As long as he remembers, and yet he thinks his work unpolished and best hidden in his private notebook, where none may ever partake in it. His sheepish smile is contagious, however, and her own lips quirk upward when he catches himself before the monologue can get a hold of him properly. The waitress nearly startles her when she comes to take her order, and it is clear that Cersei gave the question no thought at all from the carelessness with which she points at a random drink from the coffee menu.

She looks ready to pose another question, or offer a gently teasing remark, even. Yet he goes on, and the time for a playful teasing is past them as quickly as it had come, and he cannot know his words would strike home – but they do. It is a waste in her father's eyes, any interest in a thing that could be fiction, and while she frequently rejoiced when this struck Tyrion, it did affect any natural inclination she might have had toward it. And that was ever present, from when she listened intently to the songs Rhaegar Targaryen wrote (and wept at the most touching parts when she was but a girl) to the present, where all must serve a purpose, and purpose is measured in numbers.

Oh, Tywin Lannister values reading, and his older, dyslexic son is a personal curse to him by his own estimation, but there is a difference between hard science and expressive arts, isn't there? "We had fireplaces at home. They brightened it up nice enough." An attempt at a joke.