A Holiday by Decree
~~ Day 3 ~~
Tyrion had found himself out on the beach while it was still dark out.
Sleep had eluded him for hours. He had tried to read at least three different books. He had brought them from the library next to his chambers, having predicted on his way back to his room that he was going to pass an impossible night. His eyes went over the pages, but no matter what he tried to read, his mind wasn't in it.
After at least two hours of that, Tyrion gave up around midnight, and turned down the lamps in his chamber in a furor he realized was perfectly ineffectual. Then, willing sleep to come, he flopped around in bed like a frustrated, beached fish.
He was frustrated alright. After the unexpected afternoon he had passed, his mind was a mess of anxiety that he could not fully interpret as either excitement or worry.
Even in his bed, like everywhere in the house, he could hear the constant crashing of the waves, a calming metronome in the face of his erratic feelings. So he got dressed and drawn to the soothing beat of the tide, he went down to the beach, something he had not yet done since arriving.
The moon was new this night. Obscured in almost total darkness, the ocean view was barely more than inky nothingness, like a giant monster that could be heard and not seen. The only sign of its presence was the heavy sound of its breath, the tide, going in and out.
Down on the sand, Tyrion realized it had certainly been a while since he had last been anywhere outside unguarded or somehow not otherwise surrounded by people. He spent a few minutes looking around and listening past the waves. Finally assured in the silent stillness that he was alone, he sat down on the sand with his knees up to his chest, while the tide slowly climbed the shoreline.
Again, the sensation reminded him of the first time he had gone into the dark, deep cell beneath the pyramid of Meereen to release Rhaegal and Viserion. Though Varys had remained at the door, Tyrion knew he had been on his own then, venturing toward the darkness, perhaps never to return.
But in this case, one thing stood out completely different when he looked up - oh, but the stars above! In the keeps and cities, there were always torches burning on the ramparts or smoky hearths smoldering away to block out the glittering, endless heavens above. Awed, and letting the salty air and surroundings mix with his heavy thoughts, Tyrion couldn't help but ask himself again, as he had many times over the years:
How do all these things keep happening to me?
