A Lioness Still Has Claws | Female Tywin Lannister | ASOIAF/GOT

The Lady Hand

EDITED: 7th Jan 2022

262 AC

King Jaehaerys had always been sickly, and died after only three years on the throne, making Aerys the King of the Seven Kingdoms. For better or worse.

The new king was ambitious to make his reign a success, and one of the first things he did was to retire his father's Hand, the cautious and elderly Edgar Sloane. Unfortunately, this seemed to be a mistake, as each man he appointed to the position afterwards was utterly useless.

"Why am I cursed to be surrounded by fools?" Aerys was in one of his rages, storming into Tya's chambers without knocking and proceeding to rant at her, uninvited. "Every man I give that damned pin to disappoints me. How hard can it be to find a half-decent Hand?"

Kingship had not made him any less mercurial. He was lively and generous one minute, proud and furious the next. But that was nothing new, especially to one who had known him years.

Tya raised her eyes from the latest letter from Casterly Rock, Kevan filling her in on what was going on back in the west. Since they had forced their father to step back, not to mention their display with the Reynes and Tarbecks, everything had been running a lot more as it should do in the Westerlands.

It was a good thing that she had returned to court, too, as it gave her brother a chance to prove to the lords that he wasn't in his sister's shadow and was capable without her at his side. Though Kevan had given most of the orders in the Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion (though advised by her in private) and earned plenty of respect in his own right, that had all been rather overshadowed by Tya's actions at Castamere.

"Give the badge to my brother," She said rather distractedly, not in the mood for dealing with a kingly tantrum. "Kevan is young, capable, will listen to what you say and most importantly is able to read,"

The Hand before this one had committed a grievous financial error due to misreading a new trade agreement that had been sent up from Highgarden, resulting in a significant loss of coin from the Royal Treasury that they couldn't very well grovel to the Tyrells to give back without looking like beggars.

"No..." The king mused. "He's barely nineteen, that's too young,"

He's the same age you are. Though Kevan acted far older than his age, where Aerys often acted like a ten-year-old.

"What about Jason? He's two years older and you like him well enough,"

"He's a good friend, but wouldn't take politics seriously enough," Her suggestion was waved off again.

There was a time when Tya would have thought that herself, but now she knew better. Her cousin acted like he took little seriously, but underneath that he was just as ambitious as she was, and surprisingly diplomatic when he laid on the charm and put aside any stupid remarks.

Besides, Jason would be her husband within the year. Tya could not stay as one of Rhaella's ladies forever unless her future husband found himself a position on the Small Council or suchlike. At the moment he was at court as Aerys' friend, as well as assisting the ageing master-at-arms with many of his duties.

She felt a stab of irritation, both at the king's careless dismissal of her family and at his inability to accept a decent solution to his problem, continuing to fill her ears with his whining. With most men - all men - she wouldn't bother to restrain her annoyance so well, but with the king it was different, of course. She had to at least try to stay in his favour.

Even so, there were limits to her patience. This mummers farce had been going on months, since King Jaehaerys died, and she was sick of it.

"Have you any better ideas?" She asked sharply, reminding herself to avoid giving the king the tongue-lashing he deserved, casting her eyes back to her letter so as to not be openly combatative. "All the men who are capable don't want the position. All those who want the position are incapable. Quite honestly, by this point you might as well make me your Hand and have done with it. I'd do a better job than each one of those fools you've appointed so far,"