Rivers of Fire and Blood

Tyrion II

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the Ice and Fire Novels, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon TV shows. However, I decided to have a little play around with the characters. I do not earn any money from writing these stories, it is for my entertainment and is something I like to share.

Tyrion had sent a raven ahead to inform Sansa of his imminent arrival, not giving anything away as to the purpose, or purposes of his visit. The journey would take a turn of the moon should the weather stay fine as Tyrion wasn't travelling with a large retinue, just him and his former squire, Ser Podrick Payne, who normally looked after King Bran, however Brienne had volunteered herself to take care of the King in Pod's absence. He would have felt safer with Bronn, but he was already on a trip to Storm's End with Grand Maester Tarly. On the other hand, under the excellent tutelage of Ser Brienne of Tarth, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Pod had become an able swordsman and a skilled rider since returning to Kings Landing and could see off most threats they would likely encounter on the way.

They travelled light, just Tyrion, Pod and a wheelhouse which mainly contained all of the necessities for their stay in Winterfell, but also it proved a useful place to sleep when they had to set up camp for the night. Tyrion only took two types of luxury, both he knew Winterfell lacked, especially the first since the constant attacks it had endured since he visited many years ago with his brother, sister and brother-in-law, King Robert Baratheon, that was books. Someone, most likely Littlefinger had paid some lowlife to burn down the library at Winterfell in an attempt to kill Bran as a child, it had never recovered from that night, even to this day almost ten years later. Therefore as a gesture of goodwill he had decided to help restock the library, plus there were a few books he wanted to read away from the prying eyes of Kings Landing and this innocent gesture of goodwill was the perfect opportunity to delve into them. The second was wine, specifically the good stuff from Dorne. Admittedly the wine was for his own purposes, but he felt the gesture was sincere enough.

The Kingsroad took them through many taverns and inns, all hospitable with enough chatter inside for Tyrion to hear of all local news without having to pay for it, save for food and ale. The journey had been quite uneventful, no mention of dragons, whitewalkers or even direwolves, although he had heard chatter about a large pack of wolves roaming the countryside terrorising the smallfolk. Rumours were it was led by a giant she-wolf, bigger than a pony, if he didn't know better, the she-wolf sounded like a direwolf, but the only one left alive, to his knowledge was Ghost who had gone beyond the wall. He suspected the stories must be exaggerated.

The one constant buzz of chatter among those on the road was how little they liked the new King, a fact which surprised Tyrion. Tyrion had been assured all policies would be examined by Bran through the weirwood trees to check how the smallfolk felt about new laws and taxes. Every time laws were passed, they were all under the assurance that these would not be a problem for the smallfolk and they were happy their new King was trying to help them back on the road to recovery, even if that sometimes meant extra taxation. In the real world, Tyrion discovered people were not only unhappy, they were downright furious but none of their Lords seemed to want to listen to their problems. That was even more of an issue as many of the Lords had been killed during the years of war, leaving only a few smaller houses left to deal with the mess and they didn't want to upset the new King. An issue Tyrion found, was that the Lords of Westeros believed Bran to be all seeing and knowing, therefore they didn't dare to speak out against him. The smallfolk had less to lose as they knew they were inconsequential and unlikely to be spied upon. It appeared the realms were not happy and Bran's abilities had instilled fear into his subjects who did not dare rebel, again a consequence of the lack of Lords remaining. On the positive side, Tyrion decided, at least that meant there was less of a chance for an uprising, unless anyone found out about Bran not being able to listen into their thoughts, albeit being possibly a temporary setback. Should Drogon return to Dragonstone, Bran's power would hopefully return, although Tyrion had a bad feeling about Bran being a little too optimistic regarding his greenseeing predicament being only temporary. If Bran had lost his ability to see, then he had nothing to offer as King. Bran even telling the him such sensitive information showed the King trusted Tyrion as he would not have shared this problem unless he thought it was safe to do so, but Tyrion did not like situation one bit as there was always a small chance Bran was playing games with him. It wouldn't be the first time he had tested his loyalty, neither would it be his last, it was what Kings did.