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

The Spider's Web

IMPORTANT: I have done an edit on every single chapter of this story in the last few days, mainly to fix a few glaring mistakes that I am grateful for the readers for pointing out. First and foremost was Jason's character; I agree he was very bland, so I've tried to go back and give him more of a personality. The major plot points are unchanged but I wanted to flag this up just in case you find his character very different from now on, or if there are any inconsistencies with what you have already read. Please let me know what you think of this!

277AC

The king had refused to leave the Red Keep since his return from Duskendale. Nor had he let anyone near him with a blade except the Kingsguard, not even to cut his hair, which had grown long and rather straggly. His nails were worse, either ragged or just starting to curl over at the ends.

It was clear the experience had deeply shaken him, and with all of House Darklyn dead, they would never find out exactly what horrors he had gone through. Not that Tya cared more than morbid curiosity, and the fact that whatever had happened there had plunged the king into what could only be described as blatant madness.

Aerys had always been mercurial and proud, hot-tempered but quick to laugh, and quick to change his mind. In his youth, that had made him charming. To most people, at least; it had always rather annoyed her. In the later years before Duskendale, he had acted rashly and foolishly, particularly in his treatment of his Hand. Yet now, his jealousy of Tya's reputation and his suspicious nature were ten times more exaggerated than ever before, beyond simple spite and into manic paranoia and outright delusion. 

Many people in court had asked Tya why she didn't just resign in the face of such treatment. She had considered it, in truth, but it wasn't like she had anything to go onto. She would always be welcome in Casterly Rock, yes, but Kevan was Lord Lannister despite the fact that they corresponded on a lot of matters to do with the west, and was very capable with her on the other side of Westeros. 

If Tya wasn't Hand of the King, she would fade into irrelevance, as would her children. It said a lot that someone with her pride would rather be publicly insulted on a regular basis than suffer through that.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to put up with it, however. She had not met with the king alone since his forceful attempt at seducing her years ago, something she had initially resented doing as it made her look like she was afraid of him, but now she found herself increasingly grateful for it. The Aerys of several years ago was insufferable, but at least had the wits to realise that raping Lord Lannister's sister - a woman who had lots of allies within his own court - would be a bad idea. She wasn't so sure about the Aerys she was faced with now.

It was the paranoia that was perhaps the most trying thing to deal with, however. The king saw evidence of treachery everywhere, concerning Tya most of all; he still under the impression that she and Prince Rhaegar had intended for him to die at Duskendale so the prince could replace him and make Cersei his queen. 

Whether she had intended that or not was irrelevant; there was no evidence of such a thing, and it wasn't like she had planned for Lord Darklyn to go rogue and kidnap him.

Tya suspected that this was the king's reasoning for inviting Steffon Baratheon to court, appointing him to the small council as Master of Ships. The two men were cousins - Lord Baratheon's mother had been Princess Rhaelle Targaryen, sister to Aerys' father - and had always gotten along in their youth whenever the Lord of Storm's End had come to visit court. The king wanted an ally, someone more loyal to him than Tya.

A glaring issue was that Baratheon had never spent enough time around his cousin to dislike him, particularly not in recent years. That was likely to change the longer he spent at court. Lord Steffon was a genuine and reasonable man, calm and collected, who was intelligent yet cared little for scheming. Not one to needlessly flatter the king or mindlessly agree with him to gain favour, which would mean the two would inevitably come to blows.