Chapter Text
Cersei’s green eyes were livid with fire, burning like the Blackwater during the battle Tywin Lannister so narrowly helped them all escape with their hides still intact. She ought to be grateful for that, he thought, but no, gratefulness did not become his daughter. If Tywin didn’t know any better, he would have said her very soul was made of wildfire. She would have been born to decimate cities, but she was born a woman instead of a man, and so she turned her ferocity onto the sterner sex and instead sated her hunger by ruining the lives of men.
Tywin would appreciate it if her actions didn’t nearly cause their family to lose everything.
“You’re giving him Winterfell?” Cersei spat in disbelief, her voice rising with each word from her lips. “After he killed your eldest grandson!”
“You have no proof,” Tywin said. He was calm but also firm, and he put down his pen to grab a small container of fine powder. Over the freshly written ink of his new letter, he dusted a thin layer of powder to help it set. Tywin gave his daughter a steely gaze from across his desk, one that he dared her to reject.
When she said nothing in response, he continued.
“I believe the Tyrells are responsible,” Tywin revealed. “Lady Olenna is not called the Queen of Thorns for nothing. Blaming your brother gets you nowhere. You may hate him all you like, but I will not let a Lannister take the fall for both kingslaying and kinslaying in the same night. Our House will never be able to escape it. Ruling with fear is within our power, but we need respect if we are to hold that fear. Try Tyrion for Joffrey’s murder, and watch how fast the crows come to descend on our family. We will all be dead before the year is out.”
Once the letter was set, he poured dark wax and stamped it with the seal of the Hand of the King. Cersei was quiet for once in her life. All she did as a youth was complain about how she wanted to be like her brother, Jaime. Tywin expected she would grow out of it, but now that she was older it was worse. Cersei spent every living moment of her life bemoaning her duties as a woman of House Lannister until Tywin could no longer bear to hear another second of it.
He thought to marry her to Oberyn Martell in hopes the Dornishman could tame the fire in her or, at the very least, burn it straight out of her.
“Yet now you plot to marry Tommen to Margery as well,” Cersei accused, and she shook with a mother’s fear. “Are both my sons to die of poisoning before you crown yourself king?”
She would come to regret those words. Tywin would make sure of it. His next letter would be to Dorne. Hopefully, Cersei would enjoy her new home in the viper’s nest.
It would teach her some well needed humility.
“Tyrion will be Lord of Winterfell,” Tywin said with cold finality. “Tommen will sit the Iron Throne. You will go to Dorne and marry Oberyn Martell. Jaime will be Warden of the West as well as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. I will have a Lannister in all four corners of the Seven Kingdoms. Do I make myself clear?”
Cersei was shaking with anger. She mustered up the courage to spit on his desk. Tywin looked down at it. Very calmly, he picked up a loose cloth and cleaned up the mess.
“Now leave,” Tywin said, discarding the cloth to his left. “Before I change my mind and marry you to Ser Gregor Clegane.”
He would never marry a daughter of his so low, but he said it for the implication of pain if she disobeyed him one more time, not for the truth. Cersei received the message plain enough, and she stood up quickly from her seat. Tywin gazed over his letter as she stalked off towards the door, and out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her long red skirts swaying behind her steps.
“Oh,” Tywin called out to his daughter. “There is one more thing.”
Cersei paused in the doorway and said nothing, but she turned her head halfway to show that she was listening to him without giving him any special acknowledgment.
“I want Sandor Clegane to accompany Tyrion to Winterfell. He will be of use to me should Tyrion forget his place.”
Cersei whirled around, her skirts flowing with her. “He is mine,” she hissed. “He has served my son, Joffrey, since he was bo—”
“Is he your lover as well?” Tywin asked, and Cersei’s face reddened in either anger or shame. Tywin could not tell which one. At this point, he would not be surprised if what he said was true. It was only said to embarrass her, but he was coming to find his daughter housed foul secrets and scandals left and right. “Close your legs before people start calling you a whore,” he advised her. “The Cleganes serve me. They do as I say. He goes North. With Tyrion.”
She did not even bother to have another argument with him. With his declaration, Cersei stormed out.
Tywin glanced down at his letters. He had a lot of work to do.