aeternus | tywin lannister

prologue

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"A student of history are you?" Tywin asked the Stark girl when she spoke to him about the two Targaryen girls and their dragons.

"Visenya Targaryen was a great warrior," she smiled a little, "She had a valyrian steeled sword she called dark sister."

"She's a heroine of yours, I take it?" Arya smiled and he tilted his head, narrowing his eyes, "Do you like the Targaryens?"

"I've never seen one, my lord."

"Most people didn't like the Targaryens. I suppose you know all about the Mad King. Everyone does, even low-born girls," he took a sip of his wine. Arya nodded her head, "Would you like to meet a Targaryen one day?"

"I don't know, my lord."

"I spent a lot of time with the Targaryens, they were not pleasing people. But I married one."

Arya pretended to be surprised, even though she knew all about their marriage. It was the only marriage between a Lannister and a Targaryen ever known in the history of Westeros. Her parents spoke a lot about it since it was irony at its best. How could a man marry a Targaryen and a few years later proceed to order the slaughter of every Targaryen alive?

"Who was she?"

"My late wife. Halaena Lannister, the sister of King Aerys II," he told her, the corners of his lips raising slightly almost mockingly.

Arya pretended to be surprised, "I wasn't aware your wife was a Targaryen, my lord."

"Through and through." Before the question could leave his lips, he spoke, "No, she wasn't killed when the Mad King died. She died a few years before. Halaena wasn't as mad as he was, or at least she was mad in a different way."

"Did you love her, my lord?" Arya asked, thinking Tywin Lannister could ever love anyone, but when she saw him sitting in the chair at the end of a table with an expression she hadn't ever seen on him, she doubted her own thought, "I'm sorry, my lord, I shouldn't make questions."

He didn't say anything for a minute, except when he told Arya to feel his glass. However, he did answer her question, "She was my wife, she was loyal to me and she gave birth to my children. I suppose I loved her. Eat, girl."

This time, she really was surprised. She knew that he was one of those men who only saw women as someone to carry their husband's children, so naturally, she didn't expect him to actually love his wife.

Arya sat in a chair close to his and searched in her head for another question to ask, "What did she look like?" What a stupid question.

Tywin frowned, "Like any other Targaryen."

Arya didn't say anything and kept eating while he gazed at her, almost studying her. The Stark girl frowned when he slowly got up from his chair and marched towards another room, coming back a few seconds later with a piece of parchment in his hand.

He sat at the end of the table again and unfolded it carefully, sighing deeply when he looked at the parchment. Arya wondered if it was news from the war and almost smiled at the possibility that Robb Stark kept winning, which would explain Tywin Lannister's sorrow.

Instead, when he showed her the unfolded parchment, she couldn't be more wrong. It was a drawing, a beautiful drawing of a beautiful woman.

"Wipe your hands," Tywin told her and Arya proceeded to it quickly before he handed her the drawing, "There was an artist living in Casterly Rock and he would draw all kinds of pictures of us and our children. He was very talented as you can see. The day I received that drawing I was at the Red Keep and she sent it to me along with a letter telling me she was pregnant. She threatened to name our child after Aerys II if I didn't visit her in Casterly Rock before she gave birth," Arya tore her eyes from the drawing for a mere fraction of a second and was shocked when she saw the small smile on the old man's lips, "I went as fast as I could. She gave birth to twins after a month. I believe I have never been as happy as I was the day Cersei and Jaime were born."

The woman in the drawing had long white braided hair and her eyes were a beautiful shade of purple. Her hands were around her belly, which was evidently big, suggesting Tywin had spent some months apart from his wife if he wasn't there with her for most of her pregnancy.

"She was pretty."

Tywin took the piece of parchment from her hands to look at it again and she was certain he looked at it more times than one would have guessed, "Since that day I've been carrying this with me."

"Does it give you luck?"

"I don't believe in luck."

She was running out of questions, but still came up with something, "Was she kind, my Lord?"

"I suppose. But sometimes she was ill-mannered, just like you, girl. When I met her, she was barely older than fourteen or fifteen. I still remember the first time I spoke to Halaena. It was the day her brother became king. At the time, I wasn't yet the Hand of the King, but I was one of his closest counselors. During his coronation, I stood next to her and the king had told me to strike her if she did something stupid."

Arya widened her eyes, "And did you? Did you strike her, my Lord?"

"No. She didn't waste time on telling me that if I even dared to raise a hand she would tell everyone that I was sleeping with a man." Before the Stark girl could ask if that was true, he was quick to reassure her it wasn't true, "I obviously wasn't sleeping with a man, but that was what Laena did. I didn't like her for a long time, because she possessed almost every flaw I despised in a human being. She was lazy, spoiled, ill-mannered, and worst of all, she cared too much about rumors."

"Then why did you marry her?"

"Enough with the questions, girl. Now take that to the kitchens and eat as much as you want."

Arya Stark left the old lion by himself as she took her meal to the kitchens, not imagining he would be staring at the drawing with tears in his eyes for several minutes.

"My darling Halaena, how the gods mocked me when they took you away from me so soon."