Jasmine's Notice! The love for the last chapter was so great, I decided to push this chapter to really start up the story of Game of Thrones, which will begin next chapter. To that one guy, who sent me a raging pissed off PM about the Lannisters and wanting me to make Harry a Stark... :^P. I will write as I like and with who I like. Harry/Tyegon is a lion, he is always a lion, whether Gryffindor or Lannister, he is a lion and I will keep him as such. Now, on with our tale!
Tyegon Baratheon's eyes were wide in horror as he watched the smoke billowing up from the sea of Lannisport. He knew war was coming, had heard the older men speaking of readying to combat the Greyjoy's but he hadn't expected it to come here. His grandfather would have called it the naivety of youth if he had actually been at the Rock.
At only seven namedays, he was trying to figure out what he should do against the panic that had risen inside his chest. His green eyes, the lion's eyes, watched the Greyjoy's men below as they began to pour across the port, spreading chaos as they went. The bulk of the Rock's army had moved north with his grandfather, Lord Tywin, leaving only the bare essential men required for protection of the city, and it looked like half the Iron Island fleet was moving in on them.
The boy gulped down air as he tried to figure out the next move, listening to his mismatched armor jangle and clank as he walked. He knew two raven's were already on wing, searching for his father and grandfather, but armies traveled slowly across the land. Swaths of base-born were rushing from the port below, their fists bashing on the gates for sanctuary and their screams and the smoke made it difficult for him to think.
"Open the gate, get them inside," he finally said pointing to the peasantry. "Any man who has seen sixteen name days gets a sword and whatever armor we have left," he added. His green eyes moved to Ser Loring, a great knight once who had let himself grow heavy in wine and food over the years of peace since the king's rebellion. "Ser Loring, lead what men you can through the rock and to the bay," he strategized. "Take archers and tell them to put their arrows to the torch. They burned our ships, so we'll burn theirs."
"It will be done, My Prince," the knight said before he began to bark orders to his men, gathering a seemingly bizarre mix of swords and bowmen and he began to make his way into the castle. Meanwhile, the princes eyes turned back to the once vibrant town that had now become a battlefield. There had to be a way to use it to his advantage against the men who dared rebel against his father.
Finally his eyes found what he had hadn't even known he was looking for. A band of men surrounded a singular knight, moving as he did. Tyegon's eyes narrowed as he saw the tentacle like patterns on the man's helm and pauldrons. "Give me a bow and arrow," he commanded and took them from one of the nearest men.
As he heard the gate close behind the straggling smallfolk, he thought about what was going to happen, and what he wanted to happen. Turning he gazed at who they had, and fought the frown that wanted to spread across his face at the sight of the old and sickly men who had joined his small force. He should have known Lord Tywin would have taken the greater force of all he could to impress upon his father, and the other lords his strength and power.
"Listen men," he called out gathering all their attentions. "They blind sided us, took us by surprise with their fleet and men, it's true! We thought they would stay to the east, but the kraken is far more slippery in the water than any beast on land," he admitted. "But we are not just any beast! We are the Lions of Casterly Rock! We have teeth and claws while they have nothing but tentacles to their names! Now, we'll bite one of those tentacles and drag the Kraken screaming from the ocean!"
The men yelled out their approval, their voices echoing loudly across the mountain of the Rock as it vibrated through the rocks and tunnels beneath the ground. Tyegon's eyes turned back to the port and watched as one of the ships flying the Greyjoy flag began to burn. The screams of the sailors aboard the ship began to draw the attention of the men in the port and Tyegon notched the arrow he had taken just minutes before.
Closing one eye, he took careful aim upon his target, and watched as the hulking son of Balon Greyjoy turned to make his way back to the ports and the ships, which were quickly igniting one after the other. Tyegon let his arrow lead his prey for several steps before he let the bowstring go. The thwack of the string was loud in his ear as he watched the arrow split the wind, diving from the high defensive wall around Casterly Rock and fly into the port.
The arrow lost its power though and sank toward the ground before impaling Maron Greyjoy's calf, sending the son of Balon to his knees. "ATTACK," Tyegon cried out, as moved toward the gate. "If they love their drowned god so much, than let us push them into the waves," he said loudly as the gate opened once more, allowing the men of Casterly Rock to fall upon Lannisport once more.
Tywin sat on quietly on a rock some distance from Lannisport, his line floating through the water as he watched his grandson do the same. He was one of the only two people to know his black haired grandson's true birth, and in the years since the boy had come to Casterly Rock, he found that he did not mind the strange nature of the child's birth. The boy was strong, with a hard, but good head on his shoulders and had already begun to prove himself as the foundation for the next step in the Lannister legacy.
While Robert and Eddard Stark had continued to move toward Pyke, Tywin had been forced to move his men back to his homelands, fearing he would need to push the Greyjoy's from his home. His surprise was met with a gladness he rarely felt since his Joanna's passing as he saw the lion flying high above his lands. While the boy hadn't put more than half of the enemy's fleet to the torch, he had driven them back, and sent Maron Greyjoy home with a leg that would never again properly function.
He had been proud that the black lion cub had bared his fangs and claws with only the help of overly seasoned knights, old men and boys at his back. When he had asked his grandson what favor he desired for defending his home, the boy had simply asked to spend time with his aging grandfather. Thus, monthly trips to the bay to fish or to the woods to hunt had become a mainstay for the past few years when Tywin could escape his duties as Lord and leave his brother Kevan in command.
He wondered how his children would have turned out if he had had the time to do these things with them while they were young. It was sad to say that Aerys had kept him busy as the Hand and he was not permitted to spend time with the twins, and his own loathing of his imp son had kept them from bonding after he had relinquished his place as Hand. He knew he was a cold man, he doted on no one, and very rarely made the trip to Kings Landing to see his children and other grandchildren, but Tyegon was to be his heir, and required more attention than his siblings.
Tyegon was a growing boy, now ten and four name days old, and was getting appetites that Tywin was hard pressed to keep control of. Many boys his grandson's age had already seen fit to wet their cocks in the cunts of whores, but he had forbidden it. After the travesty that was Tyrion's mindless drinking and whoring, just like the king, he would not let such behavior become so paramount in his own heir. "Ah, it seems as if you have caught something," the old lord said as the young lion's line twitched and jerked in the water.
He watched as the black haired youth pulled in his line and let his mind continue to wander. Tyegon was a bright child, too bright some would say. He wondered if it had anything to do with the world the boy had supposedly come from, as his brain latched onto many things quicker than some men. Not that the boy, like his uncle Jaime didn't prefer the sword and shield, along with the riding of horses to being cooped up in a library for hours on end.
The boy also had a strangeness to him that made frequent letters to his daughter a necessary trade off. Tyegon had once turned the Maester's hair a vibrant blue for making him study longer than he wanted and missing a training exercise. Another time, he had fallen from the wall, only to reappear in his bedroom by some fashion that no one could explain. If he wanted something bad enough, it would come to him rather than him needing to reach for it. Lastly though, he had caught his grandson in the fields, hissing to a serpent who was seemingly paying rapt attention before Tywin's sword and lanced it through the head taking the boy by surprise.
Luckily, whatever magic had brought the boy to the Lannister family had left his mother with memories of another. She would often answer his questions in scribbled notes carried on raven's wings, filling the gaps of paper that weren't gushing about her less exciting children. Tywin knew she didn't yet understand the enormity of the situation and the gift they had been given. The Targaryens had conquered most of the world on the backs of dragons they tamed with magical abilities, and here, in Lannister blood was a boy who wielded magic and spoke the tongue of serpents.
It was a shame the boy was second born, he would have made both Robert's followers and those who still held the Targaryens as the true kings happy. His eyes watched as the youth, nearly a man, pull a great silvery fish from the sea and smack it against the rocks to end its suffering before he added it to the basket with the others. Quietly, he wondered if the boy was the one who, after so long, would hatch the dragon's egg that even now burned in the hearth of the boy's bedroom and bring the might of the Targaryens into Lannister hands.
"Good work," the old man said calmly as the boy prepared to cast his line anew. "Tell me something, Tyegon, have you been practicing your art," he asked, generally interested in the boy's progress with his magic.
In answer the boy's eyes lit up as he settled his rod back into his holder, and turned his attention to his basket of fish. Slowly he raised his hand and caused the basket to lift into the air as if by invisible hands, and hold at roughly chest height before lowering it back to the ground. "I have almost mastered that ability, but the heavier an object, the more strength it takes to lift. I find that like any muscle it must be exercised to gain in strength."
"How very wise of you," the blond lord said with a nod as he turned his attention back to his own line. "Perhaps the magic exhausted itself from the world because the men and women who practiced the art never bothered to strengthen theirs as you have been. The fat and the lazy do so ruin what made them that way, after all, food and wine lose their flavors, and magic grows weaker as its used less often in place of servants."
The young prince grew quiet as he settled back onto his rock and gazed out at the sea in contemplation. It was another thing that Tywin liked about his would be heir, the boy took time to think when it was available, instead of rushing in like Jaime and over complicating matters like Cersei. "I think these will be our last lines for the day," he said at last. "I dare say we caught enough fish to feed the whole family, and we ought to leave a few to breed the population."
"Of course, Lord Grandfather," Tyegon said with a cheeky smile as he looked to the older man, who simply sighed at the nickname.
Cersei smiled at the her two youngest children as they were jostled by the movement of their carriage up the King's Road, sticking toward the middle of the caravan of soldiers, knights and entertainers that rode with the king. Her long blond hair was pulled into a bun atop her head, to keep the heat from building around her thin neck as her dress hugged her lithe but proportional body. The children were deep into their own fantasy worlds created by the books that were sprawled open in their laps.
The reason for her smile was that they were drawing ever nearer to the Twins where Walder Frey kept watch over the narrow land they called the Neck. While she detested the Freys, the Twins had been named the place where they would meet with the procession from Casterly Rock which rode north with her son, Tyegon. She felt goosebumps rise on her flesh at the thought of seeing her second born after so many years. He was ten and five now and a known commander for her father's forces after he defended the Rock from the Greyjoys.
"Will we be seeing Tyegon soon," the sweet voice of her daughter asked suddenly, drawing the mother from her thoughts. She turned to her daughter, so very much like her with her curly blonde hair and green eyes. If only she had inherited her disposition, but sadly she took after her father in that regard. She also noticed that the question had apparently perked young Tommen's interest as he too looked up from his book.
"We will be seeing your brother soon," she said pleasantly as she leaned forward to kiss her two children on the forehead. "I'm sure he'll be so excited to see the two of you after so long. He's tried to visit before but his duties at Casterly Rock has kept him very busy," she smiled sadly at the reminder of her father always stopping her black haired son from visiting. "Did I ever tell you two, about how your brother led the defense of Casterly Rock during the Greyjoy rebellion?"
"He did," Tommen asked excitedly as he looked at his mother with large green eyes that sparkled with excitement. "I heard Joffrey complaining about it, but I thought he was telling tales," the blonde haired ten and one year old admitted.
"Oh yes," she said smiling, despite at the time she had nearly torn her own hair out in worry when they had received the raven of the attack. "While your father, grandfather and Lord Stark moved toward the Iron Islands, the Greyjoy's attacked Lannisport while it seemed undefended. Your brother set their ships to light and wounded MaronGreyjoy while leading all but a few peasants and old drunkards. He sent what remained of their fleet and MaronGreyjoy running back to the Iron Islands to meet your father and Lord Stark."
"I'd have just killed Maron if I had been there," the pompous voice of the Prince Heir said as he rode along the carriage on his own stallion. "Tyegon was weak to not finish him off before his men were able to set sail again. I'd have head their heads on pikes and waiting for grandfather when he returned," Cersei's eldest child said with such certainty that few would have dared called him on it.
While the queen loved all her children, she was hopeful that the arrogance would drain from her eldest child as it had James Potter in Lily's memories. On the other hand, a good king needed an air of confidence to him, and so long as Joffrey held to the belief that he could never lose at anything, the people would rally to him.
"I can see them," a voice from the front called out. Intrigued, the blonde haired queen wanted to slide open the screen that aired out the carriage and look for herself, but it would have been far to beneath her stature to do so. Thus, she was trapped inside the carriage with her two excited children as the carriage was pulled by its four horses to a stop just behind the king's stallion. With a leap of excitement, she threw open the carriage door and stepped as daintily as she could to the dirt road below.
At first, she didn't see who she had longed to for so many years, before she looked past her husband's gut toward his feet. A boy, no, a knight was kneeled before the king, dressed in armor as black as the midnight sea. His pauldron's were shaped as lion's heads, with stag antlers rising from their manes to protect his neck. Dark grey chainmail was fitted between the black plates, as his long black hair fell over a deep tanned skin, obscuring his face from her hungry gaze. A steel sword was sheathed upon his hip, and a helm the color of obsidian, made up like a lion's roaring muzzle and mane was tucked beneath his arm.
"So, this is what the house of lion's has done to my son," the King said with a snarl as his beady black eyes inspected his second son. The sweat poured down his face in waves from the heat and stress of the ride though he pretended not to feel it. "Well, I'll suppose you'll have to do, lad," Robert said after a long moment before he turned and walked back toward his men. "Set up camp, we'll stop for the day and continue to ride in the morning. Just a few more weeks before we reach Winterfell."
Deciding to ignore her husband for the moment, Cersei rushed to her long estranged child. "Tyegon" she breathed his name as her hands fell up his head and tilted it up to look at her. Her breath halted in her throat as she looked upon the boy she had often wished she kept. How could a child, born from her womb but with no father have so much of Jaime in his look? Gone was the baby who fed at her breast, and clung to her skirts. The boy who cried as he left King's Landing was now a man who had seen death and blood far to young for her liking.
"Mother," he said softly as he stood back to his feet. He seemed shocked as she pulled him into a hug that nearly made him drop his helm. "I've missed you," he whispered tentatively to her as he released his embrace. His green eyes, the color of wildfire, looked at the two children behind her. "By the gods old and new," he whispered. "Those cannot be little Myrcella and Tommen! They're fully grown, not the little children who hid behind your skirts and suckled at your breast."
"Yes we are," Tommen whispered as he stared up at his older brother with something akin to hero worship. Myrcella was as bright as a fresh tomato, and seemed to find the dirt far more interesting than her brother's face at the moment. "Over there is Joffrey," the youngest boy said, pointing toward the scowling prince who still remained upon his horse, not at all happy to see his brother.
"I believe I'll talk to him later," Tyegon said after a moment and looked back to the family that was happy to see him. "Grandfather says I'm to return to King's Landing with you," he said with a smile as he put his hand on his younger brother's head and proceeded to mess it up. "He says I need to learn what it means to live as a prince, in case I should ever rise to the Iron Throne."
"It will be good to have you home," Cersei replied, her eyes misty at the thought of having all her children back together under one roof. "Come, they are setting the tents and starting the fires. I'm sure the festivities will be starting shortly, wine, supper, a song or two before we all retire. You can tell us all about your adventures since you've risen to prominence in Casterly Rock. I'm sure Tommen and Myrcella would love to get to know you."
"I would like nothing better," the black prince said as he began to follow his mother to the king's fire. While Robert and Joffreymight not be happy to see him return, at least his mother and young siblings seemed excited by the news.
"Oh, before I forget," Cersei said with a glint her eye that spoke heavily of mischieviousness. "Joffrey is to be engaged soon, to Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's eldest daughter," his mother explained, though she didn't sound quite so happy about the thought of Joffrey's marriage. "You though, with your win at Lannisport get the honor of a betrothal to Asha Greyjoy, I've heard she's quite the seafairer."
"Oh, well that's, wait... What?"