A Rest of Swords

Part ten

Hey, I hope you don't mind that I'm going to mix a bit Tyrion-Sansa in here. I know the idea of them doesn't appeal to everyone but I liked it and the dialogue sort of just came to me...Would be a waste not to include it, wouldn't it? A waste of my time that I spent at 3 in the middle of the night writing it down when my brain decided this was the best moment to spit it out, that's for sure.

Sansa stood on the balustrade surrounding the courtyard and watched as the Lannister brothers hugged in greeting. Who would have thought that both of them would be guests in Winterfell again, and on friendly terms, that was.
She was too far away to hear their conversation, but as she saw Lady Brienne blush despite her already rosy cheeks from the cold, Sansa couldn't help but ask herself what the younger Lannister might have said. Tyrion.
She had spent a considerable amount of time believing him to be the worst of the whole family, but she had been a foolish little girl then. Sansa still scolded herself for those early years she had lived in the capital. From afar, safe behind the walls of Winterfell, it had looked like the most beautiful and exciting place a young girl like her could ever have imagined. How enthusiastic had she been when her father told her she was going to accompany him to this place of sun, light and laughter?
But not long had she been there that she had discovered the truth behind the pretty surface. Surrounded by lies, vileness, betrayal, fraud - and all those who were taken up by playing along with the game of falsity.
The worst day was the day she was married to Tyrion Lannister. Or maybe the day she'd been told that she was to marry him. She had cried, day and night, had cried herself to sleep - stupid. And useless. Sansa had lived through far worse by now. Far far worse.
Tyrion was good at playing the game as well. But he was different from the rest, she had discovered after a while. Maybe that was why he was even better at playing than most. He enjoyed it, but not because he liked the cruelty and falsehood. He liked seeing through the facades. He liked to be the superior one, in secret, because no one would have expected him to be. That was what made him even more dangerous. Being underestimated while his intellect allowed him to know the rules and to use them.

Sansa watched how the man in question made his way up the stairs to the balustrade she was standing on. She waited for him, but her eyes kept gliding over the grounds of Winterfell in the distance while she listened to his tiny, irregular steps nearing her until they came to a halt.

"Mylady", Tyrion nodded in her direction and she thought to even notice a little bow from the corner of her eye.

"Please", Sansa said, not taking her eyes off the snow that glistened in the sun when she spoke. "We're behind all this business with titles, don't you think?"

"You're still the Lady of Winterfell."

"And you're the Lord of Casterly Rock now, if my information is correct", she replied, finally looking at his face - still ugly, misshapen, but oddly familiar.

"It is", he confirmed with a little nod. "Queen Daenerys named me Warden of the West", he added as if he were expecting her to react to this information in a specific way, but Sansa wasn't sure what he wanted to achieve, so she went with the appropriate.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you." He joined her in staring into the distance for a few moments, perhaps he was trying to figure out how to go on, but then, Tyrion Lannister was never lost for words, was he?

"Sansa", he continued more firmly, his dissimilar eyes returning to her profile, "I...I didn't only come to see my brother, you know. Now that you are the Queen in the North and I'm the Lord of Casterly Rock-" He trailed off, but she finished the sentence for him.

"-you wanted to clarify our positions."

"In a way", he granted her. "I wanted to make sure that we are...allies", he said meaningfully and saw the corner of her mouth curling slightly.