Author's Note: Hey guys, sorry for the wait. My excuse is that I was working out of state for pretty much the entire time I've been gone; construction can be fun but leaves little time for writing. I'll try to update again before too long to make it up to you, but y'all know how that goes by now haha.
Thank you for all the favorites, follows and reviews! We broke 700 followers since my last chapter like two months ago, and I thank you all for joining this up and down ride and I want to thank all of you veterans for hanging in with me through it. Your support has been outstanding!
We're getting there, people. Slowly but surely, we're getting there. I don't have the 'roses are not happy' bit I teased last chapter, but I sure do have the mama lion. I hope I did Cersei and the show/book scene I turned into my own justice! Let me know what you think you beautiful people you.
I hope you all enjoy and review this update.
The King was speaking even as he opened his chamber door. "Yes, I went to see Tyrion this morning. No, I didn't set him free."
The hinged oak swung open to reveal the emerald eyes and high cheekbones of Dowager Queen Cersei, dressed in a gown of Lannister crimson and gold. To either side of her were the backs of two different white armored shoulders, Sers Meryn and Borros on duty outside of the King's chambers. His mother's face was expressionless, though her eyes were anything but.
Damon hardly glanced at her, turning before the door had even finished swinging open and making a determined line through the solar towards the balcony on the other side. He spoke as he did so, not needing the sound of her boots on the cobblestone to know she was following him closely. "He insists he did not kill Joffrey. I'm not saying I believe him—or that I don't. I'm merely saying it warrants a closer look."
His mother's tone was neutral, and Damon knew that to mean she was furious indeed. "I disagree. It is obvious that Tyrion is responsible."
Damon hardly kept himself from shaking his head in exasperation. "How, mother." He pushed another door open, stepping out and onto the canopied balcony. Beneath him, guardsmen patrolled the twelve-foot-thick walls of Maegor's Holdfast, only a slip over the crenellations to the dry moat and its iron spikes. Beyond that, though not quite in Damon's view, the castle servants scurried around attending their various midday duties; washerwomen washed, stable hands worked the horses through their daily exercises, and guardsmen and retinues trained. Damon heard the distant sound of steel on steel, and felt the desire to be among it once again.
Even training with live steel wouldn't be half as dangerous as discussing this particular subject with his mother.
"He picked up the chalice, Damon."
Damon placed his hands upon the railing, leaning against it as he watched the castle stir below him. Cersei adopted the same pose, though she retained a much more regal bearing than her royal son. Whatever their coming argument, Damon couldn't help but admire his mother's ability to always look queenly. "Because he was piecing together what had happened."
"To try and dispose of it."
"In front of half the realm?"
"Half the realm was watching their king suffocate at his hands. It is merely luck that I saw Tyrion with the glass and called it to attention."
Damon found that ludicrous, though he couldn't say exactly that to his mother—not if he wished to keep his head upon his shoulders. "That isn't enough evidence, mother."
"Evidence," she all but sneered. "You are the king, Damon. You have more power than anyone in Westeros. You don't need evidence."
"I do if I'm going to sentence my uncle to death."
"That uncle killed your brother. Your twin."
"I don't know that. I only know that you and grandfather believe that."
Cersei turned to face him, another indication of her growing irritation even if her tone remained for the most part even. Damon didn't look back at her, however; he knew the angry flash in her emerald eyes and the thin line of her lips already from a thousand instances in his childhood. "Everyone—every person who was in King's Landing—knows that Tyrion killed their king. Everyone but—"
He finally turned his head to meet her eyes. "Everyone but the man who is their king now. And his opinion is the one that matters most, isn't it."
The sudden bite to his tone temporarily shocked Cersei into silence. It shocked Damon into silence too, because he had no clue where either the words or the force behind them had come from. That was happening more and more of late; his tongue would take a mind of its own, untying itself for a few moments of sharp and decisive speech before returning to the stumbling drunk it normally was. It was almost more infuriating than being permanently silenced; it never sprung up when he wanted it to, and had the damndest ability to show itself at the worst possible times.
Like right then,
After a moment of disbelieving staring, Cersei's face darkened. "Watch your tongue."
Damon almost wanted to remind her of the fact she had been using for her own argument only a moment ago, that Damon was technically the most powerful man in Westeros, but the moment was gone. Instead he sighed. "Apologies, mother. But my point remains; the fact that he picked up the chalice is not enough evidence to kill Tyrion."
It was clear he was yet to be forgiven. "So you choose to ignore the dozens of witnesses and their testimonies to believe a kinslaying dwarf."
"Almost all of those witnesses are simply saying what they think will earn them favor. I haven't even heard a single testament and I already know that." Damon tilted his head down slightly, eyeing his mother suddenly with what bordered on accusation. "Plenty are saying what they've been told to say, I wager."
Cersei held his eyes unflinchingly. "They're giving honest testimony."
"Horseshit." Damon looked back to the courtyard. "Spare your games and your pulling of strings for others mother. That might have worked on Joffrey, but I am certainly not him."
There was a long, drawn out silence. "No." Cersei returned her own gaze to the view, though neither of the golden figures were truly seeing what they were staring at. "You aren't. Joffrey would not hesitate, as you insist upon doing."
The king knew these were the words of the queen, not his mother, and they were said simply because she was angry, but he couldn't deny they hurt. "Would you rather me be him, mother? Would you prefer me to be a psychopath who enjoyed causing pain simply to cause pain?"
At once, the lioness fierceness was back in her voice. "He was your brother."
"Aye," Damon agreed, "and because he was my brother I loved him and still do. But, my brother or not, Joffrey was not a good king. You know it, I know it, grandfather knows it—the very same 'witnesses' you have procured know it."
"You almost sound as if you think it best that little monster killed him."
Damon shook his head firmly, nearly snorting a laugh. "Nonsense, and you know that too. I don't want the crown. I've never wanted it. I'm likely to be as bad a king as Joffrey, but that isn't the point. Whether or not you, I, the smallfolk or even the Seven like it, I'm what we have now that father and Joffrey are gone. The decision about Tyrion is in my hands, and I will make a call all of my own, whether it pleases you or Tyrion or Tywin or no one at all."
She stared at him. He stared back.
Seconds passed.
Finally, Cersei turned on her heel and walked towards the chamber inside, Damon returning his gaze to the streets below him. He actually didn't realize she had stopped until she spoke from the balcony doorway. "No, I don't wish you were Joffrey." Damon turned to look at her. Gone was the fierceness, though the anger still hung on her features. "I'm not blind. But, if you let your kinship with Tyrion blind you to what is in front of your face, you are. Joffrey may have been a bad king, but at least he looked after his own family."
His mother turned and left.
Damon knew that to be a lie. Joffrey had looked after his family by terrorizing them.
But the words still hurt.
And Damon still didn't know what he was going to do.
King Damon of the House Baratheon, first of his name, made it through six witnesses the next day before he could take no more. Those he weathered, only half listening to their accounts of seeing exactly what the last testifier had seen—something Damon found suspicious, everyone seeing the same exact things as everyone else—but the seventh he could only listen to for so long.
It was a whore who was his uncles undoing, something both fitting and terrifying considering Damon's own fondness for women of that nature. When his mother had called this foreigner named 'Shae' to the stand, Damon didn't know who she was or what in the Seven Hells she had to do with anything. But, having seen the sudden and complete pain on the face of Tyrion and catching the glance he and this young woman gave each other, Damon suddenly realized she was very important indeed.
Her testimony, given in a scared voice with traces of an accent Damon couldn't place, was detailed and damning. Whatever hope Tyrion may have had, however small, was dashed within moments of her opening her mouth.
When the court erupted into laughter when the lover of his uncle admitted her nickname for Tyrion-'the Giant of Lannister'—Damon had heard plenty.
"Enough," he called. The court, at Tyrion's expense, continued to laugh, not hearing the king's command over their own chuckles. Damon looked to his uncle, and saw nothing but pure and utter pain and betrayal on his scarred, dwarven face.
"I said enough." His second command came in a voice even the king didn't recognize, though it came from within his own throat. The court as one became silent, eyes on the Daring.
Damon stared at Shae, who glanced once at his mother but didn't even attempt to meet his or Tyrion's eyes. She's lying. Not about all of it, for certain; the pain he could sense from Tyrion and even from Shae herself was no charade, very real and very deep for the both of them. But Damon didn't believe her, not at all, that Tyrion had planned this entire assassination of Joffrey. The king didn't know how, but he knew her to be lying.
Just as he knew it really didn't matter.
Damon was king of the Iron Throne, the king of the Iron Throne, but he was as powerless to stop what was coming as Tyrion. No matter what he thought, Damon had no proof that Shae or the others were lying. The court had condemned Tyrion days ago, and whatever he could have thought of to sway them that Tyrion wasn't guilty—and he wasn't, Damon was almost certain now—had only a small chance of succeeding then. Now, after a public, personal account of the plot, it was gone.
He could still proclaim Tyrion innocent. That was the right thing to do, and if he decreed it so, there as nothing that could be done to stop him. He was the king.
Any man who must say 'I am the King' is no true king.
His grandfather's words ran through his mind. He knew what Tywin Lannister wanted out of this trial; he wanted the same as his daughter did, Tyrion gone from their lives. He and Damon had never spoken of it, not during their several private meetings since Damon's return or the Small Council meeting of the day before. This subject Damon had only discussed with three people, not counting the accused; his mother, his other uncle Jaime and his own version of Shae.
Uncle Jaime believes him innocent as well. That fact, told to Damon as his uncle hacked away at him clumsily in the sparring yard the night before, was probably the main reason Damon was so sure of it to be true now. No. No, it is true whether uncle Jaime thinks it so or not. I know it, though I can't say how.
But, again, it didn't matter.
Damon found himself with a choice.
Yes, he could end all of this painful charade now and rule Tyrion innocent because the man was. Neither Cersei nor Tywin could refute him, whatever their wrath to be dealt with. It was the right thing to do.
But it wasn't the wise thing to do. In fact, it was the dumbest move he and his young kingship could make.
Damon knew Tyrion was innocent, but no one else save Jaime and Tyrion himself did. Some might hold the same doubts Damon did about the majority of witnesses, but even they would have been convinced by Shae's words. Even if they didn't truly believe them, as Damon didn't, they would still have to accept them as true simply because there was no proof that Tyrion didn't kill Joffrey. There were plenty of witnesses proclaiming he did, and none saying he did not.
By doing what was right, he would cast himself in the light of Aerys Targaryen, disregarding law and the sane simply because he was a king. He couldn't well say "no, you didn't do it because I just know somehow that you did not do it". Nor could he say "lords and ladies, all of these witnesses have been purchased by my mother, and thusly cannot be trusted; Tyrion, go home". If he proclaimed Tyrion as innocent, the correct thing to do morally if not technically fulfilling the law, he would lose any confidence he had managed to instill.
Damon knew himself well. He wouldn't have an easy time of building it back, if it could be done at all.
For a fleeting moment, another thought came to him. He could proclaim Tyrion innocent, saving his uncle from a fate he didn't deserve, and then simply quit. Quit the kingship, quit the keep, quit it all. He could abdicate to Tommen, go back to the war front and fight his brother's wars as he always thought he would spend his life doing, albeit for a different brother than he originally thought he would do it for. He wouldn't have to worry about his inability to speak and lead, or the politics and game he couldn't truly play. Life would be simple.
For a moment he almost did it. But then he thought of sweet Tommen, and of the pressures of this throne that Damon had already grown tired of after merely three days of enduring them, and of Tommen being in the middle of political games of the Tyrells and Lannisters and Stannis wherever the fuck he was.
No. No, he is too young. I'm too young too, but I can handle this better than Tommen can, at least for now. I will not run from my problems.
It was Tyrion's voice that broke him from his trance. From the looks he was getting all around, the King had been staring off in silence for a long time. "May I say something."
The sound of anger and pain in his uncle's voice, and the thought of just why Tyrion might be speaking now, suddenly made the decision simple.
"No," Damon said, rising and causing all others to rise as well. "No, you may not." His uncle, eyes ablaze in a way Damon had never seen but could well guess the effects of, opened his mouth anyway. "Not a word!" It came out as a bark, hard and unforgiving. "I have heard enough. You have defended yourself, and the prosecution has given their argument. I will hear no more from anyone on this matter."
Shut up, uncle. Shut up and let me save you and my reputation both, even if it is at the expense of my honor.
He stared at Tyrion, willing the dwarf to listen. Tyrion was past the point of caring, Damon could see it, and had progressed to the mind frame of not giving a damn what happened to him. When Tyrion again tried to speak, Damon cut him off even more fiercely, using his genuine anger at his own decision to not do the right thing and framing it as anger at his uncle. "Not a word," he nearly bellowed, then addressed the crowd as a whole without giving Tyrion time to speak over him.
He kept his voice loud and angry; it wasn't hard, for Damon was embarrassed and furious with himself for not even lasting a week before becoming like all the other corrupt nobles in King's Landing. "I have made my decision. Tyrion Lannister, I find you guilty." There was a murmur in the crowd, but Damon spoke over it again. He knew it wouldn't match the murmur they were about to make in any case. "I find you guilty of kingslaying and, worse yet, kinslaying. As punishment for your crimes, I sentence you to…take the black."
He'd been right. This murmur was full of gasps of disbelief and shock, the loudest coming from behind him on the dais where his mother sat. The king whirled on the gathered nobles. "I will not stain my hands as my uncle has with the blood of a kinsman. Tyrion will keep his head and his life, and will pay for his crimes by spending the rest of it at the Wall. Ser Balon!" The Kingsguard Damon trusted most—aside form Jaime—stepped forward immediately. "The trial is over, my decision made. You and Ser Meryn will escort the prisoner to the black cells, and remain as guard to him until I personally come to you and say otherwise."
The knight of House Swann bowed, then made with his sworn brother to all but drag Tyrion away. Damon marched down the thrones steps with them, keeping his face a mask of anger as Jaime and Ser Loras rushed to follow him. He gave Tyrion one glance, a short one, to try and convey his apologies. From the look he got back, Damon couldn't tell if his uncle understood or not.
"Court is dismissed." The king said as he walked to and through the doors at the far end of the hall while the crowd murmured and gasped behind him.
One figure, tall and authoritative, watched the entire exchange with pale green eyes and an impassive face. Tywin Lannister watched his son being taken swiftly away and his grandson's straight back parting the noble crowd like a knife through butter. He stepped forward once Damon had made his exit, raising a hand. The nobles, seeing it, instantly began to quiet.
As they did so, Tywin looked to his daughter, who had also risen and taken several steps after Damon before realizing the scene that might have made. He could see the fury in her face, but he ignored it. Lowering his voice to where only she could hear it, he spoke for just a brief moment before beginning to give orders to the chaotic aftermath the king's abrupt exit had made.
"Perhaps you did raise a king."
A/N: *tease* Next chapter: Lions, roses and wolves, oh my!