video » One Penny

[impathy]

[Open]

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.

Comments

[psalmed]

I have always been warm through the winters unless I was in the field. I suppose it reminds us of how fortunate we are.

[She is trying to absorb what he is saying but it seems so fantastic and nightmarish. Seasons are longer in Russian than in France, so she believes. Why shouldn't they be even longer in other lands?]

Are many here from where you come from, monsieur?

[impathy]

None that would be glad for my association, so I will not do them the discourtesy of naming them. I might as well be here alone for all that it matters.

[The Starks... Baratheons... Tyrells. Somehow all of them were in bed together now for whatever mad reason. He was not welcome among them.]

[psalmed]

[How awkward. But she's been court trained enough that her expression can still be polite. Mild sympathy.]

How terrible that must be for you, monsieur. If I am ever in a position that my assistance may be of use to you, do let me know.

[impathy]

How kind of you to say. And what position might you be in now?

[Seelie? Unseelie? He's learned those are the words that matter most.]

[psalmed]

Only a lowly knight in a country that is not my own. I have so precious little to offer anyone.

[Her service. Her magic. It seems to amount to nothing to a woman who has always had means and status.]

[impathy]

[A lady knight? Still, more than he had. He might be glad to exchange being an impish coin counter to be a lady knight instead.]

A knight always has a sword to offer or they are no knight at all. Tell me lady knight, which court claims you?

[psalmed]

And I do have a sword, monsieur, and a skill to back it up. But I am no sell sword.

[Ah so of course it comes to that.]

The Seelie are my hosts, but I feel I shall never belong to a King who is not a king of France.

[impathy]

And I have no king to feel any loyalty to at all. Perhaps not even an Unseelie one, if rumors are to be true. But I can scarce buy your sword in any case. I am told our two courts do not get along so well. Having seen Caer Scima fall to your armies, I am not inclined to want any Seelie blades.

[She might be the finest swordsman in all the world and Tyrion would know better than to trust her. This war ran deep and he knew it was better to stay on his own side of the conflict.]

[psalmed]

They are not my armies, monsieur. I was brought here and told that was what was happening, and that was the extent of it. I was not in that battle.

[She has never been in a war. Always a diplomat, a peacekeeper. It's written in her fate that she will be a shield, and so it seems to continue here.]

I would never deny my aid to someone, no matter what Court or country from whence they came.

[impathy]

You might, at the moment they had a dagger at your throat.

[Which was precisely the feeling Tyrion had when it came to the Seelie. Certainly Loras, Renly, and Sansa had all made it very clear that they were doing him some great favor by saving him from all the vicious Seelies who be glad to put a spear through his gut.]

[psalmed]

I would hope God would give me the grace to be of service to them, even after they had offered me harm.

[She says as though she has never stomped on someone's throat for shooting her.]

[impathy]

[He snorts.]

How very pious of you. Do you only play at being a knight? You seem more a septa.

[psalmed]

I do not know what a septa is. I am a knight in truth, knighted by the King. I have held a sword since I was a child. I have won duels for the honor of my family. I have served my country. What more to a knight is there, that he or she can not be a servant of God?

[impathy]

[Knights! It had been knighthood that ultimately made him lose Bronn. It had been a knight that tried to murder him at the Blackwater and had given him the ugly scar that now adorned his features. What were knights but butchers with pretty songs about them?]

Oh, there is far more to a knight than children's stories like that. There is naked ambition, an inflated opinion of their own importance, and the right to kill those lesser than themselves with scant few consequences. There is only one knight I have ever known to have any true worth and he had the least honor in all seven kingdoms.

No. You would be better a septa than a knight.

[psalmed]

I believe you mistake me, monsieur. I am a humble servant of His Majesty the King and of God and country. At least, that is what I strive to be.

[Sometimes she is prideful, but she feels she always must remember she was barely allowed to have a sword at all, once. She should be grateful, should strive to do right by her teacher.]

I have killed only a few men and only when there was no choice left to me, though I realize praying for their souls is not the same as sparing them their lives. I found I suited life as a knight far better than a lady in waiting.

Surely you must have found yourself better suited to a task other than the one you were assigned, monsieur?

[impathy]

Oh, I have. But I was denied it. Just so, if all you say is true, then I've met something rarer than a unicorn. An honorable knight and a woman all at the same time? You might have had the decency to be ugly as well. Do you also sing sweet sonnets and forge your own armor in your spare time?

[So he did not believe her. Not even a little bit.]

[psalmed]

I do not sing well at all and I do not wear armor, either. I have never fought in a war. I am a diplomat. The agent of His Majesty when I visit other countries.

I would offer to demonstrate, monsieur, but how might a lady demonstrate goodness?

[She is, at least, smiling. Turning it into something beyond insult because truly it all probably does seem too fantastical.]

Would you like a list of my failures?

[impathy]

Your failures do not interest me. In truth, the only thing you possess of interest to me is what you keep between your legs.

[It was, he knew, an absolutely vile thing to say. There was a time that he would never say such thing to a lady, especially one that did seem as genuinely good as this one. But Tyrion was not that man anymore. She sickened him with her sweetness and he would be far more comfortable to let her hate him as much as everyone else did. Those who feigned at wishing to aid him would only ever betray him in the end.]

[psalmed]

Does it make you feel powerful to insult a woman in such a way?

[There is hurt in her tone. Anger. She's heard it all before, of course. Vile, nasty, hateful things because of her sex. But it has been quite a while, she has earned her place and had her knights at her defense. Not here. A rude awakening.]

I am sad you think that way, monsieur, and I will pray for you. It must be so very limiting if you view a woman as nothing more than a place to rut.

[impathy]

Would that my thoughts were so simple as that. [No, it did not make him powerful. But spite was all that really fueled him now. It mattered so little to him if she was man or woman in the end. He was not even sure if he had it in him to find pleasure from whores anymore. And he would find none outside of brothels, so it left him little else.]

Pray all you like, my lady. Perhaps if you do it long enough, you might find a god that listens.

[psalmed]

And what might be your thoughts? Do you believe sincerely I have not heard such rumors and insults because a lady with a sword seems to present a threat to one's masculinity?

[She bites her tongue there. Stills herself, prays for patience and a calmness and wit and everything she is so sorely lacking.]

Perhaps I shall amend my offer to you. If ever you should need anything I can provide you that is not between my legs.

[impathy]

[He realizes now with her words what truly grates him. She is everything Cersei wanted to be. It is an association he finds entirely unpleasant. Even so, he does not bother to correct her assumptions. His concern is not with her femininity at odds with her knightdom, but with her godsdamned piety.]

If that is your offer, I would sooner have a sellsword. But as I said before, you are kind to offer.

[psalmed]

If you wish what is between the legs of a sellsword, who might I be to stop you?

[Tranquility. Peace. Understanding. What she prays for over and over.]

I hope God will set you on a path to overcome whatever it is you suffer from, and put you in a place where you are happy, monsieur.

[impathy]

As you please. I hope for very much the same.

[But it would not be prayers that got him there. It would be rebalancing the debts owed him and what he owed in turn. When the balance was stricken clean, then he could be happy.

Won't I? ... won't I?

He closes the locket.]