❝I need my golden crown of sorrow,
my blood sword to swing❞
.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.
"Are you truly so desperate to be killed?"
"Ah my dear niece." Tyrion said, not opening his eyes as he leant against the wall of his dingy cell. "I'm always so pleased when you visit me with your kind words and gentle demeanour."
Morgana scoffed lightly. In the shadows of his dark cell, she blended in quite well in her dark purple gown and raven black hair. She wasn't particularly tall for her age but Tyrion always felt she acted as though she was. Like a small dog who believed she was a god. That was the effect of having Cersei as a mother, he assumed.
"Well if you truly wish for kind words I'm sure I can go call upon my mother." Morgana retorted, sitting beside him, uncaring if her dress was ruined or not by the filth of the Keep's dungeons. She turned to him but he did not open his eyes. "I'm sure she has a fair amount to say to you after your outburst at your trial."
"I think I shall politely decline." Tyrion muttered and Morgana studied her uncle she had once so admired.
"I'm assuming you have no champion as of yet." She stated and Tyrion couldn't help the dry laugh that escaped his lips at that.
"You were always the clever one." He said, finally turning to look at the young girl beside him. "Perhaps you take after me in that respect."
"Don't flatter yourself." She said, although here was little humour in her voice. The room was silent for a moment before she spoke again. "So, neither Jaime nor your sell sword wish to assist you?"
"I'm indeed without a knight in shining armour, my dear." Tyrion said, looking to the ceiling of his cell before laughing lightly at a thought. "Would you perhaps fill that role for your favourite uncle?"
"Need I remind you yet again not to flatter yourself?" Morgana said and Tyrion sighed.
"It seems I shall have to leave you alone in this world then, dear one." He said, staring at the wall across from them as he spoke. "Perhaps Westeros is not ready for our great minds just yet."
It was silent once more, the only sound was the mice that were most likely running rampant with Tyrion's uneaten food in the corner.
"That's pathetic." Morgana said, breaking the silence as Tyrion raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you remember my old dancing instructor?"
"Ah yes your 'dancing instructor'." Tyrion scoffed, giving her a look. "What about him?"
"He used to tell us something every time one of us would attempt to run the other through with our play swords." Morgana said and Tyrion saw a small smile flicker onto his niece's face as she spoke. "He would say, 'What do we say to the God of Death? Not today."
"And what, pray tell, happened to your dancing instructor?" Tyrion asked dryly and Morgana's jaw tensed, not happy with the resurgence of the memory of her mentor's death. After that, she did not speak and Tyrion could not bear the silence. "Who's 'us'?"
"What do you mean?"
"You said 'he used to tell us something'." Tyrion said, turning to Morgana who was suddenly very interested in the ceiling. "Who was your partner in crime?"
For a moment, Tyrion saw a flash of the girl she had been before her father died. He was well aware of his sister and good brothers ignorance and blatant cruel indifference to the existence of their daughter and he had found a selfish kinship in her as the other 'Lannister freak'. But he had a certain memory of their time in Winterfell and had heard tales of her time briefly before of her father died where she had seemed happy. Truly happy. But now she was a ghost, a silver tongued ghost that remained him far too much of himself.
That was a fate he wished upon no one.
"Arya Stark." She said, her voice wrought with an emotion Tyrion could not name. "We were friends."
"Don't let Cersei hear you say that."
"Yes, I remember what you said." Morgana said, a dry smile on her face as she looked back to him once more. "'You are my favourite but you are not Cersei's', I believe you said. I'm perfectly aware of that fact at this age, Tyrion."
Tyrion never wanted to tell her but she was so much like her mother. Like how Myrcella had all of her mothers beauty and none of her nature, Morgana had all of her mothers beauty and her quick wit. Luckily neither sister was particularly cruel but due to their different upbringings, Tyrion was sure his favourite niece would grow to become as mean-spirited as her mother a she deserved to be. And yet she didn't. He admired her for that.
"Don't let her break you, dear one." Tyrion muttered, looking to the wall. "Cersei's favour is hardly one to seek out."
"Why would I need her favour when I have yours, dear uncle." Morgana said, smiling teasingly at her uncle who managed a half smile back. "Which is exactly why I cannot let you die."
"I didn't realise you and the God of Death were such close friends?" Tyrion said and Morgana scoffed, standing suddenly and making her way to the door.
"I have a plan." She said, turning to him as she opened the door. "You will just have to trust me."
"I believe my fatal flaw is that you are the only in this cesspool of depravity that I do trust." Tyrion said, a smile reaching his tired eyes as she nodded to him.
"That is hardly a flaw, Uncle." Morgana said, turning to leave. "If more people trusted me, less people would die."
Tyrion didn't read between the lines at that statement, not realising who's death she had meant in her words as the door closed behind her. All he could think was how underserving this world was of Morgana Baratheon.
And yet how perhaps, had she not been born, everything would've been far more simple.
.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.
"Rat cunts." The Hound grunted as he attempted clean the stinging wound on his neck. "Fucking whore."
Arya watched with a sort of irritated amusement as he cursed. She sharpened her sword in the middle of the field wherein they had made camp so the horses could graze some as they made their journey to Eyrie. Their ride had been uninterrupted since the skirmish with the bounty hunters but had also in turn been filled with the most vile curses Arya had ever heard. It was fascinating.
"You're doing it wrong." Arya said after a long while of watching him fuck up the wound. "You need to burn away that horrible bit there. Otherwise it's going to get infected and fester."
The Hound attempted to crane his neck to see the part she referred to and Arya sighed. He shot her a look but she merely looked back at him defiantly. He turned away from her and she set her sword aside.
"I know you don't like fire but if you don't do it right-" Arya began but the Hound interrupted her.
"No fire." He protested, still bending his arm unnaturally to clean the wound.
"It will only take a second." Arya said, standing and walking towards their makeshift fire that had kept them warm the night before. She picked up a branch and began to carry the flame towards Clegane. "It won't hurt that much."
"No fire!" The Hound cried, stumbling backwards away from the girl. Arya was so shocked she stood still. He sounded so much like a wounded child in that moment that her perception of him nearly shattered. After an awkward moment, she stepped back and dropped the branch back into the flames, sitting and picking up her sword without another word.
"Why do you care? Where did you even learn about that shit." The Hound hissed, glaring at her as she continued to sharpen her sword.
"A friend taught me."
"You have friends?" The Hound laughed to himself humourlessly. "That I believe less than that horseshit with the... fire."
"I had a friend." Arya said, sharpening the blade with more purpose this time. "She was clever."
"Was she also your Septa?" The Hound asked, sitting back down and fiddling with the rag. Arya rolled her eyes.
"She was Morgana Baratheon." She said and the Hound's head turned to her once more. He was silent for a moment, studying her as the sound of her sharpened blade echoes through the clearing.
"And what does Morgana Baratheon know about cauterising wounds?" He asked dryly and Arya paused her movements, brow furrowing. The hound scoffed. "I'm guessing you never asked her that did you?"
She hadn't. She and Morgana had been getting up to their usual mischief when they had decided stupidly to play around with a real sword, ending up with a gash opening down Arya's thigh. Luckily, it wasn't particularly deep but she knew how much trouble she would get into if her father found out. Morgana had tended to the wound in a darkened hallways, managing to stop the blood flow with a nearby torch. Her unsteady fingers made a slight mess of the bandages but they had managed to get away with it in the end.
Arya had never even thought to ask where she had learned that at the mere age of one and ten.
"It doesn't matter." Arya said, shaking off unwelcome thoughts as she returned her gaze to the Hound. "All I know is that she told me it's important to do."
"Shut up about it. Shut up about everything!" The Hound bit out, his eyes narrowing at her. "Thanks to you I'm a walking bag of silver anywhere the Lannisters hold sway. Which is everywhere between where we are now and where we're going. I'm as stupid as that hog you stuck back at the village, getting myself cut and stabbed and bitten. No reward saw orate this much trouble. Wish I'd never laid eyes on you."
Arya stayed silent, continuing to sharpen her sword in the practiced motions Syrio had taught her so long ago. It was quiet for a while before the Hound spoke once more.
"You say your brother gave you thats word." He said, eyes on her in such a way Arya was reminded why people feared him. "My brother gave me this."
Clegane pointed to the burns that marred the side of his face, true anger and something close to anguish lacing his voice as he spoke.
"It was just like you said a while back." He continued. "Pressed me to the fire like I was nice juicy mutton chop."
Arya studied him, seeing a look on his face she couldn't quite decipher. She leaned forward on her haunches when she asked her next question.
"Why?"
"He thought I stole one of his toys, I didn't steal it I was just playing with it." Sandor said, his voice rife with the same tone Arya had once used when complaining of her sister's misgivings. "The pain was bad. The smell was worse. But the worse thing was that it was my brother who did it. My father, who protected him, told everyone my bedding caught fire."
The hound looked at her, that same unreadable look in his eyes but Arya knew what it was this time. A bitterness that only came from the closest betrayal.
"You think you're on your own?" He continued, studying her pale face across the way.
Arya swallowed the voice that cried out that it was his fault that she was alone, his fault that he dragged her friend away from her in that fatal moment. Instead she said this.
"Let me wash it out and help you sew it up at least."
"Is that another thing your little Baratheon friend taught you?" He scoffed and she had to hold back a smile as she walked over with flask in hand.
"No, surprisingly this is just common sense." She said as she poured the water onto his wound.
As she helped with the blooding gash, her thoughts couldn't but return to what he had said only moments earlier. I'm guessing you never asked her that did you? Arya wondered whether or not it was merely how bookish her friend had been and yet there was something nagging in the back of her head that said it was something else. A far more horrible truth that Arya refused to acknowledge.
In her mind, Morgana was happy. Morgana was safe.
But even Sandor, hissing beneath her as the needles wove through his skin, was proof that your own blood can hurt you.
.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.
Tyrion truly believed he would go insane should he hear the water droplets from the blackwater bay drip one more time. He had been alone in the darkness, awaiting his niece's return for what felt like days and it truly could've been. His sense of time began to escape him and soon he feared his mind would follow.
Just as he thought perhaps he would attack literal water for its heinous sounds, he heard the door unlatch and someone step inside. His eyes flickered upon to come face to face with Oberyn 'the Viper' Martell walking towards him with a torch in hand.
"I imagined you'd be back at the Brothel at this hour." Tyrion drawled, not moving from his place on the floor for the Dornish royalty.
"I did spend some time with an absolutely stunning blonde the other day." Oberyn said, crossing the cell to stick his torch into a holster on the wall and Tyrion laughed dryly.
"Mm, do tell." The Dwarf said, his eyes following the prince as he dragged a stool in front of Tyrion so he could sit, clearly not wishing to sit on the floor beside him as Morgana had done hours earlier. "I've got every kind of filth down here except the kind I like."
"Your sister, actually."
"Oh." Tyrion grumbled, uninterested as to Cersei's comings and goings after so long worried she may smother him in his sleep.
"Cersei approached me. We spoke a great deal about her daughter, Myrcella. How worried your sister is about her. She was trying very hard to pretend she had not come to sway me against you. I think she may have even believed it herself."
"Making honest feelings do dishonest work is one of her many gifts." Tyrion muttered. "I trust she did not speak of her other daughter, hm?"
"No, she did not." Oberyn said knowingly. "It is rare to meet a Lannister who hates other Lannister's as much as I do. But attempting to make me hate the little princess was futile, I have already formed my opinion on the little doe."
Tyrion laughed loudly at that.
"I assure you, Morgana is no simpering doe."
"Oh that I know." Oberyn said, a twinkle of fondness in his eye as they spoke of the headstrong princess. "Who do you think convinced me to come visit you instead of y beloved brothels?"
Of course, Tyrion thought to himself, this was his niece's doing.
"I don't believe her mother is very fond of either of you." Oberyn continued, remembering how sweetly the Queen had spoken of Myrcella and yet not a word escaped her lips of Morgana.
"Yes, my niece and I are not people Cersei would surely miss should things go south. It is wonderful bonding for Morgana and I in that respect." Tyrion chuckled sardonically but Oberyn did not laugh. "In fact, the joy she will feel when my head leaves my neck... she's wanted this for a long time."
"Yes, I know." Oberyn said cryptically and the Dwarf raised a brow at that so he continued. "We met, you and I. Many years ago."
"I think I would have remembered that." Tyrion said, voice laced with doubt but Oberyn shook his head like a patient teacher with an idiotic student.
"Unlikely. You had just been born." The prince said, leaning back against the wall behind him as he told his tale. "Our father brought me and my sister Elia with him, on a visit to Casterly Rock; my first time away from Dorne. I didn't like anything about the Rock. Not the food, not the weather, not your accents. Nothing. But the biggest disappointment... you."
"You and my family have more in common than you might admit."
"The whole way from Dorne, all anyone talked about was the monster that had been born to Tywin Lannister." Oberyn said and Tyrion could feel the old ache in his bones that came with the discussion of his perception. One of the only things just out of his control. "A head twice the size of his body, a tail between his legs, claws, one red eye, the privates of both a girl and a boy."
"That would have made things so much easier." Tyrion said though his tone was humourless.
"When we met your sister, she promised she would show you to us. Every day, we would ask; every day, she would say, "Soon." Then, she and your brother took us to your nursery and... she unveiled the freak." Oberyn said before pausing and seeming to study Tyrion in the dim light of the cell. There was no malice in gaze, no contempt. Just nothingness. "Your head was a bit large, your arms and legs were a bit small, but no claw. No red eye. No tail between your legs, just a tiny pink cock. We didn't try to hide our disappointment. "That's not a monster," I told Cersei. "That's just a baby." And she said, "He killed my mother." And she pinched your little cock so hard, I thought she might pull it off. Until your brother made her stop. "It doesn't matter," she told us. "Everyone says he will die soon. I hope they are right. He should not have lived this long."
"Well... sooner or later, Cersei always gets what she wants." Tyrion said dryly, eyes flickering around the cell where he was being held to display that fact.
"And what about what I want?" Oberyn demanded, any of the wistfulness from his storytelling immediately sapped from his voice and Tyrion couldn't help his eyes from widening. "Justice... for my sister, and for her children."
"If you want justice, you've come to the wrong place." Tyrion said, meeting Oberyn's eyes which still flamed like the very sun on his family's sigil.
" I disagree. I've come to the perfect place." Oberyn said, leaning forward once more. "Your clever little niece explained this to me as she kept me from escaping the Keep to your wonderful Fleabottom, I want to bring those who have wronged me to justice. And, all those who have wronged me are right here. She said her mother would chose her champion, Ser Gregor Clegane, who killed my sister's children and then raped her with their blood still on his hands before killing her, too."
Oberyn stood as Tyrion watched him, hope finally bleeding through his heart for the first time in a long while. Oberyn took the torch, turning to leave and Tyrion's hope began to flee with him but just before he reached the door, he turned and his intense gaze met Tyrion's.
"I will be your champion.
As the door shut behind the yellow garbed Dornishman, Tyrion prayed. Not to any God, nor king but to his niece. For in that moment, the only person who had ever answered any of his prayers had been Morgana Baratheon.
Perhaps the God of Death truly had turned away, perhaps he truly would live.
.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.