Author's Note: Hello again!

Short chapter this time, and dialogue heavy, but I like it and hope you do too. Shoutout to reviewer charliekiller124 for catching a mistake on my part last chapter concerning Tywin and smiling that I have since fixed. Thanks for the correction, even if you might have been a touch too aggressive about it! ;)

Heads up that I got a touch more risque than I usually do, though nothing graphic by any means. Still, it's a bit more than I usually do so...enjoy? Ignore? To each their own!

Also, we broke 300 reviews, further evidence that y'alldo, in fact rock. Keep them coming please!

I hope you all enjoy and review this update.

"You'd think I would understand you by now, but you've lost me on this one." The brown-haired, fair-skinned woman rose from the bed, bare fleet slapping against the smoothed stone as she moved towards the pitcher of wine on a table adjacent the bed. "This woman is pretty, right?"

A figure still lying on the bed nodded, emerald eyes staring after her. "Absurdly so."

The woman turned, leaning back against the table and taking a sip of the glass in her hand. "And she's willing?"

Another nod, this one slower. "I'm fairly certain, yes."

"And she's not getting married any more, much less to a brother of yours, right?"

"Right."

Bella spread her arms wide in exasperation, shaking her head. "Then why am I the one drinking wine naked in your chambers instead of her?"

King Damon, first of his name, shifted atop the mattress, that thought causing him discomfort of all the right kinds. "Don't put such notions into my head."

The whore-turned-paramour—which no longer made her a whore, at least not in Damon's mind—giggled girlishly. "Why not? You clearly like the idea."

The Golden Stag rose to his feet, approaching the table. Bella extended her glass towards him, turning to pour another as Damon took it and leaned back against the table beside her. "I'm…I'm not sure, really. Politically it makes sense."

Bella, now with another glass, leaned against his side. "Physically it makes sense! At least they aren't trying to saddle you with some horse-faced gal with a rich father." She turned her head a moment, placing a brief kiss to his shoulder. "As much as I'll miss our…partnership when it ends, I don't see why you don't get it over and this Margaery done."

Damon switched his glass to his left hand, wrapping an arm around Bella and laying a familiar hand against her bare hip, though his eyes were lost in thought. "I'm…scared."

His lover snorted. "Scared? Of what, bedding her? Don't be ridiculous, my king. You know more than plenty about a woman and did well before you met me."

"I'm not scared of that aspect necessarily." He was actually more than ready for that, which was part of his concern. "I'm scared of…her, I suppose."

Bella giggled. "I think you'd win in a duel."

Damon couldn't help but grin, even as he flushed red with embarrassment. "I'm more afraid of her tongue, and her mind. And that I can't seem to control myself around her, not even when she was betrothed to my brother."

"Tongue and mind, scary things indeed."

The king's grin grew a fraction as he turned his head to place a kiss to her brow. "Don't jest."

"Others have sharp tongues and quick minds. What makes this girl so different?"

He thought long and hard on that, for it was a valid question, one he'd asked himself a thousand times over the past few months and never discovered an answer to. "I wish I knew."

Bella turned her head to look up at him. "We've talked many times of how life isn't a child's tale."

He chuckled dryly. "I'm not in love with her, I know that as well as anyone. I just find her intriguing, and I value her input. And that is the root of the problem."

"How so?"

"The source that opinion is coming from." Bella suddenly started laughing, Damon cocking a brow and looking down at her, her body shaking his. "What's so funny?"

Bella laughed a moment longer, then took a sip to gather herself. "You're worried about taking advice from this girl?"

"Yes."

"You do see that, over the past few moons, your chief 'council' as it is has been a whore and a knight younger than yourself?"

Damon blushed all over again as Bella resumed laughing. "That's different."

"Oh?"

"Tyrek and you are my…friends."

"And this girl couldn't be?"

Damon downed his glass, shrugging out of her embrace. "No." Setting the glass down, he took a few steps towards the bed before twisting and falling backwards upon it. "I'd never, ever be able to trust her."

Bella straightened, sipping her own glass again as she watched the king. "Why not?"

"Tyrek is kin and has no real stake in the game of thrones, apart from his family name and the role they always play. You are…"

She chuckled. "A whore. We've been lovers for months now, I'd have thought you'd understand I'm not bothered by that word from you."

Damon continued, still refusing to say it. "You are paid to sleep with me and flatter me and talk me into resting after a battle, but that's what it is. A job. You don't have a stake in the game either, besides the gold you have made and can make."

Her voice did nothing to hide its hint of hurt. "It's not just for the gold, Damon."

Damon waved his hand in apology, though his eyes were still watching the shadows dance across the stones of the ceiling. "I know, and I'm sorry I put it that way. But my point stands."

"And this Margaery has a stake, yes?"

"Yes. And she's good at the game. Unlike you or Tyrek, each of her actions are polished and planned, covering up her true intentions."

"That sounds like half of the people you've told me about."

Damon crossed his arms over his eyes. "Yes, but this particular one will be in my chambers every night, telling me whatever I want to hear because I want to hear it, while quietly steering her own agenda. I'm not dumb; I know the Tyrell's want power and that I'm their target for getting it, and that is fair enough. Everyone does, except me. But having someone as good as Margaery seems to be as a wife…how will I ever know what she truly thinks? How will I ever know if she's offering her own, true advice or just trying to get me to do something for some reason of her own? How will I…how…how. Just how."

Had he uncovered his eyes then, he would have seen his paramour staring at him in surprise. "…that was the most I've ever heard you say at one time. Ever."

"It's because I don't know what to think or do, about Tyrion or Margaery or Stannis or even fucking dinner."

Bella quietly sat her glass on the table beside Damon's empty one. "Would it truly be any different with any other? You have to marry, this girl or another one." She started towards him, softly. "A king must have a queen, even we smallfolk know that."

Damon sighed heavily. "I know, and no. I've known all my life my marriage would be for political gain, both my houses and my bride's. I'm ready for that. I'm just not ready for her."

The last bit was said with heavy emphasis, both to drive home his point and because Bella had deftly and suddenly straddled him, knees touching his arms and body settled on his abdomen as she leaned down, capturing his lips with hers. After a moment she broke it, smirking down at the king as she slowly started inching her body down his. "Sush. Marry the Rose girl, make some buds, and quit worrying as you do. Besides, should she not be pleasing in at least one regard—" She paused a second, as she had reached her destination. "—you'll always have me."

Four eyes, three emerald and one black, stared at each other across a stone floor covered in filthy straw, torchlight flickering in all of them. No one spoke, not for a long time.

"Your mother will be furious you came."

"She knows."

"So she already is furious you came."

"'Furious' isn't the right word."

"Enraged? Betrayed? Filicidal?"

"All of the above."

"I see. Long live King Tommen, then."

"Long live King Tommen."

Silence descended again.

Damon sat against a pillar, dressed as he always was in black tunic, breeches and boots. He was looking at his uncle intently, trying with all his might to see into the Halfman's soul and failing. Tyrion, for his part, was sat against another, in clothes that had seen much better days, meeting his nephew's gaze.

The king had lied, actually. Cersei didn't know he had taken Sers Loras and Balon to the black cells to see Tyrion, at least not yet. He hadn't talked to her at all the day before, having gone from his and his grandfather's meeting to the brief encounter with Margaery to Chataya's to smuggle Bella back in all one right after the other. He hadn't seen her that morning either, as she likely was still asleep; Damon had risen before dawn again, with another Small Council meeting within the half hour to discuss the very man he had come to see.

Damon still didn't know what to do. He had one day to figure it out.

So he had come here.

The silence grew.

"We never were close, were we."

Damon slowly shook his head. "No."

Tyrion shrugged, looking to the ground sadly. "My fault, I suppose."

The king again shook his head. "No. Mother's partially, but mainly my own." He paused a moment, searching for the right words. "You…tried. I've always known you have."

His dwarfish uncle waited a moment for him to continue, then spoke when Damon didn't. "You were the best of your siblings, any fool with half a brain could see that."

"Myrcella would disagree, were she here."

Tyrion winced. "I thought she would be safest in Dorne."

Damon shrugged. "I think you to be right. I just miss her."

The Halfman nodded once. "Me too."

More silence.

This was not the Tyrion that Damon was used to. He was used to a joking, laughing man with japes aplenty. While Tyrion had been his witty self for a moment at the beginning—Damon was highly pleased with himself that he had recognized the banter as just that—he was much too quiet, much too calm compared to the uncle Damon had always liked but been wary of. I imagine knowing you've been in for a farce trial would do that to a man.

Or perhaps living with the knowledge you had killed your nephew and king.

Damon still didn't believe it. He had no reason not to, besides his assertions that Tyrion was much too smart to do it the way it had been done and even, in his own Impish way, much too honorable to kill Joffrey at all. Tyrion had reason, opportunity and plenty of hate to draw on. He was an easy suspect.

But there was more at play here. Cersei and Tywin had always hated Tyrion, Damon knew this, and he knew that it might make them jump at the opportunity to rid themselves of the family dwarf sheep without true cause.

Or Tyrion might have done it.

Damon didn't know.

So he asked.

"Did you do it?"

Tyrion shook his head slowly, just as he had when Damon asked that question in the throne room upon his return to King's Landing. "No. I told you that."

The king nodded, just as slowly. "I know. I needed to hear it again."

"Do you believe me?"

Damon hesitated, thinking of his response for a long time. "I don't know yet. I want to."

Tyrion tried to smile. "I want you to too."

The king chuckled, once, then returned to staring at his uncle. "You had reason."

"So did half the Seven Kingdoms."

"You picked up the wine glass."

"I was his cupbearer."

The king's face twitched. "Uncle…"

Tyrion held his hands out in deference. "Bad taste, I know." The Imp cleared his throat. "I picked up the glass because I was piecing together what had happened, same as most of the crowd was. I admit, it was one of the few times my brain has utterly failed me."

"Joffrey pointed to you as he died."

"I imagine he thought I did it. His mother certainly does. And his grandfather. And maybe even his brother."

Damon stared some more, the silence weighing down on them for long minutes. Then, abruptly, the king stood and turned to leave. His uncle called after him. "What did you decide?"

"I decided you will stand trial." He opened the door, his Kingsguard flanking either side of it. Damon turned once, to look back at the cell's occupant. "Did you expect something else?"

Tyrion shrugged. "I had hoped you might set me free. Or help me, at the very least."

"Didn't you hear me? I said you'd stand trial." Damon smiled, just a touch of one. "One where I am the judge, not Tywin Lannister." He turned to leave. "May the Seven have mercy on you, uncle."

As he climbed the stairs out of the black depths, starting his journey to the Small Council chamber where Tywin and Cersei Lannister waited, Damon swallowed. "May the Seven have mercy on me, as well."

A/N: *tease* Next chapter: Mama lion is not happy. Neither is a rose.