Snake in Wolf's Clothing

Chapter 6

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The Westerlands, Casterly Rock, Tywin Lannister.

Tywin Lannister stood in his solar staring out to Lannisport and the surrounding town deep in thought. He was tall and slender, with greying blonde hair and green golden-flecked eyes. He wore his signature black leather clothes, commanding a very powerful presence intimidating those around him.
Tywin Lannister was confused.

He was the Lord of Casterly Rock, Shield of Lannisport and Warden of the West. He was the most powerful person in the Seven Kingdoms, ruling them in all but name in his time as Hand of the King. Oh he knew he was ruthless and a bit controlling, but he was also calculating, intelligent, politically astute and cold. He wasn't always like that. In fact, he was used to smiling and twitching his lips upwards from time to time when he was with his lovely Joanna. But that all ended with the birth of the foul loathsome imp that took her… a story for another day perhaps. He had watched his mighty house nearly brought to ruin through his father's actions.

"Tytos Lannister" He sneered just from the thought. His father while a gentle and amiable man was also weak willed and eager to please, loans went unpaid and his bannermen did what they pleased mocking him in their cups or openly defying him. People thought all he did were out of cruelty, they were wrong. He was determined to become a different man than his father and restore his house into greatness. The destruction of House Reyne and Tarbeck was only means to re-establishing his House's fearsome reputation.

They were the richest house in the Seven Kingdoms, and the Westerlands Mountains were filled to the brim with gold. Their wealth only contested by that of the Tyrells. But therein lays the problem. 8000 bloody years of mining gold was enough to make a mountain made solely of gold go empty. While the mines in Casterly Rock weren't empty yet, they were certainly getting there. Fearsome reputation or not he couldn't just seize mines of his bannermen and tell them to go fuck themselves. They would all rebel and end his legacy. It wasn't really an unsolvable problem, mines had to be built and gold areas had to be searched for on the rock but that took money and time. Time he didn't have. He wasn't as young as he was, he could feel his wounds aching at the night though never showing his discomfort in front of his enemies lest they get any ideas. He knew his time was soon, but he couldn't… nay wouldn't leave his house on a shaky rock. He had to leave a base that would ensure that House Lannister remains on top even if another Tytos emerges from his descendants.
So when suddenly gold starts flowing down from the North, rumors of mountains in the north filled with gold to the brim, miners starting to travel to the north for better lives and good conditions he had every damn right to be worried.
He always wondered why the north never once produced gold or iron ores; their mountains were almost the size of the Westerlands! 8000 years, not a single ore. He had assumed that they must be empty, lumbs of rock. So when that upstart Stark starts opening mines as much as the ones in the West almost flooding the North with gold, silver and diamonds. Dividing the mountains and mines and gifting them to his bannerman? Madness! He could've just taken them all and no one would complain, they were out of all their territories. Not only dividing them, but also assisting them in building the mines, providing equipment for a measly percentage of the mines production. That was absurd. Nobody in the westerlands would ever contemplate doing something like that. And SUDDENLY, the poor Houses of the North had coffers filled with gold. He even heard they were self-sufficient in their production and had vast farmlands and even produced excess food in WINTER when formerly, the North would thank their old gods for having enough food through summer. But that didn't matter; the Tyrells and their pretty flowers could worry about that.

Oh he heard of the new Stark Lord. A once in a millennia genius they said. But even a genius couldn't shift the powers of the Great Houses and Kingdoms so much in just under a decade.