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

The Mad King

282AC

For Tya in the months after the tumultuous tourney at Harrenhal - the events of which would no doubt go doubt in history, for better or worse - the situation in King's Landing was better than it had been in years.

Rhaegar, for now, was an infinitely better king than Aerys for the simple fact that he was an excellent listener. The Prince Regent, as he was now called, took his duties very seriously. He attended every Small Council meeting and sat the Iron Throne for every open audience, listening to his advisors and his people alike with the same quiet attention and respect, taking into account everything they had to say and doing his best to act fairly upon it.

He also listened to his Hand. Not saying that he was a puppet, far from it, but Rhaegar understood that Tya was far more experienced in matters of state and knew the workings of the kingdoms inside out. So long as she put together a convincing enough case, he tended to take her advice on most matters, and was clearly making an effort to learn from her. 

As a result, Tya had managed to enact a great deal of the beneficial reforms she had wished to pass when Aerys was king but had been blocked from doing so out of the king's spite, despite the fact that her ideas would benefit House Targaryen greatly (often as well as herself). Often it depended on the day. Some days he did not care and Tya could do her job in relative peace, whilst others he went out of his way to sabotage whatever she was doing.

She also took great pleasure in undoing many of the foolish laws the king had passed. In fact, Rhaegar's first few days as Regent had been spent carefully reading through the stack of papers Tya had dumped on his desk. She'd had such documents prepared for a long time, in the event of Aerys' death, or sudden return to sanity. It was gratifying watching the prince's eyebrows raising in incredulity at the numerous good ideas his father had turned down, and the ridiculous ones of his own that he had enacted.

"I don't know how you stood him for so long," Rhaegar shook his head, holding up one of the pieces of parchment. "This trade deal with Braavos would greatly benefit King's Landing, and the whole of the Crownlands, possibly Gulltown and the Vale too, if passed. Yet he tore it up because..?"

"I had the nerve to deal with the descendants of traitors to Valyria," Never mind that the slaves (slaves, not traitors) that founded Braavos had fled their oppressive dragon-wielding masters centuries ago, before the Targaryens even made it to Westeros. Had Steffon Baratheon come to him with that deal, Aerys would have made him Hand. 

Rhaegar was silent, that ever-present melancholy expression - Jason called it brooding, in private - on his face. 

"Though it pained me - and still does - to usurp my own father, it was certainly the right thing to do,"

"Yes, your Grace. It was,"

And no one thought so more than Tya. With the king no longer enjoying publicly insulting her at every turn, all those courtiers who had joined him in sneering at her and mocking her had shrunk back into the shadows, or were going out of their way to gain the Hand's favour now she herself was in favour with the Prince Regent. 

There were still those men present who disliked her in power for no other reason than being a woman, though they had been lurking around as long as she had been Hand and would likely never lose that disgust in their eyes at taking orders from her. 

Tya indulged none of it. She had never been one for simpering sycophants, especially those who had once scorned her, and met their pathetic flattery with cold stares and sharply worded remarks. The ones who avoided her eyes could rot for all she cared, though there was a certain satisfaction in inspiring such a reaction. As for the men who resented her for being a woman - though even she would admit there were a thousand other things they would be more justified in hating her for - most did not dare to voice their complaints. Not after twenty years of a finger being removed from anyone who dared suggest she lay with the king.