TYRION

"Winter has truly come for House Stark," Bronn said with a dark smile as he swirled the wine in his cup. Tyrion and the sellsword knight were brooding together in Tyrion's apartments while Sansa, frozen mask of duty and courtesy that she had become, sat motionless in the Godswood, sending who-knew-what prayers to who-knew-what gods.

"Indeed," Tyrion grumbled.

"Lady Catelyn and the Young Wolf murdered at the Twins, his host shattered, his hopes extinguished," Bronn went on, smiling. "I shall never marry, dwarf. Marriage is a sour draught for men like us."

Tyrion laughed.

"How is your lady wife?"

Tyrion grunted.

"And how is her maidenhood?"

Tyrion's mismatched eyes found Bronn's and glared. The sellsword laughed. "Here, dwarf," he said, reaching into his doublet and pulling out a small leather pouch bound with twine.

"What's this?" Tyrion caught the pouch one-handed and tried to feel what was within.

"The maegi across the narrow sea call this the Spoor of Madness," Bronn explained as Tyrion carefully drew a shriveled brown thing out of the tiny pouch. He held it up to the light and examined it.

"They're only a type of mushroom, but if you eat one, you can become a god. I stole them from Grand Maester Pycelle's quarters."

"What in seven hells are you talking about?"

"It's a drug."

"Like wine."

"No," Bronn said with another mysterious smile. "Not like wine. Give them to your lady wife. Might be that she could use a vacation to the most distant reaches of the multiverse."

"Sansa," Tyrion said happily about two hours later when the girl reentered their apartments. He was seated on the edge of her bed, sweating violently, his wiry mess of a gold-and-black beard standing off from his face like it was trying to break loose. Sansa shrunk against the door.

"Yes, my lord?"

"Sansa, Sansa, Sawnzaaaa, Swaahhhnzwaaaaah," Tyrion drawled, laughing.

"My lord?"

Tyrion sprung up from the bed. "I am nine feet tall!" he screamed. "I am finally taller than Jaime!"

Sansa looked down upon her tiny husband. "Yes."

"You're a beautiful color right now."

"Thank you."

"A beautiful shade of color."

"Thank you, my lord. It's very kind of you to say so."

"It's awful about your mother and Robb," Tyrion said, suddenly becoming grave. "But I've just spoken with them both. Their message for you is this, Sansa: turn on, tune in, and drop out."

"Pardon me, my lord?"

"You know, I'm really no Lannister," Tyrion suddenly decided. "And you, no Stark. Winter has come for House Stark. Let's start a new house, Sansa, just you and me. House Madness. Our sigil will be a screaming demon's skull belching a rainbow on a field of multidimensional green. Pandimensional green, maybe. I'll have to see what Bronn can cook up. Can Bronn draw?"

"Bronn, my lord?" Sansa had met Tyrion's sellsword knight a handful of times but he had never impressed her as much of an artist. Or even a literate.

"Nevermind, I'll draw it myself. House Madness! Sansa Madness and Tyrion Madness. It has an excellent ring to it. Ring, ring, ring. Do my shoes look all right?"

"They look good," Sansa said.

"Have a mushroom," Tyrion said, flinging the little pouch at his wife. It hit her in the breast and fell to the ground.

"If it please my lord I may try one later," Sansa told Tyrion. She recovered the pouch and lay it gently on her writing desk. "I just ate the most filling grape yesterday."

"The mushrooms are for you, my lady," Tyrion said. "I couldn't believe it about Robb and your mother. That was some serious shit, I bet."

"Well," Sansa said, fidgeting, "Robb wasn't that great, my lord. We never really hung out all that much or anything."

"Suit yourself," Tyrion said. He suddenly felt on the verge of tears. "I have a lot of good things to go look at right now anyway. All kinds of weird things to see. Things you'd never believe, Sansa. There are colors in the sky today that would turn you into a cat, if they could." His mismatched eyes gazed sorrowfully into Sansa's soul. "Maybe they already have." He wandered out.

A bland and hopeless expression of apathy settled over Sansa's lovely features for the nine-thousandth time since she had been brought to King's Landing. She stood completely still for six minutes and forty-one seconds, and then turned and left the room.

An hour later King Joffrey came tromping up the stairs to Tyrion's apartments looking for Sansa. He had recently devised a way to load a crossbow with a blood sausage and have it actually fire, and his royal blond curls had shivered with anticipation at trying it out on his favorite punching bag. But Sansa was not there.

"Sansa?" Joffrey bellowed manishly. There was no echo in the cramped halls of Tyrion's apartments. "That bitch," Joffrey said under his breath. He lowered the sausage crossbow and began to move through the darkened apartments.

It wasn't long before he got to rummaging through the cabinets and drawers. While he found no fresh evidence of treason, he did discover a small leather pouch tied with twine containing a number of twisted brown things.

"The slut hoards mushrooms from my own table," King Joffrey marveled. Fury swept over him, a red battle standard that muted pain and amplified pleasure. The nerve of her! Joffrey laughed and emptied the entire contents of the pouch into his royal mouth. Let the bitch find it empty when she went scurrying for her midnight snack.