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[TYWIN'S CHAMBERS]
[TYRION enters, carrying a large tome. He spies CERSEI and pauses.]
"Oh great we were both summoned" Tyrion muttered. Nothing was ever good when they both were present for something.
"What's she doing here?"
"Our business concerns her, too. Sit."
[TYRION sits at the table.]
"You'll be pleased to learn that after one conversation with Olenna Tyrell, I've saved the crown hundreds of thousands on this wedding."
"Never mind that now. We have something important to discuss."
"Of course when it's my accomplishments, there's something else more important" Tyrion muttered darkly.
"Your sister has learned that your new friends the Tyrells are plotting to marry Sansa Stark to Ser Loras."
"Very well. She's a lovely girl. Missing some of Loras' favorite bits, but I'm sure they'll make do."
"Your jokes are not appreciated."
"It wasn't my best, but-"
"I bring them into the royal fold and this is how they repay me, by trying to steal the key to the North out from under me."
"Does he think he brought us in? Because I'm very certain that if not for us, his whole family would be dead right now" Olenna snorted. "The gall on this man to think we owe him shit!"
"Father does have that charm about him," Tyrion said with a dry chuckle.
"The Karstarks have marched home. The young wolf has lost half his army. His days are numbered. Theon Greyjoy murdered both his brothers. That makes Sansa Stark the heir to Winterfell. And I am not about to hand her over to the Tyrells.
"The Tyrell army is helping us to win this war. Do you really think it's wise to refuse them?"
"There's nothing to refuse. This is a plot. Plots are not public knowledge. And the Tyrells won't carry this one out until after Joffrey's wedding. We need to act first and kill this union in its crib. We find Sansa Stark a different husband."
"Absolutely not!" Sansa shrieked. "I refuse to marry anyone he chooses for me!"
Most did not have the heart to tell her that her future self might not have a choice here.
The others simply did not care enough to tell her.
"You can't mean it."
"I can and I do."
"Joffrey has made this poor girl's life miserable since the day he took her father's head. Now she's finally free of him and you give her to me? That's cruel even for you."
Sansa's head sharply turned to Tyrion and though he has become a handsome man since getting rid of his dwarfism it doesn't change the fact that he is still a Lannister.
"I refuse to marry him" she declared angrily.
"The feeling is mutual," Tyrion said dryly.
"She's a child!"
"She's flowered, I assure you. She and I have discussed it at length."
Sansa cringed once more, this time from anger. How dare that... bitch!
"There, you see? You will wed her, bed her, and put a child in her. Surely you're capable of that."
"And if I refuse?"
"You wanted to be rewarded for your valour in battle. Sansa Stark is a finer reward than you could ever dare hope for. And it is past time you were wed."
"I was wed. Or don't you remember?"
The former Imp's visage turned stone cold.
Joanna gave Jaime a look, and the man just sighed.
"You should be thanking the gods for this. This is more than you deserve."
"Tyrion will do as he's bid. As will you."
"What do you mean?"
TYWIN: You'll marry Ser Loras.
Tyrion couldn't help it then, his sour mood broken immediately by the words of his father. He broke into peels of laughter so hard that he fell from his seat in doing so.
"Get your brother up," Joanna sighed from frustration at how her son would act from time to time. Like right now.
Jaime obliged in silence, hoisting Tyrion back on his chair. The former Imp was still laughing, tears running down his face.
"I'm sorry," he says a bit later, wiping the tears away. "It's just, seeing Cersei's smug face break and watching her world crumble like that... oh I couldn't help it!"
"My mother's being forced to do something she does not want to, and you're finding joy in that?" Myrcella asked in outrage.
"I am, in the same way she finds joy in my misfortune" Tyrion admitted with a grin.
But Myrcella was not sharing his grin. She was not even smiling. Her look of disgust and anger knocked the grin off Tyrion's face.
"You two are exactly alike" Myrcella whispered hotly before getting up from her seat. She took Tommen's hand and yanked him to his feet as well. Their sets vanished, reappearing on Joanna's other side where Myrcella wanted the two of them to sit.
She could not stand to sit beside her uncle right now.
"She's still young, she will understand once she's older" Tyrion muttered to himself. But he was worried there was no doubt there.
[NORTH OF THE WALL, NIGHT]
[SAMWELL TARLY tends to the fire while GILLY sits nearby, cradling her baby.]
"The boy escaped with the girl and her babe," Olenna said with a frown. "No doubt they would be heading for the wall now."
"It should be safe there, right?" Sansa asked, ignoring the knowledge of who her future self had to marry and the disgust it brought.
"A lone girl surrounded by men who do not have women around them all the time and no doubt have some pent-up aggression to work on? Use your head, girl" Olenna chastised.
"Not safe then" Sansa muttered to herself.
"You've got too much wood in there."
"But the more wood, the bigger the fire."
"Spoken like a true Highborn" Gendry snorted. He'd worked by fire long enough to know how to stroke a growing fire.
"It needs to breathe. Take off that big log."
[SAM removes the log. The fire quickly comes to life.]
"Someone built your fires for you growing up?"
"It doesn't get so cold down in the Reach. And there were servants, of course."
"I knew you were highborn."
"Oh, I found something at the Fist of the First Men. Buried treasure. Thousands of years old. I think."
[SAM pulls out the dragonglass knife.]
"He kept it. Good" Brandon the elder muttered. No doubt this boy would end up having to face a White Walker sooner or later. That would come in handy.
[THE NORTH, MORNING]
[MEERA REED skins a rabbit while OSHA looks on.]
"She's not too good at that" Lyanna muttered.
"You don't usually find rabbits around Grey Water Watch. She's trying her best" Ned answered stiffly. The conversation with Jaime Lannister was still in his head and he did not like it. Lannister still broke a vow... yet why was Ned the one feeling guilty?
"Can you skin a rabbit?" Arya asked her aunt.
Lyanna shook her head.
"I have been on a few hunts when I was young. But I never learned how to skin a rabbit" she explained.
[LORD BRAN STARK sits, back to a tree nearby. OSHA skins another rabbit in a quick motion and twists its head off.]
"That's better" Robert muttered. Wildling women were surely something different.
"You grow up north of the Wall, you learn the proper way to handle game."
"I didn't see any game before I got here."
"If I had a bow, I could have shot a dozen rabbits."
"Well, I made this bow myself. Guess you don't learn how to do that north of the Wall."
"You learn how to use your fists, though."
"Oh, you're gonna punch the rabbits to death?"
"I had someone else in mind."
"Well... you don't see women fight like this often" Tyrion mumbled. Usually, it was clipping comments and snide remarks. This was like watching Jaime and some Knight trying to one-up the other.
Still entertaining, but not something he was used to.
"Stop it! You've been fighting since you met. Just stop it."
"Lady Reed here's got a stick so far up her ass, it's a wonder her feet touch the ground."
"You've been nasty to her every day. Of course, she's nasty back."
"Me? It's my fault? The first time I met her, she put a knife to my throat."
"First time I met you, you held a knife at me. We can't fight each other. We'll never make it to the Wall. I want you both to make peace."
"Nicely done, little brother" Robb grinned, though his grin was forced. His mind was still on the events from before, about how his indecisions and his wrong decisions cost him a war. Well, his future self was the one to do those, but it was still him. He needed to learn and fast, instead of excusing it as shit his future self has done and not him.
A circumstance like that may not come up, but he was sure as the future Lord of Winterfell, he would need to make the right decisions.
Bran, in the dark about his older brother's thoughts, smiled at him. His smile only grew when his father's hand reached out and ruffled his hair. It was always a good feeling to make his family proud.