King Bran the Broken – Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things

Jon Snow's ship had departed for the North, carrying his friend away.

Tyrion would miss Jon. Not as bitterly as he missed Varys, but certainly as much.

On the same day, another of Tyrion's concerns was lifted when he learnt that the Unsullied had set sailed from King's Landing. The new Hand felt safer knowing that at least the whole length of the Narrow Sea would lie between him and Grey Worm.

But that was only one of the very many concerns that rested on his shoulders as the new Hand of the King. He had only been serving in the office for a few days, but he could already feel its weight on his shoulders. It was no more than he deserved and Bran had made it clear that his appointment was to be a punishment of sorts. But Tyrion also knew that a small part of him relished the chance of building the better world he had always believed was possible.

First, he needed to see off the lords and ladies who had chosen to return to their own seats. Some would see them for the first time.

'I'm not even sure if they'll let me in,' Gendry said as Tyrion, Davos and Arya were seeing him off. He would be taking a ship to Storm's End, his father's castle; now his own.

'They best do,' Davos said. 'If they don't, they will be in defiance of a royal command. Besides, it seems that the garrison in Storm's End is eager for… direction.'

It was the only mention any of them made of the king's powers.

'I wouldn't worry about getting into Storm's End, Lord Baratheon,' Tyrion said. 'I'd worry more about the task you must face.'

'Aye, I'm aware.'

'The King is counting on you to restore the Stormlands to what they were, to protect the roads and bring those who claim to be lords to heel.'

'No need of your encouragements, my Lord Hand. Your faith in me warms my heart.'

Tyrion smiled and looked up at Gendry. 'Do you remember the first thing I said about you?'

Gendry nodded his head up and down and sighed, before looking back down at the dwarf. 'You said: 'He'll do.''

'And I meant it.' Tyrion extended his hand.

Gendry looking at him for a very long moment… before clasping his hand. 'Farewell, Lord Tyrion.'

Davos also bid farewell to the boy, but when Arya Stark's turn came, he led Tyrion away. 'That farewell is not for our eyes or our ears.'

But Tyrion could not resist turning to look at the young Lord of Storm's End and the Hero of Winterfell one more time, witnessing the beginnings of an embrace and a kiss before averting his eyes again.

The other great lords and ladies took their leave. Yara Greyjoy took her ship back to the Iron Islands, refusing to linger for long. Prince Doran and Lord Robin Arryn departed by ship, the first making for Sunspear, the second for Gulltown, where he would be taken back to the Gates of the Moon, the Arryns' winter castle. Lord Yohn Royce, in spite of his duties as Lord Protector, remained in the capital to attend to further business, most of it conducted with Sansa Stark. Edmure Tully remained as well, making no secret of the idea that he sought a seat on the Small Council. Tyrion doubted he would accept such a fool on his council, or that Bran would choose him.

Sansa also meant to leave as soon as she could. She had waited in King's Landing until Jon took ship for the North but she needed to return to Winterfell, to assert her new claim as the Queen in the North. The night before she was meant to leave, she dined alone with the king and Arya. Tyrion was not asked to attend, nor did he wish to. It would be the last time the three Starks would be together. As he had understood it, Arya meant to leave Westeros to discover what lay beyond the Sunset Sea. Sansa would return to Winterfell. And Bran would remain in King's Landing.

Yet again, the surviving children of Ned and Catelyn Stark would be separated. But on their own terms this time.

Tyrion expected to see Sansa the next day, before she left for the North…

…but he did not expect to find her in his chambers in the Tower of the Hand.

'Your quarters have improved since the last time we were both here.' She said as he opened the door to his rooms. He had chosen to forgo the larger rooms his father had occupied. He could not sleep in the bed where he had strangled Shae… or use the privy where he had killed Tywin Lannister. Instead, he had decided to make use of the quarters Ned Stark had chosen, those beneath the more ornate higher levels of the Tower.

'As have your prospects, my Lady. From Joffrey's hostage to Queen in the North. You have done well for yourself.'

'I am not queen yet.'

'A mere formality. The lords of the North love you.'

Sansa smiled at that. He noticed that she had two cups of wine before her.

'What could you possibly want with me right now, Sansa? I would have thought you would want to be with the king and Arya.'

She looked at him. 'I'm saying my goodbyes.'

Tyrion understood. He went to the table and sat down. Sansa poured him wine and refilled her own cup. They both drank.

'How ironic.' He said.

'What?'

'When we left here: we were both accused of killing a king… of which we were innocent. This time, we sit free and powerful, a queen and a… servant.' Tyrion drank as he remembered the last time someone who had referred to his time as Hand as being a servant. 'But this time, we are guilty of killing a queen.'

Sansa drank again. 'Daenerys was a threat, and I won't pretend to cry for her. But she wasn't Joffrey. I wish I could have killed him when I had the chance.'

'It would have taken so long for you to have that chance… and much pain.'

'Yes, a lot of pain… but not that long.'

When Tyrion looked at her questioningly, she explained: 'When he took me out onto the Walk of Traitors to show me my father's head…' Tyrion drank, '… I had a chance to push him to his death.'

'Why didn't you?'

'Someone stopped me.'

'Who?'

'Someone kind.'

Tyrion looked across the table at the girl he had once know, at the woman she had become. The steel had always been there, hidden beneath the courtesies and the dreams of dashing knights and handsome princes. She would be a great queen.

'What are you really doing here, Sansa?'

She laughed. 'Reminiscing with an old friend.'

'We do have quite a lot to reminisce about.'

He filled her cup again. She twirled it but did not drink it.

'Do you remember our wedding?'

He choked on his sip of wine, coughing hard. 'Why in the name of the Gods would you want to reminisce about that sorry affair?'

'It wasn't all bad.'

'I threatened to cut off Joffrey's cock… and then told the whole court about how I had once thrown up over a naked girl. I think it was about as bad I can remember.'

'I wasn't thinking of the ceremony. But what happened after.'

'Not much good came of that either.'

'Something did. You were kind to me, kind to a girl who would have done her duty to survive but hated every moment of it. You chose to be simply… kind.'

She brought the cup to her lips but paused before drinking: 'I never would have survived King's Landing without the kindness of strangers.'

Tyrion smiled. 'I once told your brothers that I have a soft place in my heart for cripples, bastards and broken things. You had been through so much I believed you were broken. But I was wrong. You were bruised, bloody and in such pain that I can barely imagine. But you never broke. No once.'

She smiled again, drained her goblet and put it down on the table with what seemed like a terrible sense of finality.

'Do you remember what you promised me that night?'

'It was so long ago, Sansa. I don't think…'

'Tyrion.'

Maybe it was the use of his name that convince, but he looked her in the eyes. 'I promised that I would not force you to consummate our marriage unless you wanted me to.'

'And I told you…'

'… that it might never happen.'

She nodded… and, suddenly, Tyrion understood what she had come to his rooms for. He drained his own cup and set it down hard on the table.

'Sansa…'

'I have known little but cruelty and abuse from other men,' she said getting to her feet. 'You have only ever been good to me.'

'I am not the man you should want.'

'I want you to honour your promise. I want to know what it's like without having to feel like it is a duty. And I want to know what it's like without having to suffer abuse at the hands of cruel men.'

She was standing and soon knelt before him.

'But mostly, I want it to be with the best of them.'

She had placed her hands on his knees. 'Sansa…'

It was so sudden that he could do little to resist. She leant in to kiss him, almost savagely, on the mouth. For a moment, he felt himself succumb; she tasted sweeter than he had ever imagine when he had had the chance to be with her. But his senses returned to him and he pushed her away. 'Sansa, no.'

'Why? You are not forcing me into anything.'

'It's not you,' he said. 'It's me. I can never be with a woman again. Not after what I did.'

'What did you do?'

'If I tell you, I fear you won't look at me the same way. I am not the best of them.'

'You are.'

'I'm not!'

The tears came without him realizing it, and the words also. He told her everything. How he had escaped, how he had found his way into the Tower of the Hand to confront his father… and how he had found Shae in his bed. She listened without betraying an emotion when he told her how he had killed the woman who had once been her friend. And how he had killed his own father.

'So, you see. I'm not the best of them.'

For a moment, she said nothing and Tyrion did not even dare to look at her.

Finally, he felt her fingers under his bearded chin. He got only a bare glimpse of her face before she kissed him again, more softly this time. When she pulled away, she said nothing and nor did he, but something seemed to break… and also heal at the same time within him. The wound was not gone, perhaps it never would. But its pain was dulled. He might see himself as a monster, he might be a monster… but Sansa Stark chose in that moment to stay with him. To fulfil the purpose she had set herself when she had come to the Tower of the Hand.

This time, he leaned in for the kiss.

He did not know how long they remained there but, at some moment, they moved to the bed in the adjacent room. Sansa had already started loosening his doublet but now she turned to her own dark robes. Gradually, the clothes fell to the floor… until the Queen in the North stood naked before him. The vulnerability he saw in her face was clear. For all her strength, it had taken courage to show herself to him in such a fashion. He could see all the hurt and the cruelty that Ramsay Bolton had inflicted on her, the ugly scars that marked her otherwise perfect form.

Tyrion reciprocated by removing his own clothing. Soon, they stood naked before one another.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Sansa extended her hand to him and he took it, letting her lead him to the bed. Soon, he was on her and they were kissing again, exploring each other's bodies. Sansa was in some ways clumsy, but Tyrion was patient with her. He delicately touched the scars she bore and even kissed them. She made him laughed when she said that his beard tickled her and, for a brief while, she was the girl he remembered again as she laughed with him. He waited for her permission to go further but she eventually led him there herself. He was gentle with her and let her lead. As she felt him within her, her lovemaking became more urgent, more passionate. He joined her and, soon, they were both spent, panting from the exertion.

Sansa turned to look at him, her hand finding his beard. 'I knew you were the best of them,' she said with a smile.

-0-

They stayed awake for most of the night, trading stories of their time apart and laughing of things they could laugh about now. Tyrion told Sansa of the things he had seen in the east, the beauties of Pentos, Volantis and Meereen. She told him of her and Jon traveling to the keeps of the North, the struggle to prevent the wildlings and the Northmen from killing each other. She even told him of slapping Robin Arryn across the face, a story that made them both laugh so hard it hurt when Sansa tried to describe the look on the boy's face.

A brief sleep was ended when the dawn came. Sansa rose from the bed, her naked body almost glowing in his eyes in the early morning light. She dressed and he soon joined her. They did not speak until they had reached the door, nor did they speak when they did. But Sansa knelt down and kissed Tyrion once more, the best goodbye she could ever give him.

When, a few hours later, he watched her leaving the courtyard of the Red Keep with a large escort of Northern soldiers around her, he smiled. The world would never know that, in the eyes of the Seven, Tyrion Lannister and Sansa Stark were now man and wife, their legal union having been consummated, and their respective pains put to some measure of rest.

-0-

Alongside Ser Brienne, Tyrion accompanied the king back to the godswood. It was a cold morning, but Bran enjoyed tending to affairs that did not require the attention of a full council between the trees. When they reached the weirwood tree, Ser Brienne excused herself to allow the King and his Hand to speak privately, but she did not go far.

'Did you have a pleasant night, Lord Tyrion?' Bran asked.

Tyrion's head wiped round so fast at his words that he heard something snap in his neck. Bran was looking at him with a slight smile playing on his lips in an otherwise expressionless face. He had noticed this brief remnant of emotion, of humanity, in the boy king. It was like a memory of something gone that could never return, but nor could it be forgotten.

Tyrion sighed. 'Pleasant enough,' he said.

He did not wish to speak of this further, nor did he believe Bran wanted to. 'Your Grace, we have urgent matters to discuss.'

'We do. But one most of all.'

Tyrion looked up to see Bran look to the weirwood face of the heart tree.

'We must speak of Casterly Rock.'

Tyrion's stomach tightened at the mention of his childhood home and with slight surprise, for he had not expected this. 'What of it?'

'We must decide what is to be done with it.'

Tyrion nodded.

Casterly Rock was not the only castle they needed to speak of. Since the beginning of the Song, numerous castles had lost their lords and ladies, as great and small houses died out or were relieved of their lands and seats. Some had been granted to other houses, as had been done in the Stormlands; Tywin Lannister had issued a royal decree following the Battle of the Blackwater allowing lords to seize the seats of openly rebellious houses. The Stormlands, bereft of leadership following Stannis's defeat and subsequent departure for the North, fell into chaos as lords begun fighting each other. With the later falls of Casterly Rock and, more importantly, the Sack of Highgarden, order had collapsed to the south as houses fought each other over old grievances, out of naked ambition, or attempts to curry favour with the Crown. A few houses, whose levies had fought at the Goldroad, had sworn themselves to Daenerys, but such oaths had been made in fear and did not stand for long once she had left for Winterfell. Brigands and outlaws had formed into bands and threatened the roads, some even claiming abandoned castles and keeps for themselves. It was such bands who had laid a brief siege to Goldengrove, after taking Coldmoat and Steadfast. The south was in considerable disarray.

Before he had left for Storm's End, Bran and Tyrion had spoken at length to Gendry Baratheon. The new young lord, uncertain of his task now that he had been made the leader of one of the most powerful houses in the Six Kingdoms, had found comfort and eagerness in the idea of a task to occupy him. He had already dispatched letters, counter signed by Bran, to demand the remaining Stormlords pledge themselves to him and provide men to help him bring order to the Stormlands.

Highgarden stood similarly abandoned, save for a small garrison of Lannister soldiers, who had turned the castle into their fortress, fearful of the repercussions of their allegiance. Tyrion already had a solution in mind, but he had yet to discuss it with the king. He had no doubt that Bran probably already knew what the solution was.

As for Casterly Rock, it had been left abandoned after the Unsullied had taken it… until a new army had emerged from the east. Following the deaths of the Frey men at the Twins, Edmure Tully and the other hostages from the Riverlands had been freed from the dungeons and allowed to leave. The young Lord of Riverrun, showing once again the hot blood that ran within him, gathered a new force of Riverlords, composed primarily of the houses who had remained either loyal to Robb Stark, the Blackfish or simply refused to bow to the Freys. Gathering a host of four thousand men, he stunned his vassals by refusing to march on Riverrun and reclaim his father's seat. Instead, he declared he would accomplish what his nephew had planned before the Red Wedding: marching west and taking Casterly Rock from the Lannisters.

When he had come to attend the Great Council, Edmure had boasted of his capture of the castle. But Tyrion knew better. Cersei had left the mighty seat of the Lannisters undefended after the attack… and the one thing that outshone Casterly Rock's strategic position were its gold mines… which Tyrion had learnt had run dry.
For all his bravado, it was clear that Edmure felt very much the fool he was when he finally claimed his prize without a fight.

'I don't want it,' Tyrion said.

'You have the right to it.' Bran said.

'I do… but I have no desire to set eyes on the place again. It only ever brought me misery.'

'You are the last of the Lannisters. Your family has held the Rock for centuries. You were kings there once.'

'Yes, we were. And it was the memory of that crown that drove my father, no matter what he might have thought. Everything he did was designed to make us kings again. Not merely of the rocks and hills of the Westerlands, but of the entire Seven Kingdoms.'

Tyrion smiled as he remembered once again the days he had spent with Varys in the wheelhouse from Pentos to Volantis.

'Did you know that my father had offered Cersei's hand in marriage to Rhaegar Targaryen?'

'I did.'

'And do you know what Aerys Targaryen told my father?'

'No.'

Tyrion frowned. 'Yes, you do.'

'But this is your story to tell.'

'He said that my father was a good servant, but a servant nonetheless. And princes did not marry the daughters of servants. Of all Aerys's madness, that may have been the maddest act of all. It cost him my father's loyalty… and it may have the moment he decided to ensure his dream of our family's future crown by aligning it with Robert during the Rebellion.'

Tyrion looked at the ruined towers of the Red Keep, standing above them, the rubble still lying around them in places. 'How much pain and misery could have prevented if Tywin Lannister had been less prideful?'

He looked back at the king's expressionless brown eyes. 'I am not my father. You made it clear that my appointment as Hand was meant as much as punishment as it was mercy. I will devote my entire mind and time to helping rebuild our land… not preserving my house. It's time for the Lannisters to truly become servants.'

He ceased speaking, holding Bran the Broken's gaze as they stood or sat in silence.

Finally, the king nodded. 'You are a wise man, Lord Tyrion.'

As they marched back into the small rooms the king had taken for his own beside the godswood, he turned to his Hand. 'Do you remember what you told me when you presented me with my saddle?'

'That I had a soft place in my heart for cripples…'

'…bastards and broken things. Once, we were rejected by this world. Now, it is our task to rebuild it.'

-0-

Later that day, Lord Edmure Tully was summoned to meet with the King and his Hand in the godswood. A signature was all that was needed to confirm him and House Tully in perpetuity as the new Lords of Casterly Rock and Wardens of the West and Rivers. It had also been decided that, when Lord Tully sired a second son, he would inherit the family castle at Riverrun, which would until then be managed by its new High Steward: Ser Otho Rivers. Ser Otho had not become one of the Ravens, choosing to return to Riverrun after his question was answered.

'Such has been decreed,' King Bran said, Tyrion at his side, to a very stunned Lord Tully, 'as a blood price agreed by Lord Tyrion, for the crimes his family committed against yours.'

'Godspeed, my Lord,' Tyrion added. 'Your lands are in need of order and reconstruction.'

Despite worries that the new Lord of Casterly Rock would still insist upon a seat on the Small Council, he left the next day to claim his new seat and begin the task of rebuilding the ravaged west and Riverlands.

That night, Tyrion returned to the Tower of the Hand feeling content. As he stood in the room where he had spent the night with Sansa, he smiled to himself, reminding himself of what he had also told her so many years ago after promising that he would not force himself on her.

He left the room, draped in a cloak to protect himself against the cold air of the winter night, looking down at the ruined city.

'And now my watch begins.'

Author's Note: Another chapter that took me by surprise. It was originally going to be a much broader chapter about Tyrion's time as the Hand of the King, including mentioning all those who had become members of the Small Council. But from the moment I started writing the scene between Sansa and Tyrion, it just grew into its own thing and I'm very proud of it. I hope you all enjoy it. Next chapter will be about the different members of the Small Council ^^.