Game of Thrones Tales: Lannister Family Values

Summary: In an alternative universe, King Robert calls on a different old friend and brother to assist him. But whose decency, kindness, and sense of honor, while a bit different from Ned Stark's are equally strong. But are the family values of House Addams a match for the ruthless Lannisters?

Part XXXVIII…

Kings' Landing…

Middlefinger Entertainment Palade…Your choice for entertainment in the big city…Whether it's the splatter of guts on stage in choreographic splendor, the sound of our celebrated mandolin orchestra or your last Westerosian farthing going down the slots, or the earnest voice of a pretty young thing telling you she'll love you forever but cash up front, the MEP is your place for fun while in town…

Reasonably vast office of Lord Belloq…

Hey, he's not quite a Lannister or a King Bob…Just a poor boy from the Arm and Finger, smartest one of the bunch, you know, held back by the jealousy of the big boys and a cruel fate, cheated of…

(Oh, come on…Verysmuch sighing in his office…Petyr, get over it. We've all had our share of troubles in getting where we are today…Those two balls in the jar on that shelf there are the living proof…)

Middlefinger swinging chair to face his visitor…

"So…We meet again…" sly smile…

"Lady Stark…"

Sansa standing before him, a frown…

Yeah and you're lucky the last time you visited Winterfalls I didn't mention your pervy obsession with pawing me and calling me Kitty…After Cat, for Mom, you said…To my then living parents.

Honorable as Dad was, he'd've cleaved you head to foot, Mom in full agreement.

She always said to keep away from you…That you were a perv when you two were kids and you're a perv now.

Still, my hideous and harsh changes of life and fortune force me to seek just such a man, so long as his ambition outweighs his perviness.

After all, I have all the perv a gal could seek in my Joffrey…Hee, hee…Ha, ha, ha…

Sorry…My Frump ancestry's dark side showing a bit…

"I rather suspected I'd be seeing you here." Middlefinger, shrewd nod.

(Fine, I hadn't a clue…He stares at us. I thought I'd be seeking her and her creepy obsession of a boyfriend/desucceeded royal out. What the hell am I gonna say?

I knew she was coming…Verysmuch to us from office chair, archly.)

"Did you?" Sansa, blinking.

"Joffrey dethroned…Well, kept off the throne, future tense…You madly in love with him… (Geesh, even I have to take pause at that…Middlefinger notes to us.) Your own need of revenge, family style, though your brother Robbed is cast in the same ridiculously honorable mold as your late, dunderheaded father. No disrespect to the dead intended, just to the nobly dunderheaded…

Clearly you have need of a powerful ally…" winning smile.

Creep…She eyed him in his chair.

Still, point there…And it is why I've come…

Minus Joff who'd've screwed things trying to demand a chance to torture prostitutes…

"Powerful, yes." She frowned. "But I and my darling Prince, the true heir to all Westeros and the world, if it's up to me. (Hell, why not…That Targaryen bimbo has no better claim…What, her family massacred its way across Westeros three hundred years ago? Joff could do that, no problem.), would have questions regarding whether you are the ally for us."

"My dear child…" thin smile. "Knowledge is power…And knowledge is what I have plenty of…"

"I should think this is real power…" Sansa, swiftly pulling knife from ankle bracelet, leaping to hold it to a stunned Middlefinger's throat.

"Hmmn…Well, that too…But…" he gasped,

As six ruined knights in armor with swords drawn and twelve heavily armed prostitutes enter room, all brandishing their weapons at Sansa who blinks at them…

"…As you see I don't forget that either…" Belloq finishes, pushing knife away. "It's ok…You four…" points to knights… "And you three…" points to rather more ferociously defensive prostitutes…Hey, a girl appreciates a good boss who insists on equal pay… "Can go…The rest, cover her."

I'm no fool, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk…He eyes us. I'm just a poor boy from…

(Verysmuch, loud sigh from his office chair…)

Fine…

"Anyway, dear Sansa…" beam at Sansa now backed off, surrounded by the two knights and three angry-looking prostitutes… "I am reasonably powerful in all essentials. Just what were you…And of course your little Caligula…Proposing, alliance-wise?"

Kids, you gotta indulge 'em…Especially when it could be to your advantage in the climb to power…

"Support Prince Joffrey with your intelligence network and your people, including assassins…" Sansa noted.

"Assassins? We ain't got no assassins…" Belloq frowned.

"Please. The girl sent to kill my brother and cousin was yours." Sansa, grimly. "Though I suppose I should speak to Lady Maud Addams, she'd just pat me on the head and offer to teach me swordplay to avenge my parents later while trying to talk me out of my Joffrey obsession…Your girl being so incompetent."

"My girl? My dear child… Tut, tut…" Middlefinger, waging same.

"And since we both want the same thing…A vicious and bloody civil war that will unseat King Robert and throw the kingdom into chaos, opening the door for any powerful, capable ruler to seize power…"

And you wish to rule out your psycho completely? Well, that's a sign of sanity…

"…Namely my prince."

Cough, blink…

Joffrey?

Powerful?

Capable?

Much as this works for me, I almost feel compelled to take action and intervene for your mom's sake as a close friend.

Almost…

"Yes…Well, sweetheart, perhaps I do and perhaps, being a royal minister and pledged to support the King and Government and to obtain my royal pension, I don't…But how, if I jokingly indulge this fantasy of political intrigue not far from my own 'Game of Thrones' musical…"

(Ha! Verysmuch, exultant…Knew he was behind it! Though "his own"? I doubt that…Verysmuch…

Only his resident genius choreographer/screenwriter Maester Busby could've written it. Really gotta win that one to my network. I have this wonderful idea of my own for a stageplay, just need a maester of the craft to shape it…)

"…Would we proceed, in your view?"beaming smile.

"Joffrey will pledge to make you Lord Hand when he takes the kingdom." Sansa, grimly. "You provide the civil war and help us make alliances behind the scenes as the war rages."

"Not bad…If rather vague…Just 'start a civil war', just like that?" Middlefinger, a bit archly. "And frankly your own family would be the most likely catalyst…" he eyed her set face… "Wait? You'd betray your own brother, your own family? For Joffrey?" stare.

Oh, Cat…This girl needs help…He mentally sighed.

"I have no family but my Prince and Lord, Joffrey…" Sansa, calmly. "No one else matters to me."

"An alien puppet master or brain leech, like in my last year's sci-fi musical, land on you, girl? Did the Citadel finally perfect mind control and Joff got hold of it?" Belloq stared.

"Think on this, my Lord." Sansa, quietly. "My life is over unless I marry well…Robbed at best would give me some little castle to hold for him as an old maid knitting or married to some minor lord, likely a fat old cousin, bearing his equally fat kids. I can never inherit the Stark title and lands, it would go to my younger brothers. I can't fight like Lady Maud, so a knightly career, difficult already for a woman, is out. The Citadel would only let me audit courses, no degrees for women. Either I become the wife to a powerful psychopath and rule through him till we meet a grisly fate on the battlefield or at the hands of our brutally oppressed subjects or he bumps me off or I die in childbirth from an easily curable infection, or that's my fate. Naturally I prefer to love said psychopath to pieces to be able to bear the situation."

Hmmn… "The kid has a point." One of the guard prostitutes notes to Belloq. I know that's why I opted for prostitution over staying with my own powerful clan.

Indeed…And just as I'd hoped…Sorta…She's chosen to ally with me, he nods shrewdly.

Anyway I was planning to make use of her and him. Though this intense ruthlessness of hers scares the woollies out of me…

I can see where she has a lot of cousin Ophelia in her…

Why do I attact such psychos? Oh, well…Road to power and all that…

"Well, dear…" indulgent smile. "If I were, say just for fun, to consider this proposal…And give you and Joffrey my backing, for the good of the kingdom since I feel Joffrey is wrongfully excluded from the succession…"

Yeah, right…Best thing King Bob ever did, dropping that lil' weasel…

"…How could I be sure King Joffrey would keep his word? After all, I have only your word and his grandfather is Tywin Lannister, sure to want to assume the Handship himself."

Sansa, frowning…

"I don't plan to have my Prince and future King forever dependent on his grandfather. (Or anyone else, besides me, so beware, perv). In fact, with your help at the right time, I mean to see Lord Lannister used and then discarded…" icy tone.

Discarded?

Tywin Lannister?

Whoa…This girl either got balls or delusions of grandeur…

"Intriguing…In our little fantasy, of course…But beyond being Lord Hand, if Tywin Lannister could ever be… 'Discarded'… (Uh-huh…I'd sooner believe Tyrion Lannister will one day skewer him with crossbow while he's on the toilet…) there might well be other things I might want."

"My crazy cousin Ophelia Arryn nee Frump? Done, with pleasure…" Sansa nodded.

"That's nice but no…Though I would take her and the Vale…Her for a bit, the Vale permanently…In our fantasy of course…" smile… "No, I'd also want complete and permanent control of the Westerosian coal supply and of all industries, including Lord Addams' interesting railroad idea, relating to coal, under my equally permanent control."

"Coal?" Sansa stared. "That nasty black stuff Cousin Gomez keeps raving about? All yours…"

"Indeed…Well then…Perhaps we could take our little fantasy a step further…"

Sansa, nervous look…

I'm not gonna have to fuck him, am I? Geesh, I'm still a virgin and a distant cousin…

Plus while it would probably turn Joff on for a bit when I had to tell him as I can keep nothing from my true love, sooner or later it would be one more thing to add to his "kill Sansa" pile.

"And talk…Contract!" Belloq beamed. "You two, leave…" he eyed the knights who frowned at the smirking prostitute guards…

Who's the guard, boy putz in steel? Huh? Huh?

…And left…

"Scribes!" he cried.

"Really?" Sansa blinked. "For a plot to overthrow the kingdom, we need a contract?"

"For an…Imaginary…Plot…Darling. Your brilliant first attempt at a stageplay, with moi." Smile.

"That way, King Bob ever gets a whiff…" he eyed her.

Oh…She nodded slowly…I get it…

"Right. Our stageplay." She nodded.

"One that…Once spelled out completely…And carried through…" he beamed. "Will surprise and entertain and perhaps even, terrify, millions. We'll call it 'Game of Thrones, Season Two…'"

Great. He gets to name it. Sansa sighed inwardly.

…..