eachdraidh | video » One Penny

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It's a fine day for sunshine. I find myself pitying those who choose to live beneath stones and only play at seeing sunlight. The real thing is not so easy to replicate. It seems to be getting warmer as well. Summer Is Coming, as they might say in my own Westerlands. If there is anything to love about this world, it is the peculiarly short seasons. It is a strange thing to have them all wrapped up in one year. I find myself wondering how it is you're able to keep track of them when they each go by so swiftly. It is near spring, but I'm told it will only be a few months long with more certainty than even the wisest maesters can manage - and this from an ill-bred soldier with scant few hairs on his lip.

I will say this for the south, however. It is blessed with very few imps.

[Locked to the Unseelie]

I've spent an uncomfortably long time in Seelie lands these past few weeks, though I am to understand a fairy ring is not so far off ahead of me. Would that we had such things in my own seven kingdoms, I might have done a fair bit more traveling. Though I confess I find it terribly disappoint how utterly small this world is made out to be. Is it truly a void beyond the oceans? I would imagine that it could not have always been that way. Certainly there had to be something far off out there, beyond where ships are able to reach.

In any case, I do have a point beyond the tedium of long riding. My name is Tyrion Lannister, which may not merit much weight here, but I was known as the King's Hand and the Master of Coin where I was from. I excelled in both duties and while I have no mind to butcher my features in further battles, I would see my skills put to proper use still. There is a certain spire that I feel might benefit from my talents and so it is there I mean to go. But I am given to understand there are a number of spires in all and would be only too glad to find other similar minded individuals to begin making certain investments. I do not yet have all my wealth at my disposal, but I promise you I always pay my due. A Lannister always pays his debts.

There is one other matter. Briefly for a time there were two of my kin here. My brother Jaime Lannister and my bastard nephew, Joffrey. Did anyone perchance to meet either of them? I know they are long gone from this world, but I would be interested to know if there was anything they might have left behind.

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Long and tedious, my lady. The past summer has stretched for near a decade now and so our winter is like to last as long.

A decade? Of winter?

I can't even imagine it. How do people survive with no crops?

We prepare for it. We have long years of harvests to set aside food for the coming winters. Though truth be told, in those long winters, it is not uncommon to see the population of the small folk thinned. Even the kindest of lords will ultimately preference their own family and guard when the food becomes meager.

Even well harvested, fresh food will only last so long. I suppose much is dried and preserved. Still, to go ten years without biting into a fresh fruit is a bit depressing.

What of other seasons? Do you have ten years of spring and fall as well?

Not even the maesters can predict how long a season will be. They try, certainly, but they're rarely ever on the mark. But our springs and autumns are not terribly long things, no. A year or perhaps two, but scarce more than that.

This must be a big change for you, then. At least where the weather is concerned. Perhaps you'll enjoy being able to experience the seasons more often.

Perhaps, though they might well pass so briefly I won't notice them at all. You can scarce enjoy a proper summer when it's gone before the year is even done. It's a wonder you have time to grow anything at all.

If your growing season is so long, does that mean your vegetables are the size of houses?

[She's just joking.]

Only very small houses, suitable for snarks and grumkins only.

[She's amused.]

I've never heard of a grumkin, but I'm sure they're happy to have houses. Especially edible ones.

Only until they've eaten themselves out of house and home.

And then we'll have a world of homeless grumkins. How tragic. What do grumkins even look like?

I have never seen one, so I could scarcely say. They are at the mercy of whatever artist decides to capture their likeness. I would like to think they look like the imps of this world, but not so devious.

Then perhaps they would be nice to have around.

Do they bring good luck or anything like that?

No. Nothing quite like that. They are believed to steal and replace children.

[Oh dear.]

Replace them with what?

[She's afraid to ask.]

Terrible things, I suppose. Were my father the more superstitious sort, he might have claimed a grumkin switched me around in my mother's own womb.

Oh.. that's... that's not very nice.

[Now he gets the sympathy look. He probably hates that, but she can't even help it.]

[Yes. It rather annoys him. He wonders why it is he tells people these things when he only gets annoyed at sympathy. Certainly he must want something, but it certainly is not that.]

Apt words, to be true. Though that's enough about snarks and grumpkins. Do you have a name?

Bethany. It's nice to meet you.

Bethany. [And no other name is mentioned, so he supposes she can't be anyone important.] I am Tyrion of House Lannister. Which court do you pay your fealty to?

[She finds that few of them are really important here. Her family name held weight once, and it still does, though it's more infamous now thanks to her brother. Still, some still hail him as a hero.]

The Seelie court, though I am not sure if fealty is the right word for it. I was swept into this world not so long ago.

What about you?

Like you in that I am recently arrived, but it's the Unseelie that have claimed me. We are made to be enemies, it seems.

[He feels no particular allegiance... but he remembers well how Loras and Renly claimed that any other Seelie would claim his shard if so much as given a chance. That knowledge makes it hard to play friendly with any Seelie shardholder.]

I like to think no one was made to be enemies. Not unless they wish to be.

[And she does not wish to be enemies with anyone. Especially if they've done nothing wrong.]

Then you are a sadly naive creature. We are puppets on strings, dancing to the actions of those who came before us. It is as true here as it was where I came from.

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