelation that Brienne had set aside her duty and honor for a tryst with a Lannister…they would slander and condemn her without mercy.

Brienne's emotions were raw, her ever-present notions of duty and honor complicated by lingering grief for Jaime and fierce protectiveness of their unborn child. But Tyrion couldn't deny her fears had solid foundations. The Night King had united them all at the end, smoothing over decades of prejudices and grievances, petty wars, both great and small, all set aside in favor of survival. But Tyrion was clever enough to know that those same old fissures would crack and reopen eventually.

Winter made lambs out of all the animals in the forest. But winter wouldn't last forever.

So Tyrion sent her to Greywater Watch, to have the child in secret. The journey would be treacherous in this weather but Brienne was set upon it and set out immediately after Tyrion assured her that the Reeds were understanding folk who would not ask questions.

It was common knowledge. More than any other person alive, Howland Reed knew how to keep a secret well. He'd certainly proven that over the last couple decades, hadn't he?

Tyrion almost smirked on the notion. If Sansa weren't still staring him down, with all her Stark indignation and hot-tempered Tulley rage flashing in waves across her features, he might have. He had spent more time with spymasters than most. And the idea that, all this time, Varys and Littlefinger knew far less than old Howland Reed, Lord of the Swamps, was darkly comical.

You set out to restore House Targaryen by calling back its exiles from across the Narrow Sea, Varys…inciting wars and playing games, with all your little birds singing pretty songs in your ears. But your little birds missed the greatest song of all time. A Northern ballad about a bastard brother of the Night's Watch who was the true King of Seven Kingdoms and never knew it.

But Howland Reed knew it. That old man knew the truth for more than twenty years and never breathed a word. For Ned's sake, for pity's sake, for the sake of a child who never asked to be born in the first place? Tyrion didn't know. Having spent too much time at politics, the idea that a secret could be kept for more than an afternoon was still foreign to him.

But he admired Howland Reed for the sheer audacity of keeping that secret. And he knew, if Brienne wanted to keep hers, Greywater Watch was the only place in all the Seven Kingdoms where such a thing might be possible.

To Sansa, he said only, "We still have a lot of unanswered questions—about Jon, about Rhaegar and your Aunt Lyanna, about what happened at the Tower of Joy—and Howland Reed may be the only one who can answer those questions."

"Bran has seen it all," Sansa countered.

"Does your brother share his visions with you?" Tyrion asked pointedly, not meaning to be cruel but knowing how his words would land on her ears. The Three-Eyed Raven kept much to himself, pondering it all away. He made grand revelations when they were needed but felt no inclination to elaborate and explain, only to reveal.

And when he did reveal or give warning, as only a near-all-seeing being could, he chose to give those warnings or discuss those revelations with Samwell Tarly, who he had adopted as a surrogate brother soon after meeting him. Sansa, Bran's trueborn sister and lady of the castle, was never summoned to his chambers or made privy to those visions and insights…except secondhand through Sam.

Her brother's coldness and obvious preference for Sam nettled her deeply, and Tyrion knew it. He knew too that it wasn't petty jealousy that stirred these feelings in her, but loneliness and loss, and the simple desire to have one of her brothers back.

In that, he could sympathize. And the fact that he used a pain he knew so well against her wasn't right. He regretted it immediately and would have snatched back the words if he could.

But they were spoken and Sansa's queenly rage was already melting away. Replaced by a sharp, unhealed pain that she quickly covered up with a stony façade that said she was done arguing with him.

Her set frown didn't alter. Too angry to speak, she shook her head slowly, more to herself than to him, and left her own chambers without another word.