Chapter Text
“You know,” Daegon looked entirely too amused as he approached me at the balcony. “It's been very nice, only having to worry about Six Kingdoms, now that I've foisted the North off on the Starks for good. I bet I could convince Jon to foist the Westerlands and the Reach off on you and make my job even easier.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “You could give me the Westerlands, but the Reach would be a stretch too far. Besides, the Tyrells cared for your sister loyally for nearly two decades, that would be a piss-poor reward for them.”
“Oh sure, take away my fun with logic,” he groused. “Actually, I'm thinking about that myself. If Robert had found out, he'd have killed all of them, just like he would have the Starks. I should do for them what I did for the Starks, shouldn't I?”
Atta-boy. Honestly at this rate we might get Westeros turned into an active democracy within my lifetime. “Come into my solar, kid. I got something you might like to see.” I told him, leading him into the room, gesturing to my desk. It was purposefully messy. Just because Varys and I were allies now didn’t mean I trusted him to not go through my stuff, if given half a chance. I didn’t need to make it easy for him, now did I? I sorted through several sheets of parchment until I found the map I had rolled up, and stretched it down before him. It was a map of all of Westeros and Slaver’s Bay, as well. (One way or another, we’d be putting an end to slavery in this world within my lifetime, if we all survived the coming Winter) I had the Seven Kingdoms split apart along the current borderlines, but around the North and Reach I had drawn solid lines, rather than the traditional dotted ones.
“So what we have here are the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, except we’re making your job easier,” I began. “Trimming off some, and what not. Jon’s at the very top, then it’s you, Robb, Doran, and Mace Tyrell, just below him, in turns of who’s in charge and all that stuff. Then it’s Lords Paramount, so me, the Tullys, Theon Greyjoy, Stannis Baratheon in the Stormlands, and Robin Arryn in the Vale, which… Well, we can deal with him more as he comes of age and his mommy lets him off of her tit*, if she ever does.”
“Right, that all makes sense. I don’t have to be directly in charge of the Westerlands or any of the rest other than making laws and serving the King’s Peace and the King’s Justice, right?”
“Yes, and we’re working on that, see, here’s my plan. We figure out how many people there are in all seven of the Kingdoms, and which Lord they serve under. Then we tear down Harrenhall and we build a magnificent palace, and every year, every lord, Prince, and King sends representatives, one for every thousand smallfolk, one for every ten lords, and one per Prince and King, and each of them votes on laws, taxes, all of those things, with Jon as the final arbiter of the law.”
“So all I would have to do is act as a final vote alongside the Starks, Martells, and Tyrells?”
“Yes, exactly!” God this kid is quick. He picks sh*t up like nobody's business, especially political sh*t. He may hate it, but he's good at it in a way I had never seen an Aegon portrayed to be in fanfiction, or the Aegon of Canon (I think the Aegon of Canon was a fake, swapped in by book canon Varys, but that's neither here nor there); he picks up what I'm setting down before I can groan and stand up from a squat.
“Could they vote amongst themselves to pick year-round representatives to serve on the Small Council, too? Then the one best for the job is more likely to get chosen, rather than just who I or my successor thinks is good enough?” He asked, eyes ablaze with possibilities. “Gods, I could set up a system for Smallfolk to vote directly for representatives within the city, to speak for them in disputes, like… mini Masters of Law, or something!”
He paused, then grinned devilishly. “In fact, that's just what I'm going to have Lord Tyrion do! A small man with a big mind for an even bigger job, helping the smallfolk, I like this plan the more we talk it over, actually!”
Ah, dang it, Tyrion is gonna kick my ass for this.
A knock at the door. “Lord Tyrion, m'lord” the guard said, and well, you know what they say. Speak, devil, horns, and all that.
“This my house, entreh, please!” I called, chuckling at my own joke. There's one person in this world that I know of who might get that joke and he's currently entertaining my wife and her ladies in a garden party.
Tyrion entered the room, face drawn, as if he had just been given terrible news that still filled him with anxious joy. He smelled of wine, which isn’t a smell my Tyrion usually conveys. It was worrying.
I moved to the front of my desk, pulling out the chair for him, and he climbed up, a wineskin in hand, eyes wet with unshed tears of worry.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered quietly, voice crackling with emotion. “I can’t lose her.”
I knelt, to be of even height with him, taking his small hand in mine, thinking of all the times we had sat just like this when he was a child. It made me think of Tywin, my father, and how my uncle Kevan had once said that Tywin loved him as I loved my own siblings. I could never imagine my father kneeling to hold a sad, scared child, not like I had all those years ago, and not as I would a thousand times hence, for Jaime, for Tyrion, and yes, even for Cersei. “What troubles you, little brother?” I asked, concerned. He hadn’t even noticed Daegon, so I knew it had to be bad.
“Tysha is. Tysha is pregnant again.”
The world stopped. I was younger once again, faced with my greatest failure, holding my good-sister in my arms as she sobbed, spasms ripping through her body as the poison I had given her forced the fetus the Ironborn had put into her out of her body. She and Tyrion, and Joanna had been in Lannisport, the night the Ironborn had attacked. Men from Orkmont, not even knowing who she was, who Tyrion was, had forcedboth him and my niece to watch as they raped her, over and over again. I became known as the Butcher of Orkmont for a reason, after that. I had taken every child from that cursed place and given them to the Faith, if they were under the age of fifteen, had sent the boys not yet made into Reavers to the Wall, and I had impaled every adult on that cursed pile of rocks until I had created a forest of slow, agonizing death. Only the Lord was left alive, and he not for long. I erected a tub, twelve feet high, and ordered all of my men to piss in it, thousands of men pissing for hours; and then I lowered the Lord of Orkmont’s wife and son in, and he himself, and I drowned them in a mockery of their god. I committed a genocide that day. I came home to Tyrion and Tysha asking me to guide them, to counsel them, to rid them of the ironborn seed that had taken root in her belly, and I did, but it had come at the cost of Tysha’s fertility. They had never had a child after Joanna, each pregnancy ending before the fourth month.
“She didn’t even realize it, what with her being so busy caring for Sansa Stark,” Tyrion mumbled, crushing himself to my chest as Daegon gently took the wineskin from him, blessed boy, and crept from the room on tiptoes. “Neither of us thought anything of the fact that she was eating a little more than normal- for godssakes, why would we,I’ve been eating a little more lately- but Qyburn… Qyburn says she’s around six moons along, perhaps a little further. ‘Vek, I cannot… I cannot lose her. What if she dies in the birthing bed, like mother did?”
“She will not. Mother had never met a pregnancy that was easy on her body, not even me- Tysha didn’t even realize she was pregnant, this time. And Joanna was a simple birth, wasn’t she?” I tried to assure him. “Gods, we delivered her ourselves, just you, me and Tysha, did we not?”
“We. We did, yes.” Tyrion agreed, sniffling a bit, and I clapped him on the shoulder.
“Then come, take cheer. Let us go and sit with her, and think of names. Last time it was just us, this time we have us, Qyburn, our pick of midwives… This may be the safest birth in all the Seven Kingdoms!”
I had to be confident, for Tyrion, but. Well. Tysha was as old now as our mother had been when Tyrion had been born, and there was always a small risk with any pregnancy, let alone one when you were thirty five and had had several miscarriages before in your lifetime. But for Tyrion’s sake, and Tysha’s sake, I would be nothing but calm and confident, no matter what happened.
