Tyrion Lannister had always possessed a great curiosity. Perhaps this was a product of his own inborn intellect, perhaps it was a product of his desire to understand why his very presence seemed to garner such disdain from his father and elder sister even as so many others looked at him with such pity no matter what he did or said: never believing he would rise above his unnaturally short stature as a dwarf.
Well, that wasn't completely true. His uncle Gerion never had looked down on him. He'd had faith enough in Tyrion's love of reading to give him the two books on the world's wonders by Lormas Longstrider and quiz him from memory about what the properties said wonders were. But Gerion was long gone now, leaving only Tyrion's bastard cousin Joy Hill in his place. A nice enough girl if shallow to Tyrion's memory, but last he knew she'd become so melancholy and depressive ever since his uncle had left on his ill-fated quest to recover the Lannister family's valyrian steel longsword Brightroar from the ruins of Old Valyria.
It wasn't that Tyrion was unsympathetic to Joy's loss, not when he himself still missed his favorite uncle any day he thought of him. It was just that Joy was a 'true Lannister' as his father Tywin might've put it even if her blonde hair was somewhat dull in color and her green eyes rather dim.
Tyrion on the other hand was acutely aware of just how little he approached the traditional look of a Lannister or anyone's idea of handsome for that matter. His hair was somewhat of the Lannister blonde but with heavy streaks of brown in it, making it seem as though he had tried to color his hair with some brand of tree sap. His eyes, resting beneath a brow prominent enough that a few who had thought to jape about something other than his height claimed that they'd looked for the scars to see how he could've stitched a knight's helm beneath the skin of his face, were completely mismatched: the right was a deep green found more often in moss than in verdant grass while the left was black in a manner one might find most reminiscent of a Dornishman. All this in addition to most everything (except the most important part in his breeches thank the gods) being reduced to half the size of grown men so that even as he was reaching his early thirties in namedays he was still towered over by sufficiently grown children.
So perhaps it was no great surprise that Tyrion couldn't find it in him to be over sympathetic to Joy. Her father had loved her without a doubt. His own loathed him. And when Tyrion had tried at fifteen namedays, as his uncles had at his age, to travel the nine free cities of Essos in order to prove himself as a man his father had instead put him in charge of the cisterns and sewers of Casterly Rock. A shit job for a little shit they couldn't get rid of the unsaid reasoning.
With travel outside his father's control closed to him, Tyrion had told himself that perhaps he could settle into the role and find some semblance of happiness living under his father's thumb. He knew he wouldn't in all honesty but he'd also found that the less he admitted the truth of his family the more he could smile. When he was sixteen he thought perhaps meeting and falling in love with Tysha, the girl who'd told him she was a crofter's daughter but found his humor more of an attraction than his appearance a detraction, was a sign that he had made the correct choice.
His father had been sure to thoroughly disabuse him of that notion. And even if Tyrion's heart hadn't been shattered by Tywin Lannister's ruthless way of revealing the truth of what she was to him, Tysha had left after that day with the twenty-six silver stags earned from the guards and the lone gold dragon Tywin had forced Tyrion to give her because Lannisters were worth more. He never saw nor heard from her again.
On the rare occasions he thought about it outside of his cups, he wondered if anyone had ever had a marriage end in a more disastrous way that didn't involve death or last less than a fortnight. His curiosity had never spurred him to ever search her out. Not when such a fool notion could only lead to more heartache and emotional weariness.
But here? Now? His curiosity was gnawing at him like a starving dog.
Much as he could occasionally enjoy the company of King Robert Baratheon since he was the closest thing the dwarf had to a true kindred spirit outside of his own elder brother Jaime, he couldn't quite bring himself to stomach the increased exposure to his sister Cersei, Robert's queen, or his nephew Joffrey, the crown prince, and all those who accompanied them in hopes of gaining royal favor by laughing and tittering at the queen's wit or fawning at the prince's observations of the frozen north.
So he'd come ahead of the royal procession in order to try and enjoy the comforts Wintertown could provide. For even here in the frigid North, men were still men and so would still desire a warm hole to bury themselves inside even if they must pay for it. The Septons and Septas could preach all they liked on the divine nature of marriage joining two souls as one and its importance to the Mother and the Father but men were the same no matter where one traveled Tyrion had found. Twas sex they would pay for, would kill for, would lay down their honor and their dignity for if they thought the woman comely and desirable enough. Marriage was simply a means to finding a steady supply of it when they couldn't afford a half-way decent whore. Or if they'd never experienced the pleasure in some cases.
At the brothel he'd found Ros the fiery red-head. A delightful girl in both looks with an air of mystery to her, though it helped that she was quite literally the only red-head of the bunch. He'd had no idea at the time how much that one choice in whore would change things for him. He'd mostly expected that he'd discard his trousers whilst she stripped down to her underclothes. And that had of course come to pass. But then she'd done something different. She'd lit a candle upon her dresser though the sun still shone outside and asked Tyrion to relax with a coy smile upon her lips. Raising his right eyebrow, Tyrion had complied since he'd thought it couldn't hurt to see what she intended to do.
She began by holding her right palm above the candle flame before steadily moving it back toward herself and replacing its position above the small fire with her left palm. She then brought the left back toward her while forming her right hand into a cup above the side of the flame. Joining the right hand came the left, now also in a cup form and joined together over the candle as her eyes seemed to be so focused upon her strange actions. She closed her eyes: slowly drawing the cupped hands back to her torso just beneath her bare breasts and stopping them just in front of her sternum with a deep inhale before drawing them upward and slightly apart as her eyes opened and she exhaled a shaky but exultant breath: as though she had just completed some act of physical exertion that had left her slightly winded while simultaneously experiencing a minor euphoria.
Tyrion couldn't help the smile or the raised eyebrows that came to his expression. It seemed the red head believed herself to be a sorceress of some sort. Or Maegi as he'd read was the general term in Essos. As she turned to him with a healthy rosy glow to her cheeks and her every step practically vibrating with energy, he wondered if perhaps it was something she simply did to work herself up before a job.
As she sensuously knelt before him and her head descended on his cock, his eyes involuntarily closed in surprise and his smile ratcheted up several degrees. Her mouth was hot and humid, her every breath upon his engulfed member sending shivers down his spine. His right hand snaked out and brought his wine goblet to his lips, his fingers minutely trembling from the sensations that hadn't felt so irresistible since the first fumbling but loving times he'd experienced all those years ago with Tysha.
He took slow sips of his wine as her tongue danced upon his throbbing member, the cool tartness of the wine a delicious contrast to the hot wetness he felt below. There had never been a more appropriate time to heighten his sensations with drink to his mind. He'd had many a whore take him in her mouth before, but no matter their talent with oral technique he'd never quite been able to escape that niggling feeling in the back of his mind that told him that this was all well and good but he was really waiting to get to the good stuff and put his cock in her twat where it belonged.
But here and now, the inviting heat of her mouth, the perfect wetness his primal instinct told him he should never try to leave? If it hadn't been for her tongue caressing his member and trying to coax him to his finish, he honestly couldn't have said he knew this was Ros's mouth without opening his eyes and looking down at her fiery hair bobbing up and down on him.
As his goblet reached the halfway empty point and he was throbbing fit to burst, she slowly brought her mouth off of him, leaving him poised upon the proverbial edge with a coy smile. Such a wicked tease this one, certainly nothing like the semi-frigid cum rough riders he'd heard most Northern girls to be from King Robert's experience.
"You're not quite like the other northern girls I've heard tell of." He got out, a smile on his face as she stood up and took his offered hand as they strolled toward the bed.
"And pray, what have you heard of Northern girls m'lord Tyrion?" She asked in a tone of deliberately unconvincing innocence with as a quirked half-smile.
"Well, for one thing-" He began as he clambered onto the bed.
"None of the Northern girls I've heard tell of were such unrelenting teases." He observed.
"For another," He continued as his hands moved his britches off his legs entirely before tossing them carelessly to the side while his mismatched eyes drank in her milky flesh as she slowly lowered herself onto the bed: her palms depressing the bedding as she leaned toward him.
"They don't use magic rituals." He finished as she prowled up toward his prone form.
"I'm sure I haven't the first idea what you're talking about Lord Tyrion." She answered coyly, straddling his legs as the heat from her sex washed over his exposed own. Good gods, but that experience was going to prove interesting.
Which of course meant that his older brother Jaime chose that precise moment to stride through the closed door with barely a word.
"No, don't get up on my account." He remarked idly, his right eyebrow lifted as he took in Tyrion's position beneath this red-haired northern whore.
Exasperated, Tyrion couldn't help the response that came to his lips. Though in all fairness, even if he could've helped it, he wouldn't have. There were interruptions which could be excused and then there were annoyances which could not. And interruptions in the middle of a good fucking were always annoyances.
"Do I need to explain to you the meaning of a closed door in a whorehouse brother?" He asked as the red-head moved from straddling him to kneeling next to him, unfazed by the interruption otherwise.
"I expect you have much to teach me much of whores and their houses. But in the meantime," Jaime responded as he poured himself a small helping of Tyrion's wine from the bottle on Ros's dresser. "Our sister craves your attention."
Tyrion rubbed his right hand on Ros's left hip as she remained kneeling on the bed, shooting an exasperated look to her before he gave Jaime the dismissive answer the request deserved. Tyrion wasn't Cersei's twin or her husband the king's sworn sword after all.
"She has very odd cravings, our sister." He observed as his hand continuing to enjoy the texture of Ros's warm flesh that was so close and yet so far until the, under normal circumstances anyway, only tolerable member of his immediate family left.
"That she does." Jaime agreed, turning to Tyrion as the sun from the window glinted off his golden Kingsguard armor and equally golden hair. "But she still requires you to join us so we can feast the Starks at sundown."
Jaime turned back to him, right hand resting upon the golden lion headed pommel of his sword while the left brought the cup of wine in front of him.
"Don't leave me alone with these people." Was all he said to Tyrion, his natural half-smile present upon his lips.
Much as Jaime was probably exaggerating Tyrion was also fairly certain he wasn't doing so for the sake of getting a laugh so much as he was to get Tyrion to understand how serious he was trying to be in front of people outside their family.
House Lannister business had to remain House Lannister business after all. And any who were not a lion were considered a potential enemy. In Tyrion's personal opinion that was just plain ridiculous considering just how much his lord father's ruthless nature oftentimes pitted family members both distant and close against each other in the vain hope of catching his favor, but then again no one was smart enough to ask Tyrion what he thought of his family. Often enough they'd even told him to stop talking about them when he got deep enough into his cups.
But this time Tyrion felt he would do better to serve his own curiosity before Jaime's personal desire not to bear the weight of the Stark family's overbearing honor that seemed to add its weight everything they did the same way Cersei's overbearing ego seemed to flow forth with every movement of her body or opening of her mouth.
Like one of the sewage lines of Casterly Rock with roughly the same content. Excepting of course the obvious caveat that one could rid themselves of the sewage's foulness with a good enough bath. The same could unfortunately not be said for Cersei.
"I'm afraid I shall have to decline brother dear." He said.
"For you see, I have a feast of my own planned. And this is but the first of many courses." He declared, eager right hand returning to Ros's hip.
Jaime gave a small nod of acquiescence, smile never fading from his lips even as his bright green eyes dulled a bit with somewhat reasonable irritation.
"I had a feeling you'd say that." Jaime said as he paused before the closed door.
"Which is why I took the liberty of arranging the rest of the feast so you may be properly hungry sooner rather than later." He finished, his right hand pulling the door open so that three more of the northern whores quickly made their way in: giggling and simpering as they did so.
As they crowded Tyrion and Ros, the Imp of Lannister could've sworn he heard Jaime give a parting remark about seeing him at the second feast but no sound of the door closing.
"Close the damn door!" He called in exasperation before he went to work with the veritable buffet of temptations that availed themselves of his attention.
Jaime had been right of course. Tyrion had been extremely sated by the four wild northern girls.
But more importantly, he'd managed to suss out from comments made by the other girls (since the redhead had been surprisingly evasive about the nature of what that business with the candle had been with both himself and the other whores whilst he'd been there) that the change had come after she'd gained a frequent visitor in the form of Eddard Stark's bastard son.
Poking around discreetly with other chatty servants after leaving the Wintertown brothel gained him strange tales of the Sept burning down, a three year voluntary exile across the Narrow Sea and a bastard boy's return with the living symbol of House Stark in tow. Needless to say even if only half of what had been told was true, Tyrion was in for an interesting story if he could coax it from the Snow's lips.
Tyrion had seen the young man earlier in the evening, him and that surprisingly large, for a supposed pup anyway, albino direwolf watching the head table upon the dais from the end of one of the long tables near the entrance to the main hall. But when Tyrion had distracted himself with the succulent deer meat and hearty northern ale somehow both bastard and mutt had slipped out.
That gave him as good an excuse as any to leave the rapidly humidifying great hall in any case.
The chilled northern air was bracing after such warmth inside, but still nothing a sip of his good wine from the skein he kept with him couldn't help. No snows had fallen, but still there was the taste of it in the air. Had been ever since the royal party had passed through Moat Cailin really.
From some feet away, Tyrion heard something impacting what sounded like a wooden target. As he ambled closer to investigate, he cocked his head to the right as he took in the scene he discovered.
Illuminated by the moonlight, the bastard known as Jon Snow was wearing only one or two layers of leather as he struck the lightly armored scarecrow looking target in front of him with what appeared to be open palms with the direwolf Tyrion had seen earlier nowhere within sight. The Imp of Lannister couldn't help the humorless smile that came to him now: reflecting how funny it was that to look at him one would think Jon Snow was the trueborn son of Eddard Stark. He certainly looked strikingly enough like him to be considered so.
As Tyrion came closer, he noticed that rents had appeared in the leather armor the target wore. In the midst of his pondering where those had come from, the Stark bastard struck with his right palm again. But no that wasn't quite right. Now that he was close enough to see clearly Tyrion could observe that his fingers were not flat but rather crooked so that they resembled claws. The palm struck just above the coller of the leather armor with a loud smack before the hand was abruptly brought straight down.
With a loud tearing noise, the abused leather armor was torn in half straight down the middle.
Tyrion couldn't help but wonder if any poor girl who asked the Stark bastard to use those fingers upon her womanhood wouldn't have second thoughts if she knew that they were capable of that.
"Quite the set of fingers you have there." He said, watching to see if the bastard had already known he was here.
As the young man turned to face him, Tyrion couldn't help but pity him for being almost the spitting image of his lord father. That surely would've rubbed salt in the wound for Lady Stark every time she saw him, especially since her own trueborn son inherited more of her than Lord Stark.
"Honed them in the brothel did you?" He inquired. Tyrion expected that as a typical young man, he would be proud of his favor, whether imaginary or real, with the red-headed Ros and so boast of it.
The Stark bastard only briefly shook his head before answering: "The fingers saw greater use in the wild. My eyes and tongue have seen far greater use in the brothel."
Tyrion barked a laugh and held the skein up to him as a brief toast before taking a swig.
As Snow came closer to Tyrion, he cocked his head briefly to the left before asking:
"You're Tyrion Lannister: the Queen's brother?"
Tyrion gave a brief bow before leaning against the wooden post behind him.
"My greatest accomplishment to date. Admittedly, not quite the same as teaching magic to pay for a brothel's services, but I tended to find that gold sufficed well enough for most whores."
Snow's grey eyes took him in: giving Tyrion neither signals of anxiousness nor surprise.
"Not the brothel, only Ros." The Stark bastard answered, appearing to take Tyrion's remark at face value.
"And not magic, only worship." He continued.
Tyrion's eyes and ears sharpened. He was getting into something interesting here. Was a Stark no longer a follower of the famous Old Gods of the North?
"Really? I should like to hear the difference between the two." Tyrion remarked.
Grey eyes met green and black. Their gazes were unblinking for several heartbeats. And with a nod, Jon Snow nodded in acquiescence.
"I wouldn't have thought you a man who'd studied at the Citadel Lord Tyrion." He observed.
"Oh, I never did." Tyrion answered. "I just happen to have a very curious mind."
A/N: Jesus Christ, Tyrion is a lot harder to write for than I thought. I'm still not exactly satisfied with the way I've ended the chapter, but until I have a better idea for it, this is how it is. My thanks to you guys for your continued patience with my slow ass and I hope you let me know what you think of this...intensive...labor that was this chapter.