Lord Tywin rose from bending the knee to the new king.
He knew these formalities from since he had been cupbearer at King Aegon's court; he took his place in the pavilion camp on the outskirts of King's Landing, which was so charred and twisted as to be uninhabitable without the gold of Casterly Rock.
It had been the weary grief of not knowing, and when he did, he needn't have seen any bones. The dragon that was his wife flew up into the sky, and Lord Tywin was glad to be rid of it.
Had it only been a dragon - but Lord Tywin knew. He did not love his twisted son; but the connection with the dragon only pained him more for what his wife had done, and with gumption did he walk into the Baratheon camp, for this was where his House's future would be carved.
If Joanna was alive…
Jaime would be remembered as a white knight, loyal to the end, sung a hero and yet, House Lannister did not have an heir.
Lord Tywin, while watching the king and Ned Stark point on a map, considered that the gods were truly cruel to give him back Joanna in such a form, to enact revenge on the man they both hated, and to lose their son in the bargain.
The gods…
Cersei blamed herself, but Lord Tywin told her it was Aerys she should blame. He could not tell her about her mother. He needed her to be a queen; queen of the ashes, for Jon Arryn could not know then just how much of Casterly Rock's gold was needed to rebuild the crown's capital.
Lord Tywin felt his victory was hollow indeed. Yet it was not in him to concede; he had grieved his wife, and the grief which shook him on the ride back west was better contained through experience.
He could not visit the Hall of Heroes.
Yet it was in those first weeks, when the ravens flew tired from all the necessary diplomacy in tying more Lannister gold to the crown, that Lord Tywin was atop Casterly Rock's yard, and the sun was shut out.
For the shadow that descended was his wife; the spectre of his hate, and the burning eyes that if Lord Tywin needed further means of exacting his vengeance, he now had it; and that just as the gods had humbled him with a deformed son, they laughed at the price he had paid for his vengeance.