I am Leon Lannister.
It was a fact he had finally sorted out on the seventh day after his birth. More precisely, his body was Leon Lannister's...
But deep within his consciousness, fragments of another person's memories remained:
Li Ang, thirty-two, a data analyst, dead in a subway accident.
Before his death, his mind had been filled with flashing screens, streaming numbers, the shriek of brakes, and the screams of a crowd.
Then darkness had descended, followed by pressure, suffocation, passage through a damp, dark tunnel, and finally, he heard...
"Two!"
The man's voice was not loud, but it was steady as stone, every word piercing the morning air. "My wife Joanna gave House Lannister 'two' gifts with her life."
Light, cold, and pain.
Joanna? That name sounds somewhat familiar.
An infant's instincts made him cry, but beyond the crying, his consciousness floated, trapped within a narrow vessel.
Earlier, he had heard a woman's hoarse cries gradually weaken, heard an old man shout in panic, "There's another! Twins!" and heard chaotic running in the birthing chamber and screams of "Stop the bleeding!"
At last, he knew where he was. Among those lingering memories was a description of this scene...
A Song of Ice and Fire. Joanna Lannister's death, Tyrion Lannister's birth.
Then the middle-aged man speaking was...
"This one." The middle-aged man's gaze shifted to the left, toward the ugly infant who had begun crying again.
"Ugly as a demon's spawn. An oversized head, mismatched eyes, mottled skin... every detail proclaims to the world: look how the gods mock the proud lion! Tyrion? Yes, that is exactly what he should be called."
His tone was as calm as if he were reciting the accounts of some insignificant business. "The other..."
The man's gaze shifted to the right. This time, it lingered longer, so long that the people in the hall began trembling uncontrollably.
"Too beautiful to be mortal. Leon? Legends of elves? A curse of the Children of the Forest? Or something older and darker?"
He shook his head slightly. "That does not matter. What matters is that this beauty has been deliberately placed in a dwarf's body... this is no blessing, but a more elaborate, more vicious insult."
His gaze slowly swept across the room, ensuring that everyone heard what came next.
"Two curses from one birth. Beauty and ugliness are merely two sides of the same gold dragon, one stamped with open humiliation, the other with hidden mockery."
He spoke faster. "They are not my sons. They are... 'House Lannister's double curse.'"
Heh...
Tywin Lannister.
This middle-aged man who invoked family honor at every turn. Yet in Li Ang's... no, Leon's memories now, he had never known that Tyrion had a twin brother.
He had never known of Leon's existence.
When those purple, dying eyes looked at me... that was Mother, Joanna.
His birth had changed the story. He was the variable that should not have existed. His mother had died in childbirth. No, more precisely, she had died because of him.
Because his position in the womb had been wrong, delaying the birth.
To an analyst's mind, this was a clear chain of cause and effect... a variable intervened, the initial conditions changed, and the outcome worsened.
But Leon did not feel much grief. Perhaps... because the fact that he had transmigrated left panic occupying all his thoughts.
He merely struggled to record everything as quickly as possible. Time: 273 AC. Location: Casterly Rock. Identity: Leon Lannister. Status: newborn, regarded as one of the "curses."
Primary objective: survival.
Leon remembered every detail of the judgment in the sunlit hall that day. When their eyes met, Tywin Lannister stood at the far end of the hall like a mountain covered in eternal ice and snow.
But Leon could sense the cracks beneath the ice, the churning darkness, the frozen rage, and, in its deepest reaches, a fleeting trace of deep blue.
That was the color of mourning... but only for Joanna, not for us.
Lord Tywin's disgusted voice rang out again. "Raise them separately. The south-facing room at the top of the west tower goes to..." He glanced to the right, avoiding a direct form of address. "The other one. The smallest room in the east wing's side courtyard goes to the ugly one."
The top floor of the west tower had once been where Lady Joanna occasionally rested and watched the sunset, with ample sunlight and an expansive view.
The east wing's side courtyard, by contrast, lay in shadow and was damp all year round. It had only been vacated the previous year because of mold.
"The wet nurses will feed them separately. Servants are forbidden to exchange information. Anyone who disobeys will have her tongue cut out!" Tywin looked at them.
At this, the two wet nurses trembled involuntarily.
"Without my orders, they are not to be brought before anyone. In particular, it is forbidden..." Tywin's cutting gaze swept toward Leon's wet nurse. "To display the beautiful one."
"If anyone asks about Lady Joanna's delivery, the answer will be the same: she unfortunately passed away after giving birth. No details, no explanations." His voice underwent a subtle change, becoming lower and colder.
"Allocation of resources. Tyrion will be fed according to the family's lowest standard. He may learn to read. Since his body is useless, at least his brain need not be entirely worthless."
"As for him..." Tywin's gaze fell once more on the beautiful infant. "Provide the middle standard of nourishment. Once he is old enough to remember things, I will appoint a tutor to teach him music and the harp."
After a brief, somewhat sardonic pause, he continued, "Since he has a face surpassing even Cersei's and Jaime's, let him learn something fit for display. Perhaps he can entertain guests at banquets one day."
He slightly reined in his emotions. "Even... two Lannister cockroaches must have some value, even if it is pushing dung!"
How ruthless... Leon thought.
At the other end of the long table, Tyrion wailed, his cries filled with primal rage and unwillingness.
Leon did not cry. He was thinking. Tywin's chain of logic was perfectly clear: he loved Joanna-Joanna died giving birth to us-he hated us-but House Lannister had to exploit every resource.
So the ugly one was allowed to read; perhaps his brain would prove adequate. The beautiful one would learn to play, serving as an ornament that provided emotional gratification.
Both were tools. Only their uses differed.
I accept...
Because in this world where power reigns supreme, I truly am only a tool. An infant-what else can I be besides a symbol, a pawn, an exhibit?
But a tool can become sharp, become irreplaceable, and, while being used, quietly change the hand wielding the blade.
When the wet nurse picked Leon up to leave, he took one last look at Tywin. He stood beside the window with his back to everyone, his glacier-like figure utterly motionless.
Very well. I'll play this role until I no longer need to... Leon turned his head.
The room at the top of the west tower where he was settled had been a favorite place of his mother's while she lived. It faced south, with light all day. His silk swaddling was soft, and pine logs in the fireplace drove away the damp chill.
His treatment was of the "middle standard," worse than some, better than others.
The first days were relatively hard to endure. Hunger, drowsiness, and excretion plagued him...
His wet nurse, Thea Marbrand, was a quiet young woman with rough hands. He did not know whether that was because she had studied swordsmanship since childhood.
When she fed Leon, her movements were gentle to the point of reverence, but her eyes were often red. Sometimes, as Thea looked at him, she would suddenly turn her face away, her shoulders trembling faintly.
She's crying... why? The answer was revealed one night a few days later.
The wind was fierce that day, and the sea outside Casterly Rock roared. After feeding Leon, she did not leave immediately. Instead, she carried him to the window and gazed out into the pitch-black curtain of rain.
"Gawen," Thea said softly, her voice as broken as leaves torn apart by the wind. "I fed him four times today. He's very quiet. He hardly cries."
She was speaking to her dead husband. "His eyes... are purple, like her ladyship's, but paler, like amethyst frozen in winter."
She paused for so long that Leon thought she would say no more. "Maester Loomis said the lord intends to train him as a musician, to play the harp at banquets."
Her voice sank, almost drowned out by the rain. "Gawen, if you were still alive, what would you say? Would you tell me to stay away from the Lannisters? Or... to take good care of this child?"
There was no answer in the room, only the endless sound of rain.
She returned to the cradle and gently laid Leon inside. Her fingers brushed his cheek, their tips rough but exceptionally warm.
"No matter what," she whispered, more as though swearing an oath to herself, "I will protect you, as far as I am able."
At that moment, something deep inside Leon loosened a little. Later, he pieced together her story.
Thea Marbrand, eighteen, wife of the Westerlands knight Gawen Marbrand.
Three months earlier, Gawen had fallen fighting the Ironborn on Fair Isle. When the terrible news arrived, Thea had been five months pregnant, and overwhelming grief had caused her to miscarry.
She had lost her husband, lost her child, and had nothing left. Maester Creylen pitied her, and knowing she still had milk, recruited her to serve as a wet nurse in the castle.
A woman whose heart had died was best suited to nursing an "unwanted" infant.
What an ironic overlap. They had both lost something vital.
Now she had been assigned to nurse a child called a "curse," and Leon, this "curse," was being nourished by a woman who had lost everything.
Leon's ability awakened gradually. At first, it was only a vague "feeling." The change came when he was almost a year old.
One afternoon, sunlight slanted into the room. Thea sat by the window holding Leon, somewhat distracted, her gaze drifting into the distance.
Leon looked at her, focusing intently... and then he saw colors.
A faint, almost transparent halo enveloped her body. It was a melancholy blue, flowing slowly and rippling slightly with her breathing.
Leon blinked, thinking his vision had blurred. But when he opened his eyes again, the halo remained. Stranger still, fragments of text began appearing within it, like fallen leaves floating on water.
Gawen... today should have been your Name Day...
The baby... if the baby were still here, it would be crawling by now...
Blood... so much blood...
Leon... at least I still have him... I must protect him...
The words came in fragments, flickering uncertainly.
Only then did he understand. He could see emotions! He could glimpse surface thoughts! What ability was this? Was it something like a Greenseer's prophetic powers in this low-magic world?
He tried turning his "sight" toward the maid who had just entered. Her halo was a numb gray threaded with the dark red of irritation. My legs hurt so much... I'll have to stand watch tonight too... This room is so cold...
As she approached, Leon caught a faint trace of alcohol. Within her halo appeared, I drank too much with Harry last night... he tore open my...
Leon hurriedly averted his "sight," feeling slightly dizzy, as though he had strained his eyes. This ability required concentration and consumed mental energy.
Day after day passed, but his body grew extremely slowly. This was another expression of his dwarfism genes.
His proportions were so perfect they seemed almost calculated, but he was only half the size of children his age. Thea had once secretly measured him with a soft tape, then hidden it away with reddened eyes.
But his mental power grew rapidly. He began systematically organizing the lingering memories of his previous life. Those fragments concerning A Song of Ice and Fire were like scattered puzzle pieces. He picked them up one by one, trying to piece together the outline of this world.
275 AC. That was the current year.
And Leon's existence had already changed small things. His mother had suffered a few minutes longer. His father had one more object of hatred.
Tyrion had a "beautiful" counterpart, rather than bearing all the ugliness alone.
But what about the major events? The butterfly's wings had already begun to beat, but a hurricane needed time to form. He needed to be ready before then. He needed to understand the rules.
Just as, not long before, Thea had carried Leon along the corridor, teaching him to recognize the coats of arms on the tapestries while he listened to the family stories she told in a low voice.
How Lann the Clever had used trickery to wrest Casterly Rock from House Casterly.
How Lord Loren had negotiated with Aegon the Conqueror to preserve the Westerlands.
How the weakness of his grandfather, Tytos, the "Laughing Lion," had brought shame upon the family.
"But your father changed all that," Thea said, her tone complicated. "He made House Lannister feared again."
Of course Leon knew. The symphony that had resounded across the world in his previous life... "The Rains of Castamere."
Tywin Lannister's central logic: strength brought awe, awe brought obedience. Then he, too, needed to acquire strength-at least some form of strength Tywin acknowledged.
Music and the harp? Very well, I'll learn, Leon thought. And I'll learn better than anyone expects. Then he would quietly learn other things.
That decisive morning came shortly after his second birthday. While feeding him, Thea suddenly looked at him. "Young master, do you know... I feel as though you understand everything I say."
Leon raised his pale purple eyes to look at her. Her halo was a soft, pale gold, like morning light, edged with a trace of tentative light green.
"I know it's impossible," she said even more softly, as though sharing a dangerous secret. "You're only two. But I just feel... you're no ordinary child. Young master, you're not a curse! You're... a gift... a gift Lady Joanna left to this world."
When she finished, her face flushed, as though she had said something outrageously treasonous that would bring bloody punishment upon her tongue.
Leon looked into her brown eyes and saw fear, tenderness, and a sincerity that held nothing back.
He reached out, pressed his small palm to her cheek, and then spoke in a clear, steady voice utterly unlike that of a two-year-old:
"Thea, thank you."
She froze.
Her halo burst outward in an instant, turning pure, dazzling silver-white, like a snowfield beneath the midday sun.
He continued, enduring the weariness that surged up so swiftly it almost dragged him into darkness:
"You are my mother."
Thea's tears came without warning. Large drops rolled down and fell onto Leon's swaddling.
She hugged him tightly, her arms trembling with the force, as though she wanted to press Leon into her very flesh and blood.
"My child..." she choked out, her voice breaking beyond coherence...
In that almost suffocating embrace, amid the scent of milk, tears, and desperate love, Leon arrived at two crucial realizations.
First, he had formed his first genuine human bond. Thea was not a tool. She was family, a protector.
This emotion was a complex variable that might bring risks, but it also drew him back from pure calculation toward a little human warmth.
Second, through a profound emotional bond, his ability could reach unprecedented intensity.
Weariness swept over him, and Leon sank into darkness in Thea's arms. But before his consciousness faded, one last thought arose...
I, Leon Lannister, the variable that should never have existed, the curse defined as an "elf," have begun writing my own algorithm for survival.
Survival is the first step.
Only then comes change.