Just before I could enter the realm of dreams and embarrass myself, I heard a knock. I quickly opened my eyes and saw Alicent enter.

"What are you doing Eddie"? She asked while pulling my folded legs towards her.

"What do you think I am doing?" I responded and straightened myself, now was not the time to
relax.

"Slumbering?" she guessed, I nodded. "Will you play with me?" She asked. I asked what she wanted to play but before she could give her opinion, mother said " You should play 'come-into-my- castle', she'll at least learn something from it ."

It was a game meant to teach noble children the aristocratic art of lying and spotting lies. She was a little young for that in my opinion.

In any case, Ally apparently didn't want to play the boring old etiquette game, I could tell by her cries of "No. That's so dull" and "Even Maester Alan finds it dreadful". As was expected, which 4 year old wants to play a game about how and why your opponent should let you enter their castle?

Rather than letting this get blown into an argument I took Allie into my arms and told mother "We are going down." After nodding at her "take care" we left the room.

"So what do you want to play?" I asked. She replied with "Monsters and maidens". Of course.

So off we went down.

…

"Sheathe your weapons you heathens and maybe I'll let you live" I thundered at Ally's kidnappers.

"Never" was their reply. So I quickly took hold of the arm of one of them while folding the other one behind me and trapping him below.

I slashed their throats.

They "died" and I slowly walked towards Ally and asked "are you alright my lady?" " I am, good ser" she giggled and gave me a red rose. I thanked her and took her arm in mine and checked on her "dead" kidnappers.

We had roped Loren and Alaric with us during our journey down the tower. They were in the kitchens and it took us about ten and 5 minutes of detour to find and convince them to join us.

"So did you have fun Allie?" asked Alaric. She replied with a yes and continued to try and fit the flower behind my ear. We were walking towards a bench when I saw a serving boy come towards us. He bowed and told us that we (the boys) were required by our lord father in his chamber. Because Allie didn't want to leave us yet, we four made our way towards our Lord father's office.

His office is on the ground floor. So, we didn't need to petition for a lift journey, thankfully. It wouldn't be a hassle for us, we are Hightowers after all but I didn't like to use it needlessly .

After entering and completing all the appropriate etiquette, we three were seated in front of our father's desk while Ally was playing with dolls and figurines on the cushioned long chair adjacent to us. She knew when to be quiet, so she wasn't making noise while playing. She's very clever for her age.

"Maester Alan tells me that you have been doing well in your studies" he said while looking towards Alaric and Loren. "We are, father." They said earnestly. "Good, I am proud of you" They enthusiastically thanked him. "Keep doing well and I'll let you both train with Uncle Garth"

They couldn't have looked happier.

"Now tell me what do you know about house Mullendore" He asked the 3 of us. I could've replied but I knew from father's demeanour that he wanted to test them both, so I refrained. After some moments Alaric replied, "They command 800 men at arms" father nodded and looked towards Loren who said "Their keep is called castle Mullendore" father chuckled and so did I.

Loren looked a bit put out while Alaric looked a lot more smug than he should've. He hadn't solved the mystery of the 13th floor after all.

Father then continued, "Lord Dominic Mullendore is dead". The three of us murmured "may the seven give him peace", Ally copied us and said it a little bit louder. Father ended with "Seven give him peace indeed, for he has given us a lot of trouble in his death"

"What do you mean father?" Loren asked what we were all thinking. "He has given away thirty thousand hectares of fertile Reach land to his stormlands-wed daughter" father answered.

That shouldn't be possible I thought because it was not his land to give. A lord just can't give away/sell his family holdings of fertile land to someone. It was forbidden in the feudal contracts of most kingdoms. Especially here in the Reach. The reason a lord can't give away/sell his family land holdings is because it's not his to "give". It's the land of his house and by extension his people. A lord technically owns all the land rather than the peasants who cultivate them because he can then equally divide them among them. That makes sure that if a certain peasant's crop gets destroyed in a hailstorm or some other natural disaster, he can then petition his local lord and get his share of the total local production. That way no one starves. This is a rather simplistic explanation of course. The actual contract has a lot more intricacies.

I expressed my thoughts and said "But it shouldn't be possible, he can't just give away his family holdings to her." Father responded "You are right he can't" he then opened his drawer and removed some parchments and put them on the table. "This is a copy of the official lease signed by Lord Dominic Mullendore and one Raymond Errol". Ingenious really, he bypassed the feudal contract and just leased it. It was within his powers. Father sighed and then said "He gave away 30 thousand hectares of fertile land for a century for a price of twenty thousand dragons"

"Twenty thousand! that's a travesty" Even Alaric apparently knew that it was too little a price for such a large amount of land, especially fertile land. It was maybe enough for a lease of 5 years, nothing more than that. Loren nodded with him, I didn't know if he actually agreed or was just doing it for the sake of looking as if he had an informed opinion too.

"Why did Lord Dominic do such a thing?" I asked. "He hated his son and loved his daughter. According to my sources, he wanted his daughter to have "something" to live her life comfortably with her hedge knight husband in Bronzegate, as she deserved." he replied while making air quotes at something. 30 thousand hectares of land is just "something" after all, nothing special(no sarcasm at all).

Father making air quotes was a funny image though. The twins agreed by their grins.

"So tell me my sons, what should we do?" Father finally got to the point of this impromptu discussion. This was another tough question, for I couldn't immediately see a way out of this.

Alaric had an Idea, "You should order the contract null. We can not let them take away so much land". Father nodded and replied "You are right, we can't but I don't have the power to arbitrarily order a contract null and void. Only His grace can and I assure you, even kings don't just order contracts null and void," He is right, the domain of contracts shouldn't be easily trifled with. Merchants from far and away will start to question the worth of our region's promises if we attempt to arbitrarily declare them null and void.

"We can renegotiate the contract for a smaller period of time, can't we father?" Asked Loren. This one was more sensible but still improbable to help us in this situation. Father agreed "We can but do you think they will want to? They have basically got thirty thousand hectares of land without any real cost."

Now everyone expected me to give my opinion. It's easy to know that when everyone looks your way.

This one was a tough nut to crack. If we had the lord paramountcy of the Reach we could've probably solved this relatively easily . Unfortunately the Tyrells occupied that position and I knew my father wouldn't want to ask them for help in this. 30 thousand hectares were important but they weren't that important.

Aunt Alerie could easily convince Lord Mace to deal with this but father wouldn't want to use such a favour, even if the Tyrells were family.

Family. Yes, that can help. Unsolvable issues between two noble houses can sometimes only be dealt with by joining their bloodlines. Such is the curse of an aristocrat. A lot of the time our hearts are promised even before we are born. I was thankful to at least have a choice in my betrothed.

"Well, firstly I think you should propose an amendment to the contract in the next high council. Have the lease portion of it be amended. So that no lord lower than a high lord can lease the land under his house's holdings without written permission from their high lord" Amendments to the contract were not easily passed but this one was sensible enough to prove an exception in my opinion. The peasant representative would definitely agree, smallfolk won't want their food security to get leased off for a century by a petty lord after all. The smallfolk representative didn't have a vote but his statement of support won't hurt.

Father said "continue" and I did, " We should arrange a betrothal between the children of the new Lord Mullendore and his sister. Do they both have children and do the genders match, father?" I asked.

After his affirmative I continued "Well that's very helpful, have his sister's daughter be betrothed to his son and promise her in the betrothal contract that if she has any sons, they will get a keep to occupy in their good-brother's lands". "That would cost Lord Mullendore " countered father but I could tell he already agreed. "It would but it would be far lesser than the cost he and his subjects would've to bear otherwise"

"I am going to send Humfrey and a representative of Lord Mullendore to negotiate. It wouldn't be easy but this is the best way we currently have" said father. I could tell by his instant agreement that he had already planned to do this.

Damn it. I wanted to have an original solution for once.

"Now off you go. I have things to do." A little "good Idea son" would've felt nice but it isn't polite to expect praise. It is given when the giver finds you worthy, to make them say it lessens its value.

And father's praises did give me a special joy after all. However far and few between, they were.

"Now we can play 'hide-the-treasure' " said a happy Ally, making us three groan.

Author's note: This is my first fan-fiction. So, I'd really appreciate it if you can review and help me improve.
Review:

ClassicXD: Thanks for your review, I really appreciate it. It's my first review after all. Yeah I am also a big Hightower fan. This lack of non-dance centric Hightower fics made me jump the waters of writing fanfictions. Edmund doesn't suspect the origin of Cersei's children. That comment was just meant to portray this-

"Tywin wants to mould the future king(s) into proper Lannisters. Even if his grandchildren can't have his name, he wants them to have a Lannister's cunning/demeanour/personality"