an oc-centric fic-verse | canon divergence, forbidden love, slow burn | cross-posted on ao3 and wattpad | containing mature themes (smut, major character death, graphic depictions of violence)
oc masterlists: main characters | side characters | historical | house brightflame (au)
reading order: part one | part two | part three (tba)
links: ao3 | wattpad | pinterest | spotify
𝐤𝐞𝐲: completed ✔ on-going ⟳ | general 🌱 teen 🌻 mature 🍂 explicit 🍄
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲
book one: meet me in the dark, kiss me in the moonlight ✔ 🌻
book two: a heart so golden, a sun so bright ✔ 🍂
book three: house of lies, city of blood ✔ 🍄
book four: wicked are these woods, haunted is this memory ⟳ 🍄
𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞
faithful (hotd; criston cole x masc!oc) ✔ 🍂
a funny thing happened on the way to ashford (akotsk; poly!kingsguard x fem!oc) ✔ 🍄
𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬
a sacred duty (time travel au, cerelle/ormund hightower) ⟳ 🍂
as if struck by lightning (mating bond au, cerelle/benjiamin) ✔ 🍄
dulled senses (omegaverse, cerelle/balon) ✔ 🍄
he screams, sometimes (modern, cerelle/henrix) ✔ 🍂
in the shadow of her willow (hades and persephone, jon/cerelle) ⟳ 🌻
modern!holiday au (jon/cerelle) ⟳ 🍄
pour it in a cup (post!season 8, arranged marriage, jon/cerelle) ✔ 🍂
redder the cloak (little red riding hood au, jon/cerelle) ✔ 🍄
sapphire steel (rhaegar won the trident, jon/cerelle) ⟳ 🍄
the root of all evil (masc!cerelle/balon swann) ⟳ 🍄
𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬
asoiaf x reader masterlist
asoiaf oc week 2025
oc intro series | fanfic moodboard series | houses of westeros series
summary: she thought it had become bearable
word count: 4.025
warnings: sexual assault, threats of rape
tag list: @nightcat101 @the-maesters-chronicles
masterlist
previous | next
Ramsay’s words were empty threats. No matter how much vitriol he spit at her, how often he would hold his knife against her throat or let it trace the shape of her body, he was never able to go through with any of it. She knew, of course, that his father was to thank for this small mercy, but she would take what was offered.
The woman that cared for her eye - what was left of it, anyways - whispered to her of the fights that had ensued after the night she had lost it. Of the lord reprimanding his bastard for harming her when she was so invaluable to them, of losing a potential bargaining chip, of having to learn to hold himself back. Some whispered, she said, that the lord hoped for his wife to be carrying a son, so that he would have a proper heir soon.
“I didn’t know you were a bastard,” she told Ramsay when he visited her the following sunset. She smiled. “Though it explains a lot.”
Whether he liked or enjoyed her smile seemed to change on a whim. Some days he actively appeared to want to encourage her to show it, other days he contemplated carving it off her face. Today was the latter of such days. It didn’t take a maester to figure out why he was so upset at it.
“I am wanted.” The knife he held to her good eye was curved, its edges surprisingly dull. “My father chose me as his heir because I have earned being such. I alone am worth more than a thousand of your golden-haired bitch brothers.”
She wished to dream of Jon again, as she had that first night trapped in this tower, yet the gods did not will it so. Perhaps they feared him finding out about her situation, for she knew he would come and save her. So close to Castle Black, held within his childhood home, screaming for help…
He would have come. If only he had known.
Cerelle didn’t dwell long on those thoughts, for they reminded her of the people that had hopefully already arrived there - Sansa, Karina, Brienne, and…
Crone, Mother, everyone willing to listen. Tell me he is safe. One sign would be enough. I cannot have failed him as well.
For if she had, what point was there left to surviving?
At least she knew for certain Starlight and the mysterious man from the kennels had made it to safety. Ramsay had been so livid whenever she had even implied his existence, and as long as that continued, they had not returned into the Boltons’ hold.
Much like every man before him, Ramsay seemed obsessed with her hair for reasons she was still unable to fully explain. Her mother had the same curls - more beautiful ones, even, for she knew how to take care of them - yet Cerelle had never heard anyone remark on their glow, their intrigue, their-
“Why do you tie them up?” He held her braid between his fingers, let the strands run through them loosely before pulling at them once more. “You’ll never make it out of here anyway.”
His shoulder pressed against hers, and she couldn’t help note that he had intentionally sat down on her left side - the one with her working eye, to ensure she could never truly ignore him. At least the wall at her back provided stability.
“Keeps it cleaner.”
The truth was that she of course wished and planned to flee, but for that her entire body needed to keep itself poised and prepared at all points of the day. Were she to open her hair to alleviate the headache - marginally better now that the braid hung down her back and was not wound tightly around her head - her escape would turn ever more difficult.
Ramsay laughed and pressed her braid to his nose. “If you swore to obey, I would allow you into my chambers to clean it properly.”
She turned her head to look him in the eyes. “I swear to obey.”
He laughed louder, moving her hair downward and to his mouth in an action that could be mistaken for a kiss. “Nice try, princess.”
“You can cut it off if you like it so much.”
Perhaps a younger version of herself, one that had never set foot in Winterfell and still clung so tightly to the shield of the Paladin, would have rather died than letting this happen. But if it were the thing to guarantee her freedom…
“A tempting offer.” His hand wandered up her braid and towards her head, settling behind her ear to wrap the loose strands found there around his fingers. “But their beauty would fade without the real price attached to it.”
“You consider me a price?”
“An unwed heir to the Iron Throne? The Targaryens have fought wars over less.”
There was neither rhyme nor reason to the frequency of his visits. Some occasions she was left alone for days on end, her sole companions the wind whipping through the tower at dark and the silence taking ahold of her during daylight. Then he came repeatedly, leaving and returning within heartbeats of each other. Always keeping her on edge, never permitting her a moment of peace.
She was glad her previous moonblood had only happened once they had been on the journey north. Somehow more painful and bloody than all the ones she’d had before - and that was saying something - but it at least allowed her this small relief. Even despite the bleeding, she didn’t know how she would have endured Ramsay’s touch were the pain in her stomach be added to the one in her head.
The white band of silk that held her braid together was all the sentimentality she afforded herself in this tower. Cerelle would never waste her wish on merely getting out, but there still remained a strange sense of comfort about knowing Florian was but a whispered word away.
If she had stayed with him, would all this have been prevented?
Well, no good pondering on what would have been. Only fools yearned for the past. If she wished to ever leave this tower, she would have to do so herself.
Killing Ramsay when he came to visit her was out of the question. His strength far exceeded hers - enough to break her neck while barely reacting, if he so chose - meaning if she ever made the slightest inclination she intended to go after his dagger or, gods forbid, intended to flee down the ladder while it stood, her blood would join that of the countless innocents screaming within these stones.
The hole in the ground through which he came to her was not an option, either. It laid too far off from the wall, leaving her no chance to climb down as she has so often back at home.
On the ground waited two soldiers who would not hesitate to kill her should she suddenly appear before them.
Leaving her only one path - Ramsay had to take her away willingly.
“Stag for your thoughts?”
“I miss home.”
He chuckled, inadvertently tugging at her hair as he played mindlessly with it. She did not see him - gaze directed at the ceiling - but the warmth of his presence was enough to send her heart racing. In recent visits he had begun mirroring her positions for whatever reason, and this was no exception - she laid on the ground, he laid in the opposite direction, only their heads remaining beside each other.
“I think I would like to see King’s Landing some day. I have heard the most vile things about your city.”
I was not talking about King’s Landing.
“My Kingsguard will love to meet you if you ever make it.”
His laughter had become bearable, his touch permissible. All of him had, after a while.
“I should have known a pretty thing like you has a knight in shining armour to hide behind. Tell me, do you love him like Naerys loved her Aemon?”
“I did not take you for a romantic.”
His hand cupped her cheek, tracing the scar underneath her eye. “You are deflecting.” Scalding-hot breath hit her skin. “What is he like, your knight?”
She had told on herself. No matter how good she pretended to be at reading his mood, he always had her beaten. Now he was in danger, now he was an obstacle, now he would be-
“Criston Cole.” She whispered the name.
“I have no idea who that is.”
“And you dare lecture me on history?”
The longer he stayed away, the more vivid the nightmares became. There was nothing she could do to stop them, nothing preventing them from coming, for the longer she denied herself sleep, the stronger they slammed back into her.
There was fire, so much fire. It tore into her flesh like the nails she had slammed into her bed posts, ripped at her hair like the thorns of her sister’s rose bushes, ate away at her eyes as if there was anything left to feast on to begin with. Somewhere in between the sept crashing down upon her, the screams began.
They were all here; Benjiamin and Tomas and Helena and Sallydance and Henrix and Jynessa and Catelyn and Jurek and Alesander and Braavos and Lucion-
She couldn’t stop them, she- They grabbed her wrists and ankles and ripped her down and forward and made her stumble and refused to let her run- She needed to run, all she had to do was-
“Help!”
No, no- It couldn’t it-
“Please!”
He had to stay away it wasn’t possible-
“Save me!”
“What have you seen, little princess? What terror have the gods shown you?”
She held on tightly to her necklace, pressing it against her body, pressing her body against the wall, out of breath, heart racing, staring at him with the fear she had hidden for so long.
He could not have her necklace, no one could! It was hers. She had been given it by the one person who- who-
“Why won’t you leave me alone? Just let me go.”
Ramsay simply smiled.
It was the only time she had ever shed tears in his presence, and even now, so many nights later, she still cursed herself for it. Crying showed weakness, it showed instability, it showed she did not wish to be taken seriously. Princesses did not cry - especially not ones that were also a…
No, she was no knight. Helena had made sure she’d learned that lesson once and for all.
Ramsay pressed the flat of the dagger against her chest. The thick black tunica that had previously been apart of the Lannister armour she had worn above it thankfully protected her from much of the sensation.
“I should sharpen this thing again soon,” he said almost absentmindedly. “Though it’s not as bad as when I first took it from you. Truly, how were you ever able to defend yourself with a dull thing like that?”
By never using it in a fight.
“It’s an old thing. It was to be expected.”
“I would have assumed a princess would long for something more… bejewelled?”
The dagger had never truly been hers. Maria had given it to her with the justification that it was barely usable anymore anyways, and that she would not mourn its absence. Cerelle had then thrown it at the target at Benjiamin’s tourney, expecting never to see it again - until Henrix had shown up in her chambers and attempted to kill her with it. Why she took it from his corpse she could not explain.
Now Ramsay had it, and had used it to torture Lucion with. The source of her greatest triumph turned into the source of her greatest shame.
“The stones would fall off in the first fight,” she answered his previous question. “Bit of a waste.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
All this time, she had lost sight of the one flaw in her manipulations. Not that they worked too well, or that they did not work at all; not that Ramsay learned the wrong lesson from her attention, not that she would eventually fall for her own words, and not that he would kill her as soon as she had become too agreeable.
No, the one thing she had overlooked was the one thing that ended up coming true - had she never debased herself to please him, the outcome would have been exactly the same.
One night, after she had felt two tugs around her heart she refused to think about, he arrived with his face covered in blood. There was a dagger in his hand, soaked in the red fluid as well, yet he dropped it mindlessly as a smile began to spread on his lips. Then, he pounced.
She tried to scramble away yet he had taken her by such surprise, a hurried charge not at all fitting to his actions during his previous visits, there was little she could do. He was on top of her the next moment, hands circling around her wrists and slamming them into the ground, the full weight of his body on hers leaving her with no space to move.
“He’s dead.” His breath so close to her mouth would have made her vomit had she been capable of it. “He’s dead, and he can’t keep us apart any longer.”
It took her a moment to figure out the meaning behind his words. “You killed your father.”
“Long overdue, if you ask me.” One of his hands began moving down her body and… pawing at it. “Now you can be mine.”
He forced her legs apart with one of his and slotted himself between them, thrusting forward sharply and-
She fought. Kicked and punched and clawed and bit and screamed until her throat went raw. Ramsay was so terribly heavy and so awfully strong, it took almost all her own power to simply wrangle one of her hands free from his hold to jab at his throat, and even then he only almost went tumbling back. Only when she buried her teeth into his skin - she didn’t even know where - was she able to slip out from under him and stumble away.
Her breath was heavy, her lungs burned. She spit, but the taste of his blood refused to leave her tongue, sticking onto every part of her mouth. He laughed.
“Oh, how wonderful.” He wiped at the wound on his jaw - had she done that? - and licked up whatever blood he had collected. “It seems I have finally found what makes the little princess react.”
React? Was that all these past few weeks had been about for him? To get a reaction out of her?
He jumped, she fled.
“There’s nowhere you can go.” He crashed into her back, throwing them both to the ground. “You’re mine.” He had his nose buried in her hair, and took a deep breath. “I’ll never let anyone else have you.” His hand found its way towards her waist, and began tugging her shirt upwards. He groaned. “I’ve wanted to do this since the moment you were thrown before my feet in the Great Hall.”
Her struggle only seemed to hurt herself; she tried to rip, to tear, to dislocate anything, no matter who it belonged to, but all it did was make blood trickle across her forehead and down her cheek. And when she tried to bury her elbow into his stomach, into the wound she had left there weeks ago, he closed his hand around her throat, and pressed.
Moonlight. The cold. The bodies-
“M’lord.”
A sudden burst of air entered her lungs. She gasped, coughed, retched, tried to fall forward but Ramsay’s hands were still tight around her body.
“What?” he shouted directly beside her ear.
“There is someone at the gates wishing to speak to you. Says he has news of the Stark boy.”
“Tell him to wait-”
“He’s wounded. Massive claw marks. Might not make it very long.”
Moments passed, stretched into eternity. Her heart pounded in her throat, blocking the air, preventing her head from regaining focus. It was all blurred - the wall, the floor, the hand on her chest, the one on her stomach, the breath against her hair, the tug around her heart, the thing pressing against her back.
Teeth grazed her ear. “I’ll be back before you know it, little princess. Don’t try to miss me too much.”
Then he was gone, and she crashed forward into the ground.
How long she laid there she couldn’t say. All she knew were the jagged stones burying themselves into her flesh, the wind brushing over her newly-exposed skin, and the shivering that refused to go away.
“Princess Cerelle?” The voice was soft, barely above a whisper, and belonging to a man she didn’t know. “I’ve come to help you escape.”
Her eyes met those of the soldier still standing on the ladder, the lower half of his body hidden by the stones making up the floor, a hand stretched out toward her. The look on his face was… strange. Equal parts conviction, fear, and anger.
“Quick! Before he returns.”
Her body moved before her mind had had time to fully grasp his words and staggered towards him. The climb down the ladder was shaky and hurried and at least one part of herself had retained enough sense of mind to fear the aching wood breaking and letting both of them crash to the ground far beneath. The soldier took her hand the moment they touched the floor, unknowing to the way her chest was being torn apart, and began dragging her after him. They ran down hallways and corridors, stopped, let men pass, continued on. Then shouts began echoing.
“Shit,” the soldier mumbled. “Stupid, stupid Raoul.”
They continued, yet just as they were running down a narrow staircase, noises sounded from downward - footsteps, shouts, the rattling of armour.
The soldier drew his sword and pushed her behind him. “Run back up, I’ll cover you!” He turned toward her for a moment. “First door out, straight ahead, down one flight on the first stairs you see, over the battlements, down the stairs. The door straight ahead will lead you out. And whatever you do, do not trust anyone. Everyone is your enemy, no matter what they say. Just get out!” With that, he went to confront the approaching horde.
She couldn’t remember any of his words, but prayed to whatever god she could think of that at least her body had retained the commands. Up, through a door, down an endless seeming corridor freed of anything, down another flight of stairs - her legs burned, her lungs burned, she still felt Ramsay’s grip on her throat and arms and bare skin-
“Leaving so soon?”
There was a wall against her back and a body against her front, and the burning and scraping against her skin felt so terribly familiar.
“Let me go!”
But there was no getting out of Ramsay’s hold; not with the way her mind still refused to obey, and not with the weakness that had settled upon her when she had first set foot within this castle.
“Actually,” he purred, “your little attempted rebellion is quite useful.” And with that, he threw her body over his shoulder.
He had set a brisk pace, stopping and running in seemingly random patterns, the upside-down world rushing by so terribly quickly, yet it was not as if Cerelle would have had much knowledge of her surroundings either way. This place was as foreign to her as the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai and even the Lands of Always Winter.
She was thrown to the ground with a strange sense of restraint she was only able to explain once she saw where he had taken her.
Thick snowflakes fell heavily all around them, having already covered the ground in an almost-undisturbed blanket, and cloaking the trees surrounding them on all sides in a hazy fog. There were pines and firs and dark red foliage peeking out from between them. A deep, black pond laid behind her and to her right…
A weirwood.
Just as she set herself to run, two pairs of hands took ahold of her body and forced her back into the snow.
“Careful with her.” Ramsay knelt before her, mirroring her, once again. His smile could have almost been described as giddy. “This is a holy place, after all.”
The men that restrained her were unfamiliar to her; dressed in poor leather and linens, covered in blood and soot and reeking of death. They held her upright, with her shoulders pulled back and her throat bared for Ramsay to do with as he pleased. All throughout, her heart was being torn towards the castle.
What was happening?
The grip around her right arm slackened enough for Ramsay to take ahold of her hand and let the blade of a dagger - her dagger - glide across her thumb. She hissed as her blood touched the open air, but quickly quietened in shock and confusion as he forced her bleeding finger to run over his face - from his forehead all the way down to his chin, leaving a deep red line in its wake. Then he brought her thumb to his mouth and began drinking up the blood still spilling.
A sacrifice. He wishes to make of me a sacrifice to protect himself from-
The dagger was pressed into her hand, and he repeated all his previous motions - just mirrored. The blood froze almost immediately as it was wiped across her skin, saving her from the sticky sensation that would have followed otherwise. When he pressed his finger to her lips, she kept them sealed shut.
He pulled his mouth into a mocking frown. “Oh, you sweet thing. You can either do as I say right now, or I will let my friends here rape you after I am done with you. Your choice.”
In his blood, she thought she tasted memories of Lucion.
Ramsay forced her hands to clasp together, pressing her palms against each other with his own, and closed his eyes. “Now we pray.”
For what?
“I should have expected nothing else.”
Her head whipped around at the all-too familiar voice. It could not-
Robb Stark stood ahead of them in the godswood. There was blood on him, his sword, his direwolf, the dozen men surrounding him. His crown had lost some of its prongs, the wolf head at its front half-broken off. A strange smile marred his features.
Fingers laid themselves around Cerelle’s chin to turn her head back, and then there were lips on hers. So short was the touch she had barely had time to grasp what it could have meant; all she knew was the phantom-feeling of vomit rising up her throat, as well as Ramsay’s wide grin.
“There. Now your family is my family.”
And suddenly, it all fell into place. The guard speaking of the Stark boy and his insistence of Ramsay coming with him immediately. The other guard dragging her out of the tower, his curses at his situation and some unknown other, his words about trusting no one and simply getting out. Ramsay seeming unusually happy she had escaped her cell. Him dragging her before a heart tree while all around Winterfell, people died.
The soldiers had meant to save her from both Ramsay and Robb.
Winterfell was being reconquered by House Stark.
Ramsay had forced her to marry him to force her family to protect him from Robb-
The world seemed to stop for a moment as that last realization crashed into her.
“Seize Lord and Lady Bolton,” Robb’s voice called out through the snow. “This is as good a place as any to execute them.”
Ramsay had forced her to marry him. She was now his wife.
No! No, it- It had supposed to have been Jon! Jon! Jon should have been kneeling before her-
Lady Bolton.
Ramsay drew back from her, letting his hands fall from her face, and picked up the dagger he had let fall. He smiled at her. “This is the part where you run.”
✶⋆.˚ 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐀; the bastard daughter of cerelle, queen alicent hightower's handmaiden and most trusted companion. calya's mother has refused to speak on the identity of her father, yet few fail to notice the traits the young girl shares with the queen's sworn shield, ser criston cole. it helps little that calya is doted upon not just by her mother, but the queen and the kingsguard as well...
true-born!loreon is honestly the closest parallel to canon!cerelle there is... like true-born!cerelle and twincest!loreon are still her (bc they are. y'know. the same character) but only true-born!loreon shares her experiences to this extent
✶⋆.˚ 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐎𝐍; sole true-born child of robert baratheon and cersei lannister. said to have been a melancholy child that now clings to his faith and his knighthood - one earned at just four-and-ten by a lowly hedge knight in the streets of flea bottom. mysteriously disappeared shortly before the death of jon arryn.
Hey so I read your Cerelle x Reader oneshot and I'm SQUEALING RIGHT NOW
HEHE I'M GLAD 🫶🙂↕️
the fun thing about this one shot is that i wrote it in a way to keep it canon within stars above. so you can view this as one of the many (untold) adventures of the golden paladin
(also writing cerelle as the paladin from someone else's pov is like, my favourite thing ever. fairytale hero frfr)
oh it's nothing just thinking about this gorgeous illustration i got at a medieval market yesterday that is LITERALLY cerelle in book 2 chapter 4 as she experiences rain for the first time since she was a child
(psst: art is by norman hothum, his website is here)
