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m_findlowTitle: Ash and smoke
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Characters: Tyrion, Daenerys
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Season 8.
Author notes: Written for Challenge 201 - Pyrrhic victory at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
Summary: Tyrion comes to realise his error too late.
A storage room was, in Tyrion's very humble opinion, a vast improvement on being locked up in the cells beneath the Red Keep. Not that he could have been, as much as his captors might have desired it. The dungeons had been destroyed along with much of the buildings that had stood atop Aegon's High Hill since the age of the great Targaryens. It had taken three reigns to build it, starting with Aegon the Conqueror and ending with Maegor the Cruel. Three reigns, and much of it crumbled into ruin in less than three hours by a Targaryen descendant who was even crueller than Maegor the Cruel and madder than the Mad King himself. Tyrion had bet on the wrong horse and now a million people had paid the price for his gamble.
When had it all gone awry, he wondered. Was his infatuation with Daenerys so great that he had missed the signs of her growing madness, or had it just erupted in a single moment, reigning down destruction on everyone who stood in her path.
Tyrion had watched a half dozen kings come and go, each scarcely better than the last, and sometimes worse. He’d watched the Seven Kingdoms grow fat on the complacency and greed of its ruling class, himself and his own family included in that mix. There simply had to be a better way to govern than war and murder. He could not have said it was a woman’s touch that was needed. Of all those who had reigned in his lifetime, his own sister Cersei had been the worst of them all. At least until today.
He had believed Daenerys when she said she wanted to break the wheel. He hadn’t imagined that in breaking it they would have destroyed it utterly. One woman atop the most fearsome dragon in all the lands, with an army of Unsullied and Dothraki was all it had taken, each of them complete strangers in a land none of them had ever stepped foot upon until recently. They cared not for land and titles, only to follow their Queen in whatever she desired.
What she desired, Tyrion came to realise all too late, was not power, but the destruction of power. Everything had to be burned to the ground in order for her to rebuild the world in her own image. That was not the Daenerys Tyrion had admired, fallen in love with, and ultimately given the tools and guidance to wreak upon the world an order that promised to bring only death or submission. The world was not so corrupt and without worth that it should be turned to ash. Some goodness still remained, but not for long, and not, as it would appear, to occur in what brief life Tyrion had left to him.
The storage room door creaked and there she was, the Queen that he had risked everything for only to throw it back in her face as her soldiers marched through the ashen ruins, victory not just assured but wrung out of the very earth itself. He no longer felt love for her, only the cold dread that he had brought this monster to the world.
‘Have you reconsidered your position?’
Tyrion did not get up from the floor. ‘I can look out the window here, but to convince myself that what falls from the sky is snow and not ash would be the greatest insult to the lives of every innocent person who died here.’
‘There were no innocents,’ she replied coolly.
‘Most of your enemies are incinerated by dragon fire.’ Not that he didn't believe that was probably still the fate that lay ahead of him. ‘Should I feel honoured that you came to visit me?’
‘Do not flatter yourself. I only wished to better understand why you chose to betray me now when everything we wanted is within reach.’
‘I'm not certain I know what it is you think we want.’
She cocked her head at him, long silver hair falling around her shoulder from its braid. ‘Justice, of course.’
Tyrion barked out a laugh. ‘Justice is burning the largest city in the Seven Kingdoms to ash?’
‘We freed the city of those who choose to enslave its people. This is just the beginning. Soon we will free all the peoples of this land.’
Tyrion pulled himself to his feet. ‘If by freeing you mean killing all those who were the ones enslaved, then I congratulate you. We’re about to achieve a tremendous victory we don’t want. Or am I alone in the desire to still have someone left to rule over when all of it is done?’
Daenerys raised her chin, giving him her defiant pose. ‘The city was rife with filth.’
‘The city was rife with innocent people desperate to escape before the battle began. Cersei may have locked the doors but you are the one that murdered them.’ He began pacing the limited confines of the room. ‘I do not understand. You freed the slaves of Yunkai and Meereen without shedding any blood except for a few Masters and Sons of the Harpy. No slaves were harmed.’
‘Today was a show of what we can do,’ Daenerys replied. ‘The Seven Kingdoms will kneel before me now that they have seen the consequences.’
Tyrion shook his head sadly, knowing he hadn’t erred in throwing his station at her feet in resignation. He could never stand at her side as her Hand, allowing her to threaten and kill without regard. ‘Consequences…’ They surrendered. Tyrion had made sure they were able to sue for peace. The bells of the sept had tolled, begging her for mercy and she had given none. ‘I would rather Drogon turned me to ash than live to see the world that will be built anew.’ And he meant it.
Daenerys gave him a wistful yet unsympathetic smile. Only the cold madness burned in her eyes now. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ she warned.
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Characters: Tyrion, Daenerys
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Season 8.
Author notes: Written for Challenge 201 - Pyrrhic victory at
fandomweeklySummary: Tyrion comes to realise his error too late.
A storage room was, in Tyrion's very humble opinion, a vast improvement on being locked up in the cells beneath the Red Keep. Not that he could have been, as much as his captors might have desired it. The dungeons had been destroyed along with much of the buildings that had stood atop Aegon's High Hill since the age of the great Targaryens. It had taken three reigns to build it, starting with Aegon the Conqueror and ending with Maegor the Cruel. Three reigns, and much of it crumbled into ruin in less than three hours by a Targaryen descendant who was even crueller than Maegor the Cruel and madder than the Mad King himself. Tyrion had bet on the wrong horse and now a million people had paid the price for his gamble.
When had it all gone awry, he wondered. Was his infatuation with Daenerys so great that he had missed the signs of her growing madness, or had it just erupted in a single moment, reigning down destruction on everyone who stood in her path.
Tyrion had watched a half dozen kings come and go, each scarcely better than the last, and sometimes worse. He’d watched the Seven Kingdoms grow fat on the complacency and greed of its ruling class, himself and his own family included in that mix. There simply had to be a better way to govern than war and murder. He could not have said it was a woman’s touch that was needed. Of all those who had reigned in his lifetime, his own sister Cersei had been the worst of them all. At least until today.
He had believed Daenerys when she said she wanted to break the wheel. He hadn’t imagined that in breaking it they would have destroyed it utterly. One woman atop the most fearsome dragon in all the lands, with an army of Unsullied and Dothraki was all it had taken, each of them complete strangers in a land none of them had ever stepped foot upon until recently. They cared not for land and titles, only to follow their Queen in whatever she desired.
What she desired, Tyrion came to realise all too late, was not power, but the destruction of power. Everything had to be burned to the ground in order for her to rebuild the world in her own image. That was not the Daenerys Tyrion had admired, fallen in love with, and ultimately given the tools and guidance to wreak upon the world an order that promised to bring only death or submission. The world was not so corrupt and without worth that it should be turned to ash. Some goodness still remained, but not for long, and not, as it would appear, to occur in what brief life Tyrion had left to him.
The storage room door creaked and there she was, the Queen that he had risked everything for only to throw it back in her face as her soldiers marched through the ashen ruins, victory not just assured but wrung out of the very earth itself. He no longer felt love for her, only the cold dread that he had brought this monster to the world.
‘Have you reconsidered your position?’
Tyrion did not get up from the floor. ‘I can look out the window here, but to convince myself that what falls from the sky is snow and not ash would be the greatest insult to the lives of every innocent person who died here.’
‘There were no innocents,’ she replied coolly.
‘Most of your enemies are incinerated by dragon fire.’ Not that he didn't believe that was probably still the fate that lay ahead of him. ‘Should I feel honoured that you came to visit me?’
‘Do not flatter yourself. I only wished to better understand why you chose to betray me now when everything we wanted is within reach.’
‘I'm not certain I know what it is you think we want.’
She cocked her head at him, long silver hair falling around her shoulder from its braid. ‘Justice, of course.’
Tyrion barked out a laugh. ‘Justice is burning the largest city in the Seven Kingdoms to ash?’
‘We freed the city of those who choose to enslave its people. This is just the beginning. Soon we will free all the peoples of this land.’
Tyrion pulled himself to his feet. ‘If by freeing you mean killing all those who were the ones enslaved, then I congratulate you. We’re about to achieve a tremendous victory we don’t want. Or am I alone in the desire to still have someone left to rule over when all of it is done?’
Daenerys raised her chin, giving him her defiant pose. ‘The city was rife with filth.’
‘The city was rife with innocent people desperate to escape before the battle began. Cersei may have locked the doors but you are the one that murdered them.’ He began pacing the limited confines of the room. ‘I do not understand. You freed the slaves of Yunkai and Meereen without shedding any blood except for a few Masters and Sons of the Harpy. No slaves were harmed.’
‘Today was a show of what we can do,’ Daenerys replied. ‘The Seven Kingdoms will kneel before me now that they have seen the consequences.’
Tyrion shook his head sadly, knowing he hadn’t erred in throwing his station at her feet in resignation. He could never stand at her side as her Hand, allowing her to threaten and kill without regard. ‘Consequences…’ They surrendered. Tyrion had made sure they were able to sue for peace. The bells of the sept had tolled, begging her for mercy and she had given none. ‘I would rather Drogon turned me to ash than live to see the world that will be built anew.’ And he meant it.
Daenerys gave him a wistful yet unsympathetic smile. Only the cold madness burned in her eyes now. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ she warned.
