A young woman stepped through the door. She was of slender build, her pale delicate face framed by dark brown hair. She looked no older than 18, although the other woman knew she was well into her twenties. "Ah. Welcome, dear child," she purred. "Lord Lion and I have been waiting for you."

'Lord Lion' looked mighty uncomfortable. His face had turned sour the second he realized the young woman was no guard at all and on top of that seemed to be on friendly terms with his captor. He tried nonetheless. "This woman is holding me against my will. Help get me out of here and you will not regret it."

The younger woman smiled. "Yes, yes, yes, a Lannister always pays his debt, I know, I know." The thinly veiled mockery in her voice belied her innocent, childlike appearance. This one, the older woman mused, is a formidable beast of prey hiding inside the skin of a maiden.

The young one knelt next to the rack, inspecting it. "You're lying on an ancient thing, m'lord," she noted. "It's quite the beauty. Maegor the Cruel used it to torment his enemies, both real and imagined, mind you, he was paranoid like that."

"Spare me the history lesson," the man said coolly.

She paid him no mind. "It's a complex device, this one; it has all these parts and blocks that can be realigned, I've heard. I've always wondered what you can do with it. Dislocate a few joints, I'd wager, pull off a limb even. Ah, yes, here-" she took a closer look at one of the cranks attached to the woodwork near his feet, "- not to worry, m'lord," she reassured him, "we won't try that on you. Well, I might have a mind to, but I'm sure your goodmother will talk me out of it, so rest assured." She turned her attention to a larger crank right in the middle of the device. As she turned it, the rack effortlessly and without so much as a screech split into three solid pieces, the middle piece rising while the head and foot piece were simultaneously lowered, arching the man's body like a longbow until his head was almost upside-down and his back looked as if it was about to snap in two.

A most uncomfortable position, the older woman thought. He made no sound, however, nothing to betray the considerable amount of pain he was doubtlessly in. She could not help but be impressed by his stoic defiance. This kind of contortion put a substantial strain on even the youngest, most flexible of bodies. For a man going on sixty, it had to be excruciating. The forced backbend had heightened his sense of vulnerability though: for the first time, the anger in his eyes was replaced with something else entirely, something that looked suspiciously like fear.

The young woman chuckled. "Ah, dear old Maegor, always knew what he was doing. Get a man in this position, he'll bend over backwards to tell you all his secrets." She snickered at her own jest. He said nothing, only clenching his fists. "How would you like it if I tormented you like she did?" She poised her fingers, "lighten the mood and put a smile on that serious face of yours?" That would put a quick end to the stoicism, the other woman thought.

She lightly scratched the area just above his groin, and the look of terror on his face at the prospect of being tickled while arched over backward was priceless. But then the maiden-beast changed her mind. The older woman couldn't even tell where the knife came from, but suddenly, it was there, in her younger companion's hand. "Time to trim this cat's whiskers," she said. She bent down, grabbed a tuft of bushy golden hair, and before he knew how it happened, she had sliced it off. His eyes widened in shock as she scattered the hair over his face triumphantly and proceeded to seize another strand. He began to shake his head violently to escape the assault, but she just pinned it between her knees and continued to cut away at his facial hair until his once formidable mane was in a rather sorry state. Any attempt to twist free from her clasp was futile; the maiden-beast proved to be both uncharacteristically strong for her size and skilled with the knife.

Eventually, their captive stopped struggling and endured the humiliation stock-still, but when the older woman accidentally met his gaze, it sent a cold shiver down her spine. She instinctively grasped for the flask of Sweetsleep, nervously twisting it in her hands until she almost dropped it. It suddenly seemed as if she could hear steps in the distance, but it was just her scared brain playing tricks on her, she decided.

With a sigh, she got up to inspect the damage. "Sweetling," she said teasingly after taking a closer look. "See what a mess you've made. That was not kind of you. Even it out, will you?" The young woman gave her a sweet smile and curtsied, suddenly seeming more child than beast again. With nothing but a knife at hand, the girl showed a surprising aptitude at trimming the remaining hair into a reasonably even, close-cropped cut. It loosened the knot in the older woman's stomach a little bit. "And enough with Maegor's trickery," she added with a mock-scold, "or I fear our guest here might leave our party early." The girl giggled, but she obliged and turned the crank back until he was in his original position, even loosening his shackles a bit, giving him some wiggle room.

"You will release me now!" The man commanded. The woman was almost certain he had spotted her momentary fear. Say what you will, he has a gift for smelling weakness. "You won't leave this place alive, you had the right of that, but if you do as you are told, I will allow you to take a sip of the poison and die in peace."

The woman straightened her shoulders. "You do not understand. The taste of revenge is sweeter to me than a peaceful death could ever be. You see, I was but a child when the Lord of Casterly Rock met me by happenstance and asked my father to send me with him to keep him company. My father obliged. He wasn't one to refuse his lord, much as it pained him. I was scared out of my wits, but Lord Tytos turned out to be a kind man. He never laid a hand on me until long after I was flowered. He saw something in me that gave him joy, and I learned to love him in time. We had some good years together, Lord Tytos and I."

The man snorted and twisted his mouth in distaste.

"Of course I had heard of his grim son," the woman continued calmly, "even seen him a few times. He wasn't around much, always out and about collecting debts in the Westerlands, restoring honor to his House, extinguishing entire families, raining hell on defiant children and drowning insolent babes at their mothers' breasts, much honor in that! Of course, he resented that his father chose the company of a lowborn girl, so I steered clear of him when he was at his father's court. I never understood how a gentle man such as Tytos could have sired a man as brutal and cold as his son, but I never paid him any mind. He was off to King's Landing soon enough, ruling King Aerys's kingdom, and when he was at Casterly Rock, I kept my distance. It was all well. That was until Lord Tytos put a babe in my belly." She stared the man squarely in the eyes. "You could not have that, could you? I cannot prove it, but I know in my heart you had your father killed because you couldn't take it any longer. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't."

The man exhaled forcefully. The accusation of kinslaying was too much. His anger was getting the better of him. "How dare you!" He could manage little more than a low growl. "You who killed my father with your cunt! How dare you accuse me!"

She broke the gaze. Perhaps not then, she thought, not without surprise. Interesting. The Spider seemed so certain.

"Deny it all you want," she continued, "I know what you did to him, and I know what you did to me. I was well beyond the time that moon tea would have been an option, of course, so you had a maester cut the child out of my belly with cruel steel. Nearly bled me out, it did. As soon as I had recovered enough I could stand on my two legs, you had me stripped and whipped and dragged through the streets naked for days on end. All for the crime of embracing my fate when I had little to no other choice and for daring to wear the wrong necklace!" Gods be good, is that a smile?

He set out to respond, but she cut him off, disgusted. "It was a despicable act, even for someone like you. But the tables have turned now. I may be a pitiful sight to behold, poor and starved and barren and with whip marks on my back, but here, I have stated my case. Lord Tywin of House Lannister, I will force you to your knees and have you beg my forgiveness before this day is over, if it's the last thing I do."

The maiden-beast had remained silent, huddling in the shadow, but now she stepped forward. For once, the sly smile on her face had disappeared. "You had your men rape me, one by one, hour after hour. Whatever little joy or happiness I had in my life, I lost all of it on that day, and for what, I ask you?" It's not an act; this one is consumed by her bitterness, the older woman realized. It has left her an empty shell.

"For nothing but your sick pride in your family name. You destroyed a life for no good reason just because your vanity dictated it."

Recognition flashed across the man's face. "I did what I had to protect my family from the likes of you. I had every good reason."

"You keep telling yourself that," the young woman said sharply. "But know this, Lord Lannister, you and your lies are nothing here. I will break you and your silly pride. I will have you beg me for mercy. You will learn your place, this I swear by the Seven."