Tywin Lannister had known many kinds of silence in his life.

The silence of the battlefield, right before the slaughter. The hush of a throne room when the king grew bored. The silence of ravens in the sky, when bad news was already too late.

But your silence was... different.

It wasn’t meekness. No, you were not afraid. He had seen you watch a servant drop a tray and calmly remark that panic never fixed broken porcelain. You said it not to shame the servant—but because you believed it, in the quiet, stubborn way you believe everything you say.

And that was what unnerved him.

You were not a woman shaped by fear. You were shaped by something else. Something older, stranger. Like those dark stormland woods your House came from—full of old crows and older oaths.

You sat across from him now, in the chamber you insisted not be too large. A brown wool shawl over your thin shoulders. Hair cut short and uneven. Head tilted slightly—half-listening, as always. You refused ear-horns, even though Maester Belgrave offered you one. You said you preferred silence when it was honest.

You always say strange things like that.

Why does that not anger him?

He watches you lift your goblet to your lips, drinking slowly, always tasting the way a maester tastes poisons—not because you suspect treachery, but because you savor everything, even the bitter.

You do not flinch when his eyes land on you. You never do. Your large black eyes always meet his gaze like a mirror—no challenge, no submission. Just the truth of your presence.

You are not beautiful. Not in the way noble ladies are trained to be. Your ears are too large, your cheeks too sharp, your gait uneven. And yet there is something about the way you exist—anchored and unblinking—that holds his attention more firmly than polished courtly perfection ever could.

You are not Joanna. You will never be.

And yet...

You never laugh at him. You never try to charm him. You do not shame him with need or passion or girlish longing. You simply sit with him, drink with him, speak with him when he allows it. Sometimes you debate law. Sometimes you offer him stories, odd little fables from your House. And every night, you leave before him—feet dragging, head down—but never hurried, never afraid.

He does not love you. Of that, he is certain. Love makes fools of men, and he will not be made a fool.

But still, he watches you longer than he intends. Still, he thinks about the way your hand lingered on the back of his chair this morning—accidental, perhaps, or some small comfort you thought you could offer.

Still, when you sat beside him today, your scent faint—juniper and old books—he did not move away.

He wonders, now and then, what you dream about. What ghosts you see when you stare into the fire with your mouth slightly open. Whether you dream of crows. Or blood. Or him.

And if you did—would you fear him?

He doubts it.

And that, somehow, unsettles him more than anything else.