Frost // Tyrion Lannister // Sandor Clegane

Beetles

'Wine always helps. I thank you for it." Tyrion says to Jaime after taking a giant swig from the wine skin Jaime had brought. The trial quickly approaching and Tyrion was chomping at the bit. "How much longer?" Tyrion asked his brother nervously.

"Soon." Alina said coming down to join him, Tyrion hugged her immediately.

"Do you think Oberyn has a chance?" Tyrion asks. Jaime solemnly shakes his head. "The Red Viper of Dorne, you don't get that name unless your deadly right?!"

"I've never seen him fight," Jamie told them.

"Oh he's going to die. I'm going to die." Tyrion said fear and panic in his voice

"Oberyn believes in himself."

"That's putting it mildly." Tyrion said. "What's the punishment for regicide? Drawing and quartering? Hanging? Breaking at the wheel?"

"Beheading." Alina informed him

"Seems rather ordinary. And he was my nephew as well, so what is that? Fratricide is brothers. Filicide is sons. Nepoticide. That's the one. Matricide, patricide, infanticide, suicide. There's no kind of killing that doesn't have its own word."

"Cousins." Alina said thinking it over. "Cousins, you're right. There is no word for cousin killing. Well done." Tyrion turned to Jaime still holding onto Alina's hand, it was cold and delicate but held so much power.

"Do you remember cousin Orson? Orson Lannister?" Tyrion questioned

"Of course. Wet nurse dropped him on his head. Left him simple."

"Simple? Used to sit all day in the garden. Crushing beetles with a rock." Jaime and Tyrion jokingly mimic how Orson used to crush beetles and the "kun kun kun" Tyrion said laughing at the memory.

'I don't remember Orson,' Alina remarked.

'You were not a fan of bugs, he was.' Tyrion reminded her. "Nothing made him happier." Tyrion said with a genuine smile

"Nothing made YOU happier. You'd think being tormented from birth would have given you some affinity for the afflicted." Jaime remarked

"On the contrary. Laughing at another person's misery was the only thing that made me feel like everyone else." Alina slapped his arm, Tyrion smirked up at her.

"The joke wore thin, though."

"For you. You drifted away."

"I had other interests."

"Yes, other interests. But I stayed with Orson." Tyrion told him.

"Why?"

"I was curious. Why was he smashing all those beetles? What did he get out of it? First thing I did was ask him "Orson, why are you smashing all those beetles?". He gave me an answer "Smath the beetles. Smath 'em. kun kun kun"." Jaime chuckled, Alina looked between the two, they were getting along, she hadn't seen this in a while, if ever. "I wasn't deterred. I was the smartest person I knew. Certainly I had the wherewithal to unravel the mysteries that lay at the heart of a moron. So I went to Maester Volarik's library." Jaime shook his head disgusted.

"Volarik. Tried to touch me once." Jaime informed him.

'he tried to touch me as well,' alina remarked. 'he froze that day.' Alina said with a smile. Tyrion snorted with laughter.

"Turns out, far too much has been written about great men and not nearly enough about morons. Doesn't seem right. In any case, I found nothing that illuminated the nature of Orson's affliction or the reason behind his relentless beetle slaughter. So I went back to the source. I may not have been able to speak with Orson, but I could observe him, watch him, the way men watch animals to come to a deeper understanding of their behavior. And as I watched, I became more and more sure of it. There was something happening there. His face was like the page of a book written in a language I didn't understand, but he wasn't mindless, he had his reasons. And I became possessed with knowing what they were. I began spending inordinate amounts of time watching him. I would eat my lunch in the garden, chewing my mutton to the music of "kun kun kun". And when I wasn't watching him, I was thinking about him. Father droned on about the family legacy and I thought about Orson's beetles. I read the histories of Targaryen conquests. Did I hear dragon wings?'

'let me know if you do, I wanna slay the bitches.' Alina informed him.

'No dragon wings,' Tyrion went on, 'I heard "kun kun kun". And I still couldn't figure out why he was doing it. And I had to know because it was horrible, that all these beetles would be dying for no reason."

"Every day around the world, men, women and children are murdered by the score. Who gives a fuck about a bunch of beetles?" Jaime asked incredulously.

'All those peter rabbit books you read me Tyrion, it's the animal lover in you, trying to save a bunch of bugs.' Alina remarked.

'Beetles,' Jaime repeated giving alina a pointed look.

"I know, I know. But still, it filled me with dread. Piles and piles of them, years and years of them. How many countless living crawling things smashed and dried out and returned to the dirt? In my dreams I found myself standing on a beach made of beetle husks stretching as far as the eye could see. I woke up crying, weeping for their shattered little bodies. I tried to stop Orson once."

"He was twice your size." Jaime remarked with a laugh.

"He just pushed me aside with a "kun" and kept on smashing. Every day until that mule kicked him in the chest and killed him."

'are you telling us this because you are about to die Tyrion?' alina questioned confused.

"So what do you think? Why did he do it? What was it all about?" Tyrion asked them. Jaime shrugged.

"I don't know." They all looked up hearing the sudden pang of bells ringing out. Alina filled with dread and rage, she could end this so quickly. Tyrion's face paled in fear.

"Good luck today." Jaime saidleading Alina out.