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Family, Duty, Honour (p2)

Pairing: Tyrion Lannister x reader

Warnings: pregnancy/pregnancy symptoms including vomiting, prejudice towards dwarfism (discussion as to whether Tyrion and YN’s child will inherit his dwarfism; not a widely accepted condition in Westeros), childbirth, details of the death of Joanna Lannister (dying in childbirth/traumatic birth), reference to miscarriage

(Part 1)

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“Pardon me, Milord,”

Both Tywin and Tyrion turned around to see a young girl, one of your handmaidens, hurrying towards them, remembering a clumsy curtsey in her haste.

“Speak,” Lord Tywin said sternly, and the girl paled briefly before turning instead to his son.

“It’s Lady YN,” she said, and Tyrion instantly stood up straighter, even more on edge. “She’s… sick, my Lord. Can’t keep anything in her stomach, and just now she fainted,”

“Where is she?” Tyrion asked urgently.

“Her bedchamber, Milord. We got a squire to help her back into bed,”

As Tyrion made to hurry after the girl, Tywin’s hand rested firmly on his shoulder. “I will send the maester. He will prove whether or not you have done your duty to this family,”

***

“YN, my dear, can you hear me?”

Slowly, your heavy eyelids slid open, and you turned your head to the source of the noise. Smiling weakly, you squeezed your husband of two month’s hand.

“Are you alright, my lady wife,” he asked you gently, brushing his lips over your knuckles.

“I’m fine. I just got a little dizzy. Must have stood up too quickly,” you said gently, but you did not soothe Tyrion’s worry.

“Your handmaiden said you’ve been ill?” He prompted, and your cheeks heated slightly.

“It’s probably just… my women’s troubles,” you said quietly, still unused to talking about such delicate matters with anyone other than an old septa.

“Or lack thereof, lady Lannister?” The maester spoke up from the end of your bed and you frowned, about to say there really was no need for all this fuss. “The maids say your linen has been clean since your wedding night,”

Clean linen.

Those two words instantly reminded you of when Cousin Cat came to stay at Riverrun with her brooding husband. She had stayed for over a month, and halfway through her stay, you heard gossip of clean linen as you wandered the corridors of your home. Later on that year, she had birthed another child for Ned Stark.

“Does that mean…” you began.

The wisened maester smiled at your bewilderment. “Potentially. If my Lord and Lady are agreeable, I would like to examine lady Lannister to be certain,”

Tyrion smiled gently and kissed your hand once more. “I will give you some privacy, my dear,” he said, and once you nodded, he left the room to bang on the door to his father’s office.

***

“Have you put a babe in her belly?”

Tyrion rolled his eyes at his father’s callousness. “She is being examined as we speak,”

“Good,” Tywin said, hardly looking up from his paperwork. “You’d best hope she is with child and not ill. There aren’t many noble families willing to pawn off a daughter to us,” Tywin sighed and gestured to the chair opposite his desk. “Sit,” he said. “You clearly have something more to say,”

Tyrion was silent for a moment. “I do not want to lose her. She is young. Too young for… this,”

“She is only a few years younger than you. And besides, that didn’t stop you consummating the marriage, did it?”

If anything went on in Casterly rock, Tywin Lannister certainly knew about it within a day.

“No, it didn’t,” Tyrion said. You were nineteen after all, and you had consummated your marriage out of duty to your families.

The night-time visits, on the other hand…

“I’m scared that a baby will… that it will kill her,” Tyrion blurted out, and he could have sworn he saw some semblance of sympathy flash through his father’s eyes. “I am scared that my child will be too much like me. That it will rip her in two and kill her. That it won’t even live in her womb. That it will suffer. That… that she will suffer,”

Tywin stared long and hard at his youngest son, his bastard in all but name as far as he was concerned and sighed. “So am I,” was all he said, before gesturing to the door. And as he left the office, Tyrion knew that Tywin did not care for your suffering, for his suffering, or even for the child’s suffering. He cared only that his legacy remained.

***

Casterly Rock was alive with gossip.

No matter which corridor you walked down, people would stare, both openly and discretely at your belly, which barely showed thanks to the layers you wore (Tyrion insisted you wrapped up warm whenever you walked through the gardens, lest you catch a chill). You could not go a day without the maester inquiring about your general health, and when your swollen ankles were brought to your husband’s attention, he had the cobblers fashion you a pair of comfortable, yet fashionable flat shoes.

***

You were laying in your husband’s bed one night on the sixth moon of your pregnancy, a hand resting on your bump. “Leave the books, husband, and come to bed. I need you to tell your child to stop kicking me so we can all go to sleep. He seems to only listen to you,” Tyrion looked up from his books and sighed, shutting them over and coming to bed, his hand resting over yours. “You’ve gained a sudden interest in midwifery, I see,” you teased, but when he did not smile at your jest, you frowned. “What’s bothering you, husband?” You said gently.

“I…” Tyrion fumbled for the words, his eyes firmly on your belly. “I am frightened, YN,” he said quietly. “That the baby will… will have… will be a little too much like me.”

Of course. You cursed yourself for not even thinking that this could be plaguing your husband. You clasped Tyrion’s hand in yours. “Tyrion… even if the baby is born a dwarf, we will not treat him the way your father treated you,” you insisted, drawing small circles on the back of his hands.

“But what if it kills you like I killed my mother,” your heart ached for him, and you tipped his chin up to face you.

“Then you must promise me to love this child regardless,”

Tyrion’s heart ached. Neither of you had wanted this marriage, yet in the few short months you had been wed he had become fond of you, affectionate. He wanted to protect you from the horrors of a kingdom still reeling from the Rebellion that saw the end of the Mad King. He wanted to see you happy and comfortable and healthy. He would spend all of the gold in Casterly Rock to ensure your safety, despite the fact that your marriage was merely one of strategy arranged by his father and your uncle. You were still his wife, the most precious thing in his life.

But over the past nine months, he could do nothing to alleviate your discomfort. He could only hold back your hair and rub your back as you vomited, the only thing you could seemingly keep in your stomach was dried bread. When you could manage dining anywhere but your chambers, he ordered for the things that turned your stomach to be kept well away. When your legs and feet ached, he could only rub them in hopes of soothing the throbbing. When the baby kicked like mad at night, he rubbed your swollen belly so that you could rest, if only for a few moments at a time.

He watched as the veritable mountain that was your bump sapped you of your energy, and he knew there was nothing he could do to restore it.

And when the time came for you to birth the child, he knew his heart would ache even more as you laboured for hours in agony, with him unable to do anything to take the pain away.

***

You went into labour at night, your sharp gasp of pain as you heaved yourself out of bed waking your husband.

“My dear, are you alright?” He asked urgently, not groggy despite the fact he had been snoring like a boar just thirty seconds prior. As he lit a candle, he saw you grasping onto one of the bedposts, lips pressed together, suppressing your groan. “I will be back in a moment, YN, okay? I’m going to get help,”

“Hurry,”

True to his word, Tyrion returned a few moments later with a few sleepy maids and a septa, who laid fresh linen over the bed and began to send for boiling water. The maester was hot on their heels, scrambling to loop his chains over his neck, before shooing Tyrion and the maids out of the room.

Your groans and cries of pain permeated the walls of your bedchamber and down the hallways of Casterly Rock, and by sunrise, coins were being exchanged on the outcome of your labour. The smallfolk crowded near the walls of the castle, eager to call out prayers in hopes that the rich old lions felt generous after the birth.

Tyrion paced just outside of the room you were in, and every time a maid went in with fresh, boiled water and clean linen or came out with bloodstained cloths and empty bowls, he asked urgently how you were doing, but no one gave him an answer.

The septa left the birthing room, walking straight past the father of your child to… the grandfather. They talked in quick, hushed voices, that could not be heard over your pained cries, but Tyrion caught the two of them looking over their shoulder at him several times.

As the septa went back into the birthing room, Tywin walked over to Tyrion. He seemed to be in no apparent rush, his steps stately. Tyrion resisted the urge to scream at his father, to curse him for tormenting him while you laboured.

“When you were brought into the world,” he began, voice level and low, so Tyrion had to strain to hear what he was saying. “You were born, for lack of a better term, arse first. But then your shoulders got stuck inside the womb, and when you finally emerged, you dragged half of your mother’s womb out with you,”

Both men paled. Not only were they weak stomached when it came to the secretive world of a birthing chamber, but Tywin was plagued with memories from twenty or so years before, and Tyrion was plagued with guilt for killing his mother when he was a newborn, and fear that his child would do the same to you.

Tywin continued. “But the Septa has reported that the child is being born head first, as it should,” Tyrion nodded slowly. Tywin was about to continue when the door opened again.

“Pardon, Milords,” a maid carrying an armful of bloodied linen said. “Lady YN has asked for Lord Tyrion to… support her. The maester has permitted it, so long as Milord stays at the top end of the bed,”

Tyrion was frozen for a moment.

“Go,” Tywin said lowly, giving his son a small shove. “Your lady wife needs you now,”

Tyrion looked over his shoulder, and he was sure he could see a small glimmer of… sympathy in his father’s eye. Kindness even. And it was this look, paired with the shift in the way you screamed that had him running into the birthing chamber.

“Tyrion!” You sobbed, one hand reaching for him, the other reaching above you to grasp at the headboard. One of your trusted hand maids, who you had brought with you from Riverrun was at your other side, pressing a cool cloth to your forehead. Tyrion hurried to your other side, just in time for the maester to tell you to push, and the child was at last parted with your body.

All was silent for a tense few moments, until sharp cries filled the room. You could hear the cheering from the corridors.

“A boy, my lady,” the maester called out, and you sobbed for joy. “A healthy son. A little on the delicate side-”

“Is he-”

“No. He is not like you, my Lord. I delivered you and your siblings, and your son is exactly the size your brother was when he was born,”

“Can I hold him?” You whispered, your arms reaching out.

“Of course, my lady. He is your son,”

The child was handed to you, nuzzled against the bare skin of your breasts, his little cries soon petering out to soft snuffles of sleep. The maester left to deliver the good news to the Lord of Casterly Rock, but your world consisted only of Tyrion and your son.

“He’s perfect,” he said, letting out a relieved laugh. “And he’s going to tower over me when he’s a man grown,” You gave a laugh, happy tears streaming down your cheeks as you rested your head on his shoulder. Tyrion pressed his lips to your temple. “You wonderful, wonderful woman, I love you,” he murmured. “I swear to you on the old gods and the new that I will protect you and my son from all harm,”

You rubbed your son’s back gently, not wanted to disturb his sleep and you looked up to your husband. “Thank you,” you whispered. Tyrion, my Lord husband. My love,”

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