Tell Me Why // Oberyn Martell

50. Beetles

If Walls Could Talk / HP x HOTD out now!

'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." jaime said.

"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 you're 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. Tyanna believes in him."

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

"Beheading." jaime 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." Jaime agreed. 

"Cousins." Tyrion said thinking it over. Jaime thought on that. 

"Cousins, you're right. There is no word for cousin killing. Well done.... ''

"Do you remember cousin Orson? Orson Lannister?" Tyrion questioned trying to get his mind from his impending doom.

"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' Nothing made him happier." Tyrion said with a genuine smile. Tyanna appeared in the cell door and she smiled reaching for Tyrion. 

"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." Tyrion corrected pressing a kiss to Tyanna's hand. 

"The joke wore thin, though."

"For you. You drifted away." Tyanna agreed. 

"I had other interests." Jaime murmured. 

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

"Why?" Jaime questioned.

"Yes tell me why? I never understood that." Tyanna agreed. 

"I was curious.' Tyrion told him. '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, "I wasn't deterred. I was the smartest person I knew.' Tyrion assured him and Jaime chuckled '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 and I set Gregor on him." Tyanna remarked. The brothers glanced back at her. "True story." 

"You set the mountain on him?" Tyrion choked out. 

"What can I say, the Cleganes were putty in my hands." Tyanna agreed. "Go on you were talking about Orsen..."

'"Right, well... 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".' Tyrion remarked '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?' Tyrion questioned jaime 'No dragon wings,' Tyrion went on, 'I heard "kun kun kun".'

'But I still couldn't figure out why he was doing it.' Tyrion went on, '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.

"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.

"Four times your size." Tyanna corrected. 

"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." Jaimes face turned down, "So what do you think? Why did he do it? What was it all about?" Tyrion asked him. Jaime shrugged.

"He didnt like beetles." Tyanna offered. 

"I don't know." Jaime remarked. 

"You know I think I told Orson I didnt like the sound the beetles made, their eerie chatter made me tremor, you remember that? I used to get tremors." Tyanna recalled. 

"Yes but they stopped." Jaime agreed. 

"Because I told Orson that I hated those beetles, I just said it in passing, I didnt even think about it." Tyanna remarked. 

"He was killing beetles for our Tyanna." Jaime remarked. "There is the answer to your lifelong mystery." 

"Are all men putty in your hands?" Tyrion questioned. Tyanna shrugged, a little smirk on her lips.  They all looked up hearing the sudden pang of bells ringing out.

"Good luck today." Jaime said leaving Tyrion to face his fate. 

"He doesnt need luck." Tyanna corrected. "Not when you have the best little sister to rig the game." 

"What did you do Tya?" Tyrion questioned. 

"Don't worry, everything will be fine. Trust me." 

"What did you do, Tya?"