Hush...

Tywin Lannister-The Girl With Violet Eyes

She was putting back a book on Valyrian Lore and Mythology, it's cover old and worn, the lettering on the binding hardly readable, when she heard the door open.

Looking over her shoulder she saw Tyrion walk into the room, stopping when he saw her standing there, balancing on a chair, reaching for one of the higher shelves to return the book to its proper place.

"You know we have servants to do that sort of thing for us, don't you?" he asked her, quirking an eyebrow at her as she pushed the book into the empty space and hopped off the chair, her maroon dress bellowing up around her and showing her feet and calves as it swished around her ankles.

"Old habits die hard, I suppose" she said, shrugging as she passed a hand through her hair, looking at the youngest Lannister son with curiosity.

She knew he was different than the others; he'd seen and witnessed so much over the years, and yet he still always surprised her in the way he spoke to her. Like she was his equal. Not a cupbearer, not his father's ward, not an inferior woman, but his equal. He was also very intelligent, and she knew he spent most of his time in the library when he was at Casterly Rock, possibly as a means to either anger or get away from his father-probably both. As a dwarf, she knew how other people thought about him, the names they called him behind his back. Quite frankly she never understood the disdain with which people treated him, since no one got to choose how they were born. She'd always made a point to be polite and proper towards Tywin's youngest son, although she'd never had anymore than a few words with him.

"Ah yes, I heard about your advancement from Cupbearer to my father's Ward..... Quite an achievement, if you ask me" he said, something in his voice causing her to look down into his eyes again.

What she saw there was genuine curiosity, and something that looked like suspicion. But why would he be suspicious of her? What had she done? As she pondered that question she shrugged again, turning towards the table and sorting through some of the books lying there.

"Your Father saw fit to make me his ward rather than remaining his cupbearer. If you want to know why, you should ask him. The reasoning behind his decision remains a mystery to me, as he doesn't like sharing his thoughts with anyone" she said as she glanced at Tyrion from the corner of her eyes.

He'd made his way over to the hearth, managing to get settled into the chair in front of it without too much of a fuzz. There was a book lying on the small table standing next to the chair, a bookmark point out from between the pages about halfway through the book.

"Suprising, isn't it, such reluctance to share his thoughts? Coming from my father?" Tyrion said sarcastically, opening the book and flipping through the pages until he reached the bookmark.

Asriel remained silent, not wishing to engage in a talk about the strained relationship between Tyrion and Tywin. She knew why Tywin hated his son, or at least she could understand the reasoning behind it, despite strongly disagreeing with it. She knew that Tywin blamed Tyrion for Joanna's death, despite the impossibility of that accusation. But people never reacted rationally to loss and grief. Tywin had probably needed to put the blame on someone in order to be able to cope with the loss of his wife. The birth of his so-called 'deformed' son, a dwarf, allowed him to transfer the blame onto someone, to put a face to the pain he was experiencing. It wasn't right, not by any means, but she understood the emotion behind it. The fact that Tyrion had only managed to further widen the divide separating him and his father over the years didn't exactly help things along. But she felt for Tyrion, she really did. No child deserved to be hated by his father. No child should grow up with one parent gone, the other absent or unwilling to raise him. And he certainly hadn't deserved the treatment he got over the years. So she understood his defiance, his resentment, his anger, all those pent-up emotions he kept walled up behind his sarcasm, his whoring and his drinking.