"Bee..."
Summary: Sharing nicknames, and ill-fitting outfits Pairing: Tyrion x reader Words: 3.542
Note: Just wanted to write more about them! Enjoy! :) Warning: (This little story features a female character, she/her pronouns and cisgender. While this identity is important for the plot, readers of all backgrounds are welcome as I try to not add too much information of her features, etc.)
Trepidation coursed through his body as it did most nights since he had been married off.
Duty, Duty, Dutyā¦
The thoughts and comments kept running over his head, hanging almost like a swinging sword since the gossipy "little birds" around the Keep had reached his father's ear with the lack of proof of their marital consummation.
The orders had been explicit; he did remember the cold and apathetic chastising orders he had received from his father. A reminder of his duty: Bed her, wed her, put a baby in her.
But a girl like her, a girl like that - pretty, with a good name, a good title attached - should have had far better prospects than, wellā¦ Him.
He reached the door to their shared chambers, allowing himself in as he entered the common room that separated their individual chambers. Face marred with worry, which didn't help his already difficult features, or so would others have mentioned in polite conversation had they dared.
The expression soon softening, replacing itself for one of surprise, slight worry even at the presence of the little maid fidgeting with her hands as she looked on across the open doors of his Beesbury- No. Of his Lannister wife's chambers.
The girl startled as he stood beside her, the sound of the door closing as she turned quickly, offering a quick bow as her cheeks remained flushed. "M'lord!"
Tyrion did not particularly care for who his wife's maids were, so long as they were not close to Cersei (if they were close to father or Varys, 'the spider', well... Those he would not know about until it was already too late). However, he did know this one, her presence as constant as his headaches. A girl no younger than his own wife, no doubt having been her maid long before this.
Perhaps a friend, a confidant. The only thing she had been allowed to keep from her old life.
He quirked an eyebrow as the girl looked on after the quiet display of formalities, as if inviting her to continue.
"M'lady isā¦ indisposed"
"Indisposed?" Tyrion frowned further, no doubt the ugly visage making the girl pale further. "Is she sick?"
"No, she's-"
From inside, he could hear the aggressive movements. The huffing and puffing of someone exerting themselves as other movements could be heard.
Tyrion paled softly, clearing his throat. "By herself?"
The little maid - Elena? Elaera? He knew it was something with an 'E', something pretty and yet very common in the Reach. Not enough to be memorized, much to his personal chagrin. - cleared her throat as she fidgeted with her hands.
"She's occupied, m'lord" She began softly, as if speaking about it destroyed some confidentiality between the two women he was not meant to know. "She'sā¦ She's not having a good moment"
"Ahā¦" Was his lamely response.
What husband- What man would offer such a response?
Stepping past the wooden doors, the vision from inside was completely different from the thousands of images his mind had been conjuring:
Huffing, cheeks slightly flushed from the activity of picking and throwing away silks and skirts, capes and dresses. A furrow on her brows as she stood in her simple summer dress and hair slightly disheveled, glaring at the interior of her wardrobe as if it had personally offended her.
But what worried him, were the silent unshed tears inside her glassed eyes.
Tyrion lingered at the threshold, uncertain whether to speak or simply turn away. There was something disarming - no, painful - in seein her like this; not poised, or carefully veiled in her usual civility, in the soft smiles that usually followed her. But rather unraveled perhaps, pretenses casted off like the silks strewn across the floor.
She hadn't noticed him yet, and perhaps that could make the moment worse. He thought of clearing his throat again, then thought better of it. What could he offer? Sympathy that would taste of bitterness? A husband she hadn't chosen?
With an abrupt turn, perhaps as if sensing new eyes on her, their eyes met. And for an awkward moment, they only stared at each other.
The eyes that had usually been soft and warm, now were sharp, wet, defensive, ashamed. Not the frightened look of a girl caught misbehaving, but rather the look of someone who had been hurt.
"My apologies, my lady" He began quietly, with a quick glance at the meek maid looking on from the threshold (whom quickly moved away, disappeared, silently dismissed) before continuing. "I was not aware a war had been declared onto our wardrobesā¦"
A long pause. But speaking fairly, he hadn't expected another reaction from that horrible joke.
Unexpectedly, however, after much hesitation, she offered a small smile.
"I cannot findā¦ good clothing" she muttered, turning back to the wardrobe but not touching it. "Not one dress feelsā¦ appropriate. Not one thing feels like it belongsā¦"
Her voice cracked on the last word, and Tyrion felt a pang - an unexpected ache that started somewhere behind his ribs and spread out.
What an awful thing, not belonging, he thought. He had felt the same his entire life. Didn't think it would extent to someone as sweet as this (his) girl.
He could imagine that something had happened. Could see it in her every movement, in the very weight of her shoulders. The inadequacy, most definitely lacking the courtly skills of the Keep.
Could see it almost as if it had happened to him. As it had happened to him countless times before since childhood: She felt out. She most definitely wanted her old life back, her old rooms, her old name. Probably had began to realize how fake and convenient friendships were amongst the court, the sycophants and bootlickers roaming around Robert's court. Even more pompous and desperate as Cersei had established herself as a desperate lioness, offering predilect spots for those whose presences she liked.
Were he in her position, where everything was disgustingly new, and unwantedā¦ Well, he would understand the need for garments that didn't reek of new alliances and bargains struck between men who'd never asked what she wanted. Seven hells, nobody ever asked him what he damn wanted too, anyways.
But he had long learned that tantrums and tears weren't the solution.
"I can summon a tailor," he offered carefully, bending slightly over with his bad knees to pick up a dress of a green as deep as wet grass. One he had seen her in many times since her beginnings to accommodate herself at court.
To see it disregarded, made the ache grow a little more, the words resonating louder. Duty. Duty. Dutyā¦
"A better one," he offered then, looking up at her as he held the green in his hands. Looking up as her hands tightened around the fabrics of the dress she wore now, a pale green that seemed almost yellowish. "You could have your pick of good fabrics, cuts, whatever you like."
She hesitated, her eyes - those beautiful pools of colour of hers - regarding him as though strange. Foreign, yet never wrong.
She shook her head, arms crossing, fidgeting against each other over her stomach where a corset of simple details rested.
"Itā¦ It would not change much, would it?"
He stepped further into the room now, not close, but enough that he could be heard without raising his voice.
"No," he agreed. "But it might make belonging a little easier. Pretending."
That made her look at him again. The warmth slowly returning, now, alongside a sliver of curiosity.
"Is that what you do, my lord?" She asked, her voice meek. As though sharing this was a secret. A tentative. She didn't know if to believe him just yet. "Pretend?"
Tyrion offered a small smile. "I pretend I am wanted. It works until I remember I am not"
The words hung in the air between them, too heavy to be brushed aside. It was a branch, almost as green as the dress he held in his fist.
His words on their uneventful wedding night had been true.
They didn't have to do anything they didn't want, not between the walls of this marriage of theirs. - It would be nice to have something pleasant. He wanted to offer her something as pleasant as she was. This his Beesbury girl.
Her mouth twitched as if she might say something, then didn't. Instead, she bent down, picking up a dark pinkish gown with gold threads at the sleeves. She held it up, inspected it. Her fingers caressing softly.
Tyrion felt another kind of ache as he followed her digits, another kind of ache that had no space in this moment but that arose regardless.
She spoke softly then, eyes not meeting his just yet. "Iā¦ I miss my father's hallsā¦ There aren't gardens here that are free, everybody is busy promenading. I used to sit alongside Elena in the mornings, before the sun got too high."
So it was Elena.
Tyrion nodded slowly. "There is a glass garden on the western side of the Keep. I'm sure it cannot compare to the gardens back in the Reach, but it is quiet. Secluded. I can have Elena take you there.
She gave him a sidelong glance, something quiet, hesitant. The velvet was held a little firmer in her hands. Something in her softened, just a little, like the surface of water stirred by the wind.
"You must think me a childā¦" She murmured then, little words escaping out almost like the very wind that had softened her. "But Iā¦ I just need a moment where nobody judgesā¦"
"Then let us both be children," Tyrion offered, carefully setting the green dress on the edge of a chaise, dusting off nonexistent dirt with a flick of his wrist. "I have been judged all my life - by my stature, my face, by my name, by things I never choseā¦" He began gently.
The branch growing, even if hesitantly, even if he knew he had been hurt before. Even when he knew it had never ended well. That he had never been allowed to have things that ended wellā¦
"I imagine you now feel much the same, yes?"
Her eyes rose to meet his again, and this time they did not flinch.
For the first time since their wedding, since the stiff meals they shared and the courtesies expected of them at public outings, the breath between them didn't feel so strained. It felt like something was giving way - just slightly, just enough to allow air in where before there had only been the suffocating pressure of expectation.
"I thoughtā¦ I thought I would have had the hang of it by now. I had been prepared my whole life," She hesitated, then gave away a soft, bitter laugh. "I knew it would not be easy. But perhaps, I would find a wayā¦ to manage. But I am apparently so out of place, even my dresses ruin my chancesā¦"
She held back a lump in her throat. He could see it, bobbing in her neck as she scrunched up her nose.
"It has been... Like being a child again, but I am simply judged without being taughtā¦ How was I supposed to know there is a dress for something as stupid as taking a walk?"
Tyrion tilted his head at her words, watching the way her fingers twisted nervously into the fabric of her gown. His gaze softened - not out of pity, but recognition.
She was unraveling in the same way he had countless times before, each thread pulled not by her own hands, but by the world that refused to let her be anything other than what it was expected of her.
"Dresses do not ruin chances," he said, voice quiet but firm. "People do. Customs. Courts. A bunch of stupid rules that aren't even written but somehow everybody seems to know better than oneself."
She gave him a small, rueful smile. "You speak like someone who's worn a thousand ill-fitting costumes. You are a Lannister my lord"
"Ahā¦ Someone must remind that to my father and the court," Tyrion replied with a short, dry laugh. "More often than not, he and others usually address me as a jester, or a monsterā¦ Does not truly matter how rich my clothes are. Although the name does stir them away from speaking out their nasty wordsā¦ At timesā¦"
She looked at him again, for longer this time. Truly looked.
And for the first time of many perhaps, she saw not just the Lannister name. Not the twisted dwarf those closest to her had warned her about, not the political pawn he was sure she had been coached to endure - but the tired truth behind tired eyes. A man who understood what it meant to feel out of place in every room.
"You make it sound easyā¦" She murmured. "Pretending. Managing this" She gestured to everything around her. And he understood.
"It can be, "he said, softly. "When one finds ways for it. When one finds alliesā¦"
She blinked, surprised by the simplicity of it. And perhaps something in her softened further at that - at the idea that shared loneliness was less sharp, less suffocating.
After a pause, she breathed out, almost a sigh. "I do not know what I am doing, my lordā¦" She confessed softly, a bit more bold. "I thought I was preparedā¦"
"And now?"
"Now I do not even know which dress makes it so that I am no longer ridiculedā¦"
He stepped forward, gently reaching for the discarded green one he'd set aside. "Then we will find new ones," he said. "New dresses. New places to enjoyā¦"
Her hand hovered over the velvet in his. Then, slowly, she accepted it - not just the fabric, but what it meant.
A small gesture. A beginning. Something hers.
But his too.
"Iā¦" She hesitated, then gave another soft, small laugh. "I do not wish to make this more difficult for yourself. I thought I could manage courtly life with ease"
Tyrion gave a wry smile, his eyes glittering with something between his usual humor and exhaustion. "Ah, splendidā¦ Kindred souls then, my lady. I too thought I could manage the court with ease - until I realized the game is rigged, and the rules change the moment you think you have learned them. Or worse, that others have already decided for you."
He took a step back, offering her space, but not distance. "You are not making this more difficult. Difficult was already here, waiting in the walls and hallways long before you arrived. You are simplyā¦ learning how to breathe in it."
Her lips parted as if to object, to insist again that she was failing no doubt, that she was not enough - an absurd notion. But instead, she closed them around a quiet breath and nodded.
Tyrion inclined his head, softer now. "Ease is a myth sold to girls like you so men," Not me. Never me. I am barely a man. "could sleep easier at night as they stumble. What you are doing - trying - that is the hard, honest part.
A beat passed between them, calm and tentative.
"I won't lie and tell you it gets easier," He said. "But I can promise that at least, you won't have to do it entirely alone. That is, if you would have my company.. Even if it is just as someone who understands what it is like to feelā¦ ill-fittedā¦"
"I would like that," She whispered, smile soft. Eyes glassy still. "The company, that isā¦"
A pause.
"Even if it is borrowedā¦?"
Tyrion smiled. Not triumphant, not smug - just grateful. "Then borrow freely, my lady. I have plenty to hand. I am after all a walking library of courtly knowledge, sharp wit, and unpleasant reputation." She laughed softly, a hand still ringless - another part of his duty he would also need to acknowledge at another moment - covering her face as it twisted and her eyes crinkled.
It was genuine, quiet, like warmth poking from behind closed curtains.
"You will regret that," She offered gently, inclining her head as if to seal a pact.
Her hair shifted with the movement, having taken to style it as the ladies around court did during the evenings in tight, deliberate curls that mimicked Cersei's. Curls that swept upward, held aloft by pearl pins and the faint glimmer of other jewels nestled inside them like secrets among them. One curl brushed against the open skin of her neck, trailing down like a whisper.
A silent understanding passing between two people who hadn't chosen each other - but who might, in time, choose something together. If not pleasantness, then decency. If not trust, then the comfort of shared solitude. A kindred ache.
"I might rely on you too muchā¦ Might turn annoying"
Her eyes gleamed with something moreāintelligence, mischief, maybe a trace of hope she hadnāt quite extinguished.
He saw her thenānot just the sharp tongue or the wary, shy glances, but the whole of her: someone caught in a life neither of them had chosen, yet still standing tall within it.
Between them hung something new, fragile and wordless: a pact formed not of affection, but of understanding. They might never find comfort in romance or sweetness, but there was something quieter that could be just as binding.
Tyrion offered another faint smile, not mocking. Just honest. He could be honest here. "I have suffered worse." He said, and for once, it wasn't a deflection.
She lowered her hand then, not looking away. That alone felt like an offering.
"Would it be too much of a first request," she asked, her voice softer now, "to not be called 'my lady' so often?"
Tyrion hesitated, as if considering the weight of such a small thing. Then nodded.
"Not wrong," he said, his voice gentler than it had been all evening. "But I must warn you - the Keep, its people, cling to titles like armor. They will address you as 'my lady' until our bones are dust. Unless they decide on something worse."
Her lips curved at that - just slightly - amused despite herself as they faced each other, eye to eye as she remained by the floor. The flicker of understanding passing between hem like a secret handshake.
"Then it will be something borrowed between usā¦" She hesitated, eyes flicking up to meet his with something cautious, yet warm. "Husband."
The title even sounded different coming from her mouth. Not formal. Not forced. Not dutiful as it had been from the thousand others that dared repeat it back to him. Justā¦ his. As though she had tested the taste of it before, in silence, and only now dared to give it breath.
Tyrion inclined his head, light enough to suggest playfulness, but sincere enough to match the sincerity in her own eyes. "I can allow that," he said, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. "For the sake of this companionship between us, lady-"
She winced, though not harshly. More amused than offended. Something soft passed over her face - not quite embarrassment, not quite grief. A memory brushing against the edge of her voice.
"Not by name." She murmured. "I haveā¦ Since childhood, I always heard my parents speak to each other in less formal ways. Private names. Things that no one else called them. It always seemedā¦ kinderā¦"
She glanced down, as though unsure of how much to share. But it was already out there, gently hanging in the space between them.
"It always made them seem closer," she added after a moment. "More like people, less likeā¦ ill-fitting outfits."
Tyrion raised a brow, intrigued now. "You want something private." He said slowly, as if weighing the taste of it. "in a place where privacy is a dying language."
He didn't answer at once. Just looked at her - truly, deliberately - as though considering what such a word might be, what it might mean to share a thing so small and so rare.
"Something small enough to hide in plain sight. Something between usā¦"
And then he smiled again - not faintly this time, not with his usual mask of irony, but with the kind of expression that made him look years younger, less shadowed. His eyes drifting to her collarbone, where the firelight glinted softly off the delicate chain she always wore, the pendant resting against the modest curve of her dƩcolletage.
A bee, for House Beesbury.
He had seen it before, often, but never allowed himself to linger. Now, with her seated before him, her guard lowered just enough for trust to slip in, it seemed suddenly obvious - inevitable even.
"Beeā¦" He murmured.
The single syllable hung between them, soft as breath and twice as warm. Her eyes widened just slightly, not from surprise, but from recognition. She reached for the pendant reflexively, fingers brushing over it as it to confirm it was still there.
"My mother's," she offered, her voice quieter now, the words more exposed than she had meant them to be. "She said that even if our symbol was small, we should be proud. Bees are tireless workers, always bountiful. Fragile, yes - but determined. Loyal, when treated gently."
Tyrion's gaze lingered on her hand at her throat. "And dangerous, when not." he added, with the faintest curl of amusement.
Lions and Bees as prideful, rich creatures. What a funny thing. What a funny coincidence.
She smiled at that. "Exactly."
he tilted his head, his voice dipping into something private. "Then it is perfect. A name only I will use. A name earned, yes?"
"Say it again, then" She said softly, not quite a request, not quite a command.
And Tyrion, with a voice that held no jest and no armor, answered. "Beeā¦"
