Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Despair teaches a special syntax —

Sharp and fragile. Meaning comes later.

No life is ever meaningless. That’s one.

No death is ever meaningless. That’s the other.

© Leopold Viktorovich Epstein

Despair drives us forward – when death is all we see ahead.

Despair freezes us – when every muscle trembles, ready to burst.

Despair pushes us toward madness – when we no longer know if it's worth it.

It shoves us into the abyss. It watches as we claw our way out from the bottom, breaking bones.

And the soul – if anything of it remains.

Despair, really, is a curious thing.

Pity it cannot be controlled.

Throughout his rather fruitful life, he had seen much – and, to his pride, had shaped more than a little. Of course, much remained undone. But one could hardly argue that nearly sixty years was a small span. Even if it proved insufficient. And who would he argue with – the gods? His path had ended, and the Unseen awaited him… So he was prepared to think, should death come – after all, poison was never out of the question, nor an assassin with a dagger or an arrow, nor even some quiet illness. With age, he had grown calmer about the prospect, acquired a kind of indifference, and no longer believed anything could surprise him – or catch him unprepared.

How wrong he was.

Fatally wrong.

For the last thing he saw was his son's face.

And the first – his own.

Both wore the same expression.

Despair.

Imagine that – his life ended in a pit. If one could call a latrine that.

For once, those sheep will learn: the lion doesn't shit gold.

He had believed in the Seven since childhood – not prayed to them, merely believed. Their relentlessness, even cruelty, had filled entire sermons he'd been forced to endure from aging septons. Truth be told, he'd often suspected that his misfortunes – especially the greatest one – were their doing. And more than once, the dead had whispered to him: it was divine retribution, for his pride and hunger for power, dealt to him in life. How wrong that madman had been. The cruelty of the gods had been vastly underestimated. For the retribution came not in life – but after death. How ironic, that death, retribution, and whatever came next...

All wore the damned face of a dwarf.

He remembered every second.

He remembered the rage he had so carefully concealed. He remembered his almost pitiful attempts to speak. He remembered the bolt – loosed from the crossbow aimed at him – striking his belly. It was wet, but not yet painful. The pain came later. He remembered how his vision blurred, how the walls, the torches, his son’s face turned to smears. He remembered his final words – and the second bolt: identical, but aimed at the heart.

And then he began to feel.

He felt the savage, tearing pain in his gut, the kind that makes you curl in on yourself. He felt the pain in his neck, where he’d collapsed after the first shot. But none of it compared to his chest. He couldn’t breathe. Yet he felt every pulse of his heart, pierced through with metal. It hurt. It was wet. It surely stank.

But – Seven damn it –  he couldn’t breathe!

His throat rasped (Hear my roar, eh?), his body twisted, convulsed, and gods, he was ready to beg anyone to make it stop.

Darkness finally veiled his eyes, and slowly he stopped feeling his body.

But not the other thing.

Fear.

He remembered every second of his rage – and of his fear.

Tywin Lannister, for the first time in his life, was truly afraid.

For the first time. And for the last.

And then came the dark.

Mighty Tywin, son of Tytos, of House Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West, twice Hand of the King – died on a privy, by his son’s hand.