The wind howled outside Casterly Rock, pushing against the narrow windows of the birthing chamber. Rain streaked the glass in thin streams. Inside, the room felt warm and smelled of blood and sweat.
The noise had faded. Joanna Lannister no longer cried out. The midwives worked quietly, cleaning the floor and folding cloths with trembling hands.
Tywin Lannister stood by the door, arms folded behind his back. His gloves creaked as he tightened his grip.
On the bed, Joanna lay still, her damp hair clinging to her face.
The maester stood beside her, his robes stained red at the sleeves. He held a bowl of water and some cloths but now did nothing. He'd stopped muttering his apologies a while ago, when Tywin's silence had grown too sharp to bear.
Tywin did not look at him; he kept his eyes on his wife Joanna, tracing the lines of her features as if committing them to memory one final time.
The head midwife walked toward him slowly. Her gray hair fell loosely from under her cap. Her hands trembling as she was holding a small linen-wrapped bundle, she stopped near Tywin and bowed her head. In a soft, uneven voice she said, "My lord, a son."
Tywin did not answer. The wind grew louder, shaking the windows as the torches burned unevenly.
His jaw tightened, a muscle shifting beneath the skin, but his face remained a mask; cold. He turned his head, just enough to see the bundle, and the air seemed to grow cold around him.
The child was small, pitifully so. His legs bent in odd ways under the cloth and a head too large for his frame.
Tywin's lips pressed into a thinner line and his eyes narrowed taking in every detail; the twisted limbs, the stunted form, the sheer wrongness of it. A dwarf. A deformity delivered at the cost of Joanna's life.
The midwife, now trembling lifted the bundle a little higher as if hoping the offering might soften what she saw in his face. "He's alive, my lord," she said, her words hanging unanswered for a long moment. "Small, but… he breathes."
Tywin took a single step forward, his boots clicking against the floor. The midwife flinched but held her ground, her eyes darting to the floor as he reached out. His gloved hand brushed the linen aside, revealing the child's face.
The eyes were open; green like his own, but too alert for something so newly born. He dismissed it as a trick of the light. But the rest; the misshapen skull, the frail and wretched body offered no such excuse.
He took the child, holding it with both hands at arm's length. It felt light, but its cries grew stronger, echoing in the room. He looked back at the bed where Joanna's blood still marked the sheets, her face now hidden under a cloth placed by the maester.
This thing had taken her; his wife, his strength and the one piece of softness he'd allowed himself in a world of steel and ambition.
After a moment, the midwife asked, "Do you have a name for him, my lord?" Her voice was barely a whisper, her hands twisting in her apron as she stepped back.
Tywin studied the child again as if he were a map of enemy lines.
As the storm outside quieted and the room grew still, he finally said, "Tyrion."
An old Lannister name, a king of little renown overshadowed by brighter men. It suited this creature; small and insignificant.
He handed the bundle back. The midwife took it, her relief palpable as she retreated toward the corner where the wet nurse waited, a stout woman with nervous hands and a murmured prayer on her lips.
Tywin turned away, his gaze returning to Joanna. The maester stepped forward, hesitant, his voice low. "My lord, shall I—"
"Clean this room," Tywin cut him off, his tone flat. "Burn the linens. And see to her." He nodded toward Joanna, the words clipped as if he could order away the mess of this night; the blood, the loss, the child.
The maester bowed and set to work, the midwives following in his wake, their movements quickened by the edge in Tywin's voice.
He stood alone then. His hands clasped behind him again, but tighter now, the pressure grounding him.
He looked at Joanna one last time; her pale face, her hands still crossed where the maester had placed them and felt the ache in his chest, a crack in the armor he wore always.
It was not grief, not as lesser men knew it. It was calculation, a tallying of what had been taken from him and what remained.
A son, She called it. A Lannister by blood if nothing else. But Tywin saw only a debt; a life traded for a weakness, a golden legacy tarnished by this twisted thing. He would raise it as duty demanded, but he would not forget.
The midwives carried the child; Tyrion out, their footsteps fading down the hall, and Tywin remained staring at the empty space where Joanna had been.