Another chapter that some of you might be familiar with. Once again, the exert is courtesy of Beowulf.

"Surely towing me by these shackles tires you."

"Your incessant whining and poor attempts at jesting tire me Kingslayer." Brienne yanked at his chains, she was tired of him slowing her down and was quickly becoming quicker and quicker to anger.

"You see, we could be rid of all of our tires if we were to reach King's Landing faster. There is only so much scenery and blood stained earth one man should have to see."

He could help but pushed her buttons and would do so again when he had struck a chord in mentioning Renly Baratheon, the copper King. It seemed that the beast fancied him.

"We cannot help who we love."

"Do you love your lady wife Kingslayer?" Jaime choked at her question. Never had he been asked about Vesara, people usually had better things to converse with him about than some girl.

"Duty is not the same as love. I have a duty to the Lady Vesara, to my family, to my house, to the King, to the Seven Kingdoms. So many duties and vows make a man tired. But love, love is the most tiring of them all, the duties of the heart are the most unpredictable."

He was confused about Vesara. He had near eighteen years with the girl, he remembered the news of her betrothal at the time of Aegon Targaryen's birth. Jaime knew what the Mad King was planning; he had grown tired of being threatened by Tywin and was ready to replace him with Steffon Baratheon but since he never made it back to Westeros he was determined to join their families another way.

Steffon's oldest granddaughter would be queen. The storm queen as Aerys had put it in one of his ramblings.

And it seems many paths since then brought the Iron Throne just out of her reach. She was near three years old when she was brought to King's Landing after the Rebellion when Jaime was assigned to her and every time he had encountered her she was different than the last.

Eddard Stark and Howland Reed along with her sworn sword Monterys, had brought her from Dorne on their journey North as an energetic girl with a frightful fire in her. They say that she was born in the sand and suckled from the scorpions and snakes. It was all nonsense of course; her behaviour was the doing of her granduncle Oberyn and his Sand Snakes.

Cersei had a hard enough time keeping Robert's attention and when the girl arrived it was more difficult. The day after they were wed at the Sept of Baelor, Jaime was summoned to the Great Hall where he found Robert seated on the Iron Throne with the toddler on his lap. An unexpected sight, the Demon of the Trident wrapped about the finger of a little girl that he had barely known for longer than a moon.

She sang clumsily to her father as she played with the war hammer that rested at the King's side.

Wise sir, do not grieve

It is always better to avenge dear ones

Than to indulge in mourning

For everyone one of us,

Living in this world

Means waiting for our end

Let whoever can

Win glory before death

When a warrior is gone

That will be his best and only bulwark

He whispered kind words to her as he tried to tell himself that he had gotten his revenge and that all was even, in a tone Jaime had never heard him use before. He told the girl how one day her son might sit on the Iron Throne and that she would be Regent. He told her how they were better than the Lannister shits that they had found themselves surrounded by.

Robert had a special skill for making Jaime's blood boil.

Of course, Cersei did all that she could to be rid of the King's daughter and things worked in her favour once Joffrey was born.

Jaime remembered the girl on her father's lap in the Great Hall and then the girl who cried softly when her baby brother was torn from her arms.

"My good step-mother, who will teach Joffrey how to be a prince and who will play with him when I am gone? I wish to stay with Joffrey and here with you. How else will I become a poised, elegant and beautiful lady if I'm not with you?"

She gently wiped a tear that had fallen on the babe's face.

"Do not fret little fawn, Joffrey has the King to teach him all of those things and soon enough you and Joffrey will have other little princes and princesses to play with, your good aunt Lady Selyse will teach you how to be a lady. You must do your duty, as the King has asked and take residence at Storm's End and then Dragonstone with your uncle Renly, there you will be watched over by your uncle Stannis. You should be honoured that your father bestows upon you a childhood at the seat of your ancestors."

Cersei was softer then. She had attempted to comfort the girl. Truth was, having her leave King's Landing was her doing, as she had convinced Robert that it was for the best, that she would benefit from having a childhood like his.

Sending Vesara away had never been her first option but Jaime refused to do what she had asked and he had suggested the compromise hoping that if the young princess was out of sight she would be out of mind.

As they walked to the ships Vesara had begged Jaime to hold her hand. It was a request that she made quite often when she first arrived in King's Landing but had not done so recently.

"Please Ser Jaime, my father, he would hold my hand." Jaime took his hand in hers, crouching slightly so she could walk without being on her toes.

Her father should have been the one to walk his daughter to the docks and see her safely to the ships. Robert had made some excuse about the Small Council. Jaime knew better, Robert would instead be seeking solace in the bottom of a goblet.

"Are you going to miss me Ser Jaime? There will be no one to play dolls with you now, does that you make you sad Ser?"

"I do believe you commanded me to play dolls with you."

"I did not command you to have fun." She flashed him a bright smile and gazed up at him with her large dark eyes.

"I shall miss you Ser Jaime, you are my favourite of all the knights and of all the Kingsguard. I did ask father if I could take you to be Lord Commander of my Princessguard, but apparently it does not work like that."

"No it does not Princess, you will have plenty of gallant knights to heed your every call in Storm's End and on Dragonstone."

"They won't nearly be as pretty as you, Ser or as brave and gallant." Jaime chuckled. She had such innocence and the girl that would return would be full of melancholy, tainted by Stannis and his ways.

"Perhaps not Princess." He knelt to kiss her hand as he bid her farewell.

Before he went to rise she whispered, "Someday I will marry a knight just like you."

She curtsied quickly and ran to the side of Stannis who waited for them to paddle to the ship.

The girl that came and went again returned different. He knew the child that left but he did not know the woman that had returned.

The woman that returned was dangerous, she knew of treachery and she knew of the game. A new player was always unpredictable which always made everyone uneasy, especially Cersei.

Cersei was furious when she found out that he was to be wed to the King's eldest. Her anger grew when Jaime did not respond in the same way that she did. Like always, he was calm and waited at the front of the Sept for a girl he knew and mourned only to be greeted by a woman grown.

He had to admit, she was beautiful, she could even rival Cersei had they not been so different, one was a lion and one was a stag, both respected in their own domain but still entirely different.

He remembered how terrified she made him on their wedding night. He was trembling at the actions of this little fawn. She was confident, much like she had been as a child. Perhaps her early teenage years had merely been a phase. He would show no fear to this girl.

She was as tall as Cersei, but not as slim. She was buxom with wide hips, something he wasn't used to. Cersei had always had a slender but womanly frame and here was a young girl before him, thick and pert.

She said little throughout their consummation, the silence made him uncomfortable. Jaime did not even attempt to jest, she held him with her eyes and did not look away, the intimacy added to his discomfort.

It was what he imagined making love was like. Although he did not love this girl, he did not even know this girl but it was as if she was attempting to read his soul or she was more talented and committed to this game then he first thought.

In that moment he had dreamed that they were in Casterly Rock, free from Cersei and Robert that he was learning to love the woman before just how he had grown to care for her as a girl. But he knew that it was just a fleeting moment and that they were only acting out of duty and obligation.

Only then he knew that he was not returning to King's Landing for Cersei alone, but the duty he had to his wife and his child.

Duty to a woman that he continued to be wary of.

x

He watched on as his son stirred. He had been waiting for the little monster to awaken. He had to admit, there was something inside him that had set his son up to fail, to have him removed in an incident that he could not be directly connected to.

Something out of his control.

"I heard how happy you were. You brought a whore into my bed." He scolded his youngest son like he always had and it seemed there was always an ounce of familiarity in every scolding he gave.

"It wasn't your bed at the time."

"I sent you here to advise the King. I gave you real power and authority. You chose to spend your days as you always have, bedding harlots and drinking with thieves."

"Occasionally I drank with harlots."

"What do you want Tyrion?" Money? Power? He didn't know what he had left to give to his son.

"Why does everyone assume I want something? Can't I simply visit with my beloved father? My beloved father who somehow forgot to visit his wounded son after he fell on the battlefield."

"Maester Pycelle assured me your wounds were not fatal. Besides, there were other duties that needed attending to."

"I organised the defence of this city while you held court in the ruins of Harrenhal. I led the foray when the enemies were at the gate while your grandson, the King, quivered in fear behind the walls. I bled in the mud for our family. And as my reward, I was trundled off to some dark little cell. But what do I want? A little bloody gratitude would be a start."

"Juggles and singers require applause. You are a Lannister. Do you think I demanded a garland of roses every time I suffered a wound on a battlefield? Hmm? Now, I have Seven Kingdoms to look after, three of them are in open rebellion and an agitated princess to keep at court."

He knew of Vesara's hesitance to return to court after she was chased away. He had no doubt that his daughter was involved. Cersei had always been possessive. Possessive over his favour, over Robert, over the children and Jaime.

"I want what is mine by right. You took it away from me… and so did Jaime." Tyrion looked as if he regretted coming to that realisation aloud. "Jaime is your eldest son, heir to your lands and titles. But he is a Kingsguard, forbidden to inherit. The day Jaime put on the white cloak, he gave up his claim to Casterly Rock. I am your son and was the lawful heir and now the both of you want to take it away from me?"

"You want Casterly Rock? Robert had released Jaime… you can blame the dead King." Tywin was amused by the fuss his son was making. He knew this discussion would have to happen one day and no matter how much his son protested he had other plans for the future of House Lannister.

"It is mine by right… Jaime never wanted it and now you are forcing him to take it… to take it from me. Once we've defeated Renly and Stannis he can have Storm's End and Dragonstone."

"We'll find you accommodations more suited to your name as a reward for your accomplishments during the battle of Blackwater Bay. And when the time is right, you will be given a position fit for your talents so that you can serve your family and protect our legacy. And if you serve faithfully, you will be rewarded with a suitable wife." Tyrion was silenced by his father's straight response. It didn't surprise him but stating his demands was worth a shot. "And I would let myself be consumed by maggots before mocking the family name in making you heir to Casterly Rock."

"Why?"

"Why? You ask that? You, who killed your mother to come into this world? You are ill-made, spiteful little creature full of envy, lust, and low cunning. Men's laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colours since I cannot prove that you are not mine. And to teach me humility, the gods have condemned me to watch you waddle about wearing that proud lion that was my father's sigil and his fathers before him. But neither gods nor men will ever compel me to let you turn Casterly Rock into your whorehouse."

"Bu…"

"You think Jaime being in the Kingsguard was ever a substantial issue? I gave him a wife and he has a son, if need be I'll name Durrandon my heir in his stead. Do not test me." He raised his brow at Tyrion a final time before returning to what had been occupying his time prior.

"You can't to that. The law prevents it."

"When will you learn? I can do as I please." He hissed in response.

"You think one heir will safeguard you? Durrandon is but a babe and without Jaime here in Vesara's bed you are at a loss."

"Do not underestimate me. I will do as I've always done. I will do what my children fail to do. Go"

From the shock on Tyrion's face Tywin was sure that he had got the point across to his son. If Lannister heirs were needed, there would be Lannister heirs.

And as if on cue his protégé had arrived.

"My lord hand, Princess Vesara has asked if you still wish to have your daily visit with the little lordling, Durrandon." The burly elder Tarly in Vesara's guard had appeared in the Hand's solar.

"Lady Lannister." He corrected. Although it felt foreign on his tongue, having not said it since his Joanna, he knew that if anyone was deserving of that title it was Vesara.

"Of course, I do apologise my lord, Lady Lannister has asked if you still wish to have daily visit with the little lordling, Durrandon."

He merely nodded in response and as he looked up an unfamiliar smile spread across his face. He could sense the discomfort from both his grandson's Septa and guard. He paid them no mind. It didn't matter what others thought. All that mattered was that they were Lannisters and everyone who wasn't them was lesser.

The boy looked at him curiously before returning a faint smile. Durrandon had never inherited his father's smirk, he had instead inherited the brooding Baratheon stare, much like his mother and grandfather. The older the boy got the more of young Robert's features appeared.

It did not matter. He could possess all the features of a Baratheon but at the end of the day he was a Lannister by name and would be by nature as well.

The boy swiftly released the hand of his Septa and waddled behind the desk to greet his grandfather as he had done every day since being in his company. He was growing quickly, just as Jaime and Cersei had at a time where he had many hopes for them and the glory and honour they would bring their house.

All of it was dead now.

And if his son were to refuse to fulfil his duty he would take Vesara as his own, he would make sure that his line would live on just as the Argella Durrandon and Vesara Baratheon by forging with strong houses.

"Today's lesson my boy are alliances. You see, sometimes we have to give up a little of our pride and negotiate with others if we are to survive. Winners always place calculated bets and if we are strategizing and calculating our next moves we will need allies."

I'm personally a huge fan of Grandpa Tywin, so I couldn't resist but play with this side of him a little bit.