ORMUND HIGHTOWER x Targaryen Princess (ward) ───
Ormund’s character “headcanons”
Warnings: age gap (15/20years difference), corruption kink, sexual content, idk dude just mdni :)
Author’s note: If you already know me from wp AO3 or TikTok, then you know I can’t stop yapping about this man, like it’s genuinely concerning at this point. So of course I’ve doubled down by starting a whole new fic about him! Since your girl loves deep character work (canon or otherwise) and plenty of smut, here’s my introduction to Lord Slaytower and the messy moral issues he has with his young ward (and their kinks and way of having sex until they can really have sex and all those things you can expect from me). The princess’s name isn’t mentioned in this piece but it’s meant to be Daena once I publish the story. Major spoilers for their plot ahead as always with me. Anyway, enjoy! Because I certainly do every single time I write about him :))
Ormund Hightower, who is raised as the undisputed golden boy of one of Westeros' wealthiest houses, acutely aware of his position from a young age (which, as everyone knows, always ends up with one entitled little boy growing into one deeply fucked up man)
Ormund Hightower, who enjoys above all the liberties that come with not yet being lord, spending his youth testing the limits of his privilege (being those freedoms the ones that shape the clever, arrogant, and prideful man he will one day become)
Ormund Hightower, who develops an unshakable belief in his own superiority and destiny, holding it as dearly as the Faith itself. Who comes to believe that men like him are tested more harshly by the Gods and rewarded twice over for their devotion and restraint.
Same conviction that leads him to believe that the Seven will always allow him to toy with the edges of sin more freely than lesser men, twisting his sense of righteousness into something self-serving (and leaving him forever caught between crushing guilt and an unwavering conviction that he had somehow earned the right to sin a little)
Ormund Hightower, who is raised alongside his cousin Gwayne in something close to brotherhood.
Left in Oldtown from a young age, motherless and under Hobert's care, Gwayne is both Ormund's closest friend and the boy forever destined to stand in his shadow. Even if their affection is genuine, so too is the cruelty that often flourishes between boys raised together, where one child's ego is too often built at the expense of the other's.
Ormund Hightower, who is in his twenties when the Queen's children are entrusted to Oldtown, and who discovers for the first time what it means to be displaced. The Targaryen twins eclipse him, his infant son and heir, and everyone else in Lord Hobert's eyes.
Oh to be jealous of two kids of only eight years old—kids with the blood of Old Valyria, a dragon of their own, and the fascination of a city and a father that have always belonged entirely to him.
Ormund Hightower, clever enough to quickly understand that the twins are the future of his House as much as his own blood was (and his future burden political asset, too). Who makes certain to win the young prince's trust and keep him close (only to find himself competing with their uncle Gwayne, whose warmth and charm the children seemed to prefer from the very beginning)
Ormund Hightower, who is the first to oppose Rhaenyra and Alicent's pact to betroth the young princess to Rhaenyra's eldest son, provoking his first clash with his father. Who defended the honor of the girl of twelve, insisting she could never be handed to a bastard whose claim to the Iron Throne was both unlawful and an affront to the Seven (because that birthright belonged by every law to her older brother) Who failed, but at least tried.
Ormund Hightower, who inherits his father's titles when the twins are five and ten, and from that day forward ensures the septas keep a sharper eye on the princess. Who insists upon her education and gives her a place as cupbearer in his council, (determined that if she is to be handed to the enemy, she will go prepared to survive Dragonstone)
Who feeds Daeron the belief that the Blacks (and his childhood bestfriend among them) mean to steal his sister.
Who never allows the princess to grow comfortable with the notion of one day becoming queen, making sure she never forgets who is the rightful heir to her father's throne.
Lord Hightower, who finds in the princess’s teenage years the first challenge to his long standing arrogance and prideful certainty.
Because she is neither easily impressed by his status nor intimidated by his authority. Her Targaryen blood mixed with her Hightower pride make her maddeningly resistant to his guidance whenever she chooses to believe otherwise (sometimes it is conviction, other times she simply delights in proving that the Lord of Oldtown can be baited into losing his temper)
Lord Hightower, who finds himself strangely delighted by it.
Lord Hightower, who soon convinces himself that playing house with his sixteen year old ward is perfectly normal and never consideres the long term consequences.
After all, what could possibly be inappropriate about his young ward befriending his children? What is wrong with letting her run his household when she does it so capably? Why should long walks filled with clever conversation be seen as anything but guardianship? Why would staying up until the hour of the owl playing cyvasse be considered strange? Why would their domesticity be wrong, when it feels so natural and comfortable for both? Why remarry, after all, when he already has the princess for himself?
Lord Hightower, who in his thirties comes to the realization that he is not just being outwitted, but deliberately toyed with by that girl of scarcely eight and ten (who slowly finds out her favorite game is turning debates into spirited arguments, asking "why" with relentless feigned innocence until his patience wears thin, and playing the foolish maiden while slipping in questions she knows will sour his temper for the rest of the day)
"Do you truly believe Prince Jacaerys would make such an unsuitable husband, my lord? I confess, I rather think I shall make an excellent Queen. Better, mayhaps, than my brother would ever make a King."
Who would have thought, Lord Hightower, that your wifeward would start to think like a wife in other senses, after years of treating her as such in all but the bed.
Who would have thought that your wardwife, with all her little issues, would misinterpret the boundaries you had long since forgotten yourself, and start giving you fuck me eyes across the Council Chamber, because she so desperately needs you to fuck her, Lord Hightower!
Lord Hightower, who occasionally slips and call her "girl" whenever she pushes him one argument too far, only to immediately correct himself to "princess" (because manners, unlike his patience, were not to be abandoned)
Who finds himself in a daily struggle between propriety, the urge to remind her who holds authority in the room, and an even stronger determination not to reward her insolence with the satisfaction of seeing him lose his temper (a man used to commanding the greatest respect wherever he stood should never have found himself praying so often for the Warrior's patience)
Lord Hightower, who soon finds himself uncomfortably aware of the beauty and cunning mind parading through his halls. Who rediscovers the meaning of true restraint when his entitled instincts from youth whispers that what is under his protection is, technically, his (who added restraint and mercy to his prayers, asking the Warrior for too much this time)
Lord Hightower, who starts begging nightly for strength, confessing vague "impure thoughts" about someone he has no right to imagine in such ways.
Lord Hightower, who begins repenting through fasting and grows more short-tempered
Nothing tests a man’s faith and spirits like the need to fuck the one person he is honor bound to protect. No one would have blamed him for taking himself in hand in the privacy of his chambers to relieve that torture, but Ormund Hightower blamed himself harshly, every day.
Lord Hightower, who begins correcting Prince Daeron whenever the boy calls him "uncle" in front of his sister.
He was not their uncle, he was their lord, their mother's cousin at most (a fascinating hill to die on for a man who loudly condemns incest and the Targaryens' customs, and who finds himself determined to believe that his desires somehow exist outside those same abominations)
Lord Hightower, who for all his pretense of being a good man, a pious man, and an honorable one, is simply a freak and a pervert who has spent years telling himself it is not incest or grooming if he never lays a hand on the girl (only to end up knuckles deep inside her three days before her wedding)
Lord Hightower, who fingerfucks the princess in his charge to “ease her fears of the marital bed” (all while telling himself that that is still noble somehow)
Lord Hightower, who punishes her attitude by edging her, overstimulating her until she is shaking and sobbing, delighting in every plea that leaves her lips.
Lord Hightower, who may not have been strong enough to keep from touching her, but still possesses enough restraint not to take her maidenhead even as she begs him to (thank the Seven for how honourable he is. Fuck the Seven for it, actually)
Lord Hightower, who presses his forehead to hers and whispers “forgive me” against her lips as she keeps begging for him to claim her. Who will force her to kneel beside him in prayer for the sins they had just committed, keeping his aching cock untouched as some kind of repentance.
Lord Hightower, who will break again the very next day and teach the princess how to take a man into her mouth (feeding his corruption kink as she acts naive and submissive, and calls him “my lord” knowing what that does to him)
Lord Hightower, who always tells her “this is the last time” and “we must stop this madness” while she is on her knees beneath his desk during the day, sucking him with devotion.
Then he spends the nights on his knees in the sept, begging the Seven for forgiveness once again.
Lord Hightower, who becomes a nightmare to everyone around him the moment they tear his precious girl away to give her to a boy (a boy who will claim the maidenhead he has so kindly preserved)
Lord Hightower, who sees his prayers answered soon enough after that damned wedding (reaffirming to himself that perhaps the gods do not find his sins so terrible after all, if they so eagerly give her back to him)
Lord Hightower, who leads the greatest host of the Greens as the Dance erupts in full, only to end up fucking the King’s own sister in his command tent. Who delights in covering her mouth so her twin brother does not hear her cries (and because he comes harder when she bites down on his hand) Who adores the power play, the risk, and the thrill of his authority over her.
Lord Hightower, who knows the best way to end a long day on the march is taking care of his darling girl, still flushed and buzzing with adrenaline from dragonback. Who thanks her for her aid by dropping to his knees like a man possessed, devouring her until she shakes and cries out, then seizes what little energy she has left and makes her ride him slow and deep.
“You’ve been riding that beast of yours all day, my poor princess. You must be so, so tired. Let me take care of you, darling. You just have to sit on my cock and ride me gently, I’ll hold you and do the rest.”
afterward, they share a long bath together (“you still reek of dragon, wretched girl” “maybe you should stop fucking me before I wash, my lord”) then he holds her against his chest until she falls asleep, exhausted again.
Lord Hightower, who knows better than to risk it, who tries so hard to be responsible, often growling “not inside” right before he is about to come, only for her legs to lock around him or for her to giggle at the pathetic attempt, making him lose control completely and fill her anyway.
Lord Hightower, who can barely meet Daeron’s eyes anymore, knowing exactly what he is doing to the boy’s twin sister behind his back.
Lord Hightower, who keeps a piece of her favor tucked inside his armor during battles (a scrap of cloth always carrying her scent, his most precious token, kept close to his heart)
Lord Hightower, who falls in love harder than he has ever thought possible, and who decides that no sin, no god's wrath, and no man’s law will ever be worthy of loosing his true heaven.
summary: you're wed to ser gwayne hightower in one last desperate attempt to unite the realm; but when the war tears the two of you apart, you're taken prisoner by his cousin, lord ormund hightower, where the line between duty and desire begins to blur. (12k)
contents: targ!reader (no physical descriptions), love triangle, enemies to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, forbidden love, infidelity, canon divergence, cw for brief mentions of attempted assault and smut 18+ (MDNI): fem receiving oral, unprotected sex, ormund has a scent kink
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
i. DUTY & HONOR
Your last name was, perhaps, your greatest burden. It was the very walls of your prison; the unseen chain cinched perpetually around your throat. You had inherited the dragon’s blood, it seems, but not the dragon’s freedom — and when Rhaenyra’s fleet sailed across the Narrow Sea to wage war over a throne of swords, it forgot to take you with it. The only home you’d ever known was soon filled with ghosts donned in Hightower green and whispers of your leaving.
You were going to die here. That is a truth you learned long ago. Your only wish was that they’d hurry up and get it over with.
They gave you a husband instead.
Your marriage to Ser Gwayne Hightower was heralded as an act of wisdom, the proof that wounds carved by old grievances could yet be stitched together, with silk ribbons tied around the wrists and a few spoken vows declared before the Sept. It was to be the very bridge that united the green and black. But the bridge burned anyway, and left the two of you behind.
“They wed us to prevent a war that had already begun,” you’d scoffed, already deep into your cups at the feasting table, when Maester Orwyle called the fight to come inevitable.
“No…” Gwayne hummed from beside you, still perfectly temperate, though his blue eyes were heavy with a burden too old for a man of his years. “They wed us so that, when the histories of this moment are written, someone might say that they tried.”
You’d laughed then, loud enough to gain the attention of the rest of the courtiers at the long table — because Ser Gwayne was not entirely wrong, to be sure, but he was far too generous for his own good; generous enough to believe that the effort of your marriage actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.
Gwayne Hightower was a sensible man. He was not outwardly affectionate, maybe, but he was no less kind. There was no great love in your union — not like all the songs and fairytales insist, at least — but there was safety. Security. Stability. His presence often found you like the thick walls of an ancient keep, steadfast against the howling winds of a summer storm. You would find no certainty of your future in war, but being Gwayne’s wife meant, at the very least, that you were still alive today.
That unsaid assurance is perhaps a greater gift than any truly loving marriage could’ve been for you. And, perhaps, it was with that unsaid assurance that you came to admire him, without ever realizing you were doing so — always searching for his face in crowds, waiting every night for the familiar sound of his footsteps to walk outside your chamber doors, constantly watching him from a distance (which has become a most embarrassing habit of yours).
You find him now on the western balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay, where the moon climbs high over shimmering midnight waters. The salty breeze mixes with the scent of damp stone and dying fires from the lantern light glittering in the city below. Gwayne stands alone with his forearms propped on the pale stone balustrade, having exchanged his armor for a forest-green doublet embroidered with winding gold vines. The fading torchlights gild his silken auburn hair, stirred loose by the sea breeze.
You linger just beneath the archway, hidden in the place where the torchlight turns to shadow, studying the slope of his strong shoulders and how they rise and fall with each breath. He looks lonely; lonely enough for your chest to tighten with the want to close the distance between you and slip in beside him. But your feet refuse to move. And whatever affection was warming in your chest before pierces through you like a sword.
“You’re staring.” The suddenness of his voice startles you.
“…You’re supposed to be watching the sea,” you respond, half-shy. He doesn’t look back at you when you emerge finally from the shadows; slippers scuffing the cobblestones, black skirts fluttering at your feet.
“I was,” Gwayne nods.
“Then how could you possibly notice I was standing there?”
He turns to face you then, as you settle on the balcony just beside him, keeping a few feet of careful distance between you like you always did — as if, in your union, an invisible line had been wedged between you and could not be crossed.
The corner of his mouth lifts slowly into a crooked smile. “Because I notice everything about you,” he answers like it’s simple, like he hadn’t just stolen the breath from your lungs.
Heat crawls up the low neckline of your dress, speckling across your cheeks and the very tip of your ears. You turn away, face screwed in a feigned disgust, and busy your hands with an imaginary wrinkle on your sleeve.
“That,” you murmur. “Is a terrifying thought.”
“Well, it ought to terrify you,” Gwayne quips knowingly, bending softly at the waist to fold his arms along the stone railing. “I’ve seen the way you steal the candied slices off of all your lemon cakes just to leave the sponge untouched, you know? Like an utter madwoman.”
“Well…” you huff, face flaring hot at the acknowledgment of being so openly seen by another. “It seems I made the dreadful mistake of marrying the observant man in the Seven Kingdoms.”
“And here I thought that distinction belonged to my cousin,” Gwayne jokes lowly, brows raised to his hairline. “I shall write to Lord Ormund at once and relieve him of the title.”
You laugh quietly through your nose and turn away again. Silence settles comfortably over you once more, filled only by the distant clanging of metal as guards change their shift and the far-off crowing of a caged raven. The night feels impossibly dark, emptier than usual. It feels like an omen of sorts.
“It grows worse, does it not?” you wonder aloud through the breath that catches in your chest, as if you were half scared to even ask.
Gwayne’s thin smile slowly fades. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Aye,” he nods. “I fear it does.”
“I keep… hoping that…” You swallow around the invisible hand tightening around your throat. “That they’ll remember I am your wife before they remember whose blood I carry. I feel it’s the only reason they’ve yet to take my head.”
“Of course, they remember,” he assures you.
“It feels less and less so these days.”
“They’re only frightened—”
“I’m frightened,” you remind him.
The admission lingers between you like the salt water scent hanging in the air. Gwayne studies you for a long moment — he sees the flicker of sincerity flashing across your face right before you turn away from him again, and the way your jaw clenches a second later in regret of saying the words aloud.
He leans an elbow along the parapet to face you fully. And, as if to soothe you, he asks, “If there were no war… No thrones, no dragons—”
“No Hightowers?” you add.
“—If the Stranger himself appeared before you now and offered you another life,” the auburn-haired man continues with a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “What would you do?”
You ponder the question for a moment, eyes zeroed on the navy black horizon ahead as your fingers fidget on the stony barricade. “I should like a farm,” you answer, mouth twitching into an absentminded grin. “Somewhere far away from here. So I could raise chickens—”
“Chickens?” he scoffs a dry laugh, then softens a second later at the sincere look you give him. He swallows hard and nods supportively. “Most ladies would’ve said children, is all…”
“Well, I am not most ladies…” you tell him. “I would have a field of apple trees, and a hundred dogs to protect all my chickens and horses and fluffy cows— you know, the ones that live down in the Reach?”
“Well…” Gwayne croons. “You’ve certainly thought about this, haven’t you?”
“Every day,” you confess. The honesty in your answer strikes him down like a blade; the sorrowful look that heavies your face even more so. The reality of your situation returns to you then, settling over you like gravity’s inevitable weight. You swallow hard before you confess, “I fear they’ll kill me if matters grow worse at Dragonstone.”
“They won’t.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I do,” Gwayne assures you and takes a slow step closer, until the inherent warmth of his skin dulls the bite of the bitter sea wind. He ducks his chin to his chest to chase your gaze, peering down at you with glittering blue eyes. “I swore a vow before gods and men, did I not?”
“So do most men—”
“Well, I am not most men,” he lilts with an air of amusement hanging on the edge of his words. “I actually meant my vows.”
Your eyes soften as they search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt in his handsome features. You find no uncertainty there; just the maddening, immovable confidence that seems to be stitched into the very fiber of his making.
“If this castle should fall tomorrow…” you whisper to him, eyes narrowing in skepticism. “Or if your family decides that I have become too great a burden to keep here… What happens then?”
“Then I shall stand in the doorway,” he shrugs.
A shocked laugh sputters from your mouth at his boyish conviction. “And if they mean to come through it?”
“Then…” His lips jut softly. “They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”
“You are a valiant knight, Ser Gwayne, but you cannot fight an entire army.”
“Perhaps not,” he replies with a sad sort of smile. “But armies are made of men. And every man who wishes to reach you will first have to face me... As I said… I meant my vows.”
Something in his words strikes a deep sadness within you. No one had ever spoken of your being like it possessed any value worth defending, and now the words come from the very family you were meant to despise.
But even still, for the first time since the ravens brought the tidings of war and the dragons took wing against dragon, you believed him. You believed that, should the whole realm come crashing down around you, Ser Gwayne would likely be the only one left standing at your side when the last stone fell.
And, gods, how stupid you were to do so.
ii. OATHS & ASHES
The news of your husband’s leaving came not from your husband himself.
It came, rather, in whispers at court, slithering through the Red Keep like snakes beneath rushes — passing from Gold Cloak to stable boy to serving girl to scullion. “They say Ser Criston and his knights are marching for Harrenhal on the morrow,” says a thick-accented handmaiden. “Lord Hand means to smoke Daemon from the castle. It’ll be Prince Aemond’s before the next moon, no doubt.”
Your stomach dropped so harshly at the whispers that you nearly retched upon the marble. It was not Gwayne’s leaving that frightened you so, but rather what his absence would represent — he might as well throw you to the hounds himself before he goes, because you were as good as dead with him gone.
Your slippers strike the ancient stone in a frantic rhythm as you turn on your heel to storm back the way you came. The harsh echo of the soles catches the attention of surrounding servants, who flatten themselves against the walls as you hurry suddenly past. Your heartbeat pounds like thunder in your ears, far louder than the bells of the Great Sept that toll the evening hour — the combination of both feels like an ominous funeral knell.
You rush up the winding stone staircase with your crimson skirts gathering in your fists. Gwayne’s chambers sit directly opposite yours, and you find the heavy wooden door is cracked ajar. The hinges screechbeneath your palm when you shove it the rest of the way open without warning. The sight you find on the other side hollows you from the inside out — a travel satchel, laid open along the emerald sheets. Inside, a whetstone, riding gloves, a leather-bound prayer book, a sword belt, a flask.
The careful order of it all feels almost cruel. Chaos, at the very least, would suggest some air of hesitation from the man; a faint pause at leaving you behind. This, however, feels far too final.
Gwayne stands at the head of the bed with his back facing you. His pale hands work with a quiet precision to roll a Hightower-green cloak into his bag. He did not need to turn at the sudden intrusion. He learned the sound of your footsteps long ago.
“I wondered how long it might take,” the man croons distantly. The calmness of his voice, the indifference, sets you entirely aflame.
“Why would you not tell me?” you bite in response.
Gwayne glances over his shoulder at you then. The flickering candlelight turns his hair a more golden shade of Hightower-red, and carves the soft edges of his face out in shadow. He was still every inch the striking knight that the whispers purported him to be — broad as an oak tree, handsome as a saint carved into an altar — but there’s a foreign weariness etched into his features now. It darkens the skin beneath his eyes, turns his gaze a duller shade of icy blue.
“Well, I was going to, of course.”
“When?” The sharpness in your voice could draw blood.
“…Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Your laugh splinters the otherwise silent room, sharper than broken glass. You shut the door behind you with an aggressive hand and close the distance between you, dress skirts billowing wildly at your ankles. “When you ride at dawn? And you meant to tell me when your horses were already saddled?”
“Yes,” Gwayne sighs, lowering the folded doublet into its place. “I thought I might spare you one night’s grief—”
“You’re abandoning me,” you tell him then, as if to translate the man’s words back to himself. You linger at his side, eyes darting wildly over his profile when he fails to meet your gaze. “Just like all the rest of them. You do realize that, right?”
“The king has given orders—”
“Well, it wasn’t the king who stood beside me at Blackwater Bay not even a week ago, was it?” Your voice lowers into a faux-masculine tone, trying and failing to mock him. “If anyone comes for you, I shall stand in the doorway—”
Gwayne scoffs. “Surely, I do not sound like that.”
“—They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”
“Yes… I remember,” he answers through a slow huff of annoyance, stepping back from his travel bag to drag a pair of weary hands down his face. “I was— well into my cups by then, as you well know—”
“Oh, do not cheapen those words now,” you spit, shoving hard at his shoulder. Gwayne’s features twist in offense as his wide eyes glance down at the hand you’d pushed him with, though he doesn’t move an inch. “Don’t dishonor yourself with a coward’s excuse just to make up for the fact that you lied.”
Gwayne’s composure fractures at that. He had spent too much of his life trying to be a good knight, a good man — one that maybe his callous father could be proud of — so he refuses to stomach accusations of otherwise from you.
His icy blue eyes harden into a glacial sort of look, more hurt than truly angry. He lays his cloak into place to face you fully.
“Do you not see that I am leaving to keep the fight from coming here?”
“Do not you see that by leaving me here that I’m as good as dead?” you retort through a jaw clenched tight. “If you do not take me with you, then—”
“Of course I’m not taking you with me!” he scoffs with a crooked smile, like it’s funny to him. “You’d be dead before we made it to the God’s Eye—”
“And I will be dead before this war is won if you leave!” you shout, voice wet and fragile with the unshed tears burning the backs of your eyes. “The fight is already here! The people who wish me dead are in these walls! They pour my wine, they wash my hair, they cook my food, they bow when I walk by and whisper when my back is turned! And if you aren’t here, then…”
You trail off with a ragged breath. Your corset feels suddenly tight against your ribs. You choke back the sob that strangles your throat and blink rapidly to clear the haze of tears blurring at your waterline. You peer up at the man with the sternest gaze you can muster.
“I am… frightened,” you tell him, though your voice cracks into a fragile whisper halfway through.
The anger disappears from Gwayne’s face as quickly as it arrived. His shoulders deflate with a slow huff through his nose as he takes a slow step towards you. His hands release their clenched fists to reach hesitantly for your face. His palms are warm and softly calloused when they cup your cheeks, caressing you with a tenderness he hasn’t shown since your bedding ceremony six or more moons ago.
The quiet half-smile he gives you, then, is weighed down by a palpable sadness.
“To tell you the truth… I have never been more afraid than I am right now,” he confesses in a low murmur, swiping his thumb over the warm apple of your cheek. The softness in his voice threatens to undo you entirely.
“So then don’t go,” you plead in a small voice, grasping at the front of his emerald doublet until the golden vines wrinkle under your grip. “Please.”
“If Harrenhal remains in Rhaenyra’s hold, and if Daemon rallies the Riverland armies, then the war will come here,” Gwayne continues in a painfully steady voice. “I fear I don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“Everyone has a choice,” you tell him, filled with a girlish sort of rage once more. “But, I suppose you’ve already made yours.”
The man meets your scowl with a tired, slightly heartbroken smile. “Please do not make me spend my last night with my wife quarreling with her,” Gwayne jokes quietly, swiping an eyelash from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “At least leave me with something to hold onto until my return.”
Your tight chest deflates with a slow sigh from your nose. The rage ebbs evenly into grief. “And what shall I have, hm? Considering tonight is very likely my last one alive and all…”
Gwayne laughs. “You are being… catastrophically dramatic.”
Your chest burns with a mixture of rage and desire. He could never possibly understand you, but somehow, he is the only one with the walls of the Keep who ever has. The contrast is dizzying.
“I hate you,” you hear yourself say.
“Perhaps...” Gwayne hums, warm breath fanning across your cheek. “But not nearly as much as you love me.”
Your first instinct is to strike him for the sarcasm in his words; your second is to weep at the truth of them. He kisses you before you can do either.
He ducks down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss, a mere brushing of your lips. The last time he had done so was beneath the glowing candles of the Sept, following the declaration of your wedding vows. But that was an obligation, a political victory of sorts.
This kiss is far sweeter in comparison. You feel the man heavying against you as he falls deeper into your touch. He opens your mouth with his and flicks the pad of his tongue against yours, like velvet brushing velvet. Your hands tremble as they leave the chest of his doublet to rake through his auburn locks, like silk between your fingers. You sigh against his open mouth at the taste of him — like wine and mint and oranges — sweet enough to get drunk on.
It takes you a long moment to realize his hands have snaked around your waist accordingly. You don’t realize his deft fingers are loosening the tie in your corset until the discomfort in your ribs disappears entirely. Your body acts before your mind, and your arms slither from their sleeves to curl once more around Gwayne’s broad shoulders.
The man folds the top of your dress down until your bare chest is revealed to him. A grumbled moan sounds in the back of his throat as he pulls you back into him with two wide palms along your bare back, pressing your breasts flush against his chest. He thinks, if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the steady thundering of your heart like this.
“Gwayne—” you whisper against his mouth when you feel something hardening against your hip. Your hands drop from his hair to slide between your bodies, headed for the tie in his trousers to release the stiffness growing there.
He twists you round in the meanwhile, shoes scuffing the cobbles, until the bend of your knees meets the edge of the mattress behind you. He lays you down without once taking his mouth off of yours, with one wide palm splayed along your ribcage and his other cradling the back of your neck.
He pulls off of you with a quiet smack to catch his breath. A small whimper sounds in the back of your throat when his warm body leaves yours, rising to reach down for your skirts. Your bare chest heaves as you sit up on your elbows to watch him fumble with your dress. “Gods above, how many skirts are you wearing?” you hear him complain under his breath. “I’ve faced hedge knights with fewer defenses than this.”
You giggle when he finally pushes the layers of your dress up to your hips. Your thighs spread on instinct, exposing yourself to him. Gwayne’s mouth waters at the sight of your silken folds, already glittering in anticipation. Your chest tightens when he falls to his knees before you.
“What are you doing?” you ask on bated breath.
Gwayne flashes you a love-drunk grin and a pair of glassy blue eyes. His warm palms smooth along the velvety skin of your inner thighs to spread them further. “Call it a knight’s act of service, shall we?” he quips.
His auburn head disappears beneath your bunched-up skirts a second later. Your face twists momentarily in confusion before you feel his tongue slotting in the silk folds of your cunt. He licks a fat stripe up the length of it, until his tongue finds something that makes your hips twitch despite yourself. His mouth closes around the sensitive button, suckling at it with a grumbled moan in the back of his throat.
Your head tips back at the feeling. Your lips part as if to moan, but the electric shock in the pit of your stomach knocks all the available air from your lungs. You feel him laughing against you when your thighs clench suddenly around his head, tighter than you realize.
Gwayne pulls off of you with a quick smacking sound. He wears your slick down to his chin as he flashes you a teasing, glassy-eyed look. “I’d quite like to keep my head, dear wife—”
You say nothing in response to his quip. You just dart a head to the crown of his skull and shove his face back between your thighs.
Gwayne complies without complaint, lapping at the honey you leak for him, until the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet chambers. You rock your hips against his face, bracing yourself with the auburn locks you clench in your fist.
His nose nudges the swollen bud that makes you keen, right before he takes it in his mouth again. Your skin buzzes at the foreign feeling.
“Gwayne—” you gasp. A tight feeling settles deep in your stomach, like a fraying knot about to snap. Your back arches off the mattress. Your hand tightens in his hair. Your features screw in a pain look, half-scared at the pleasure welling within you. “I can’t—”
“Mm…” he just keeps moaning against you, letting the vibrations deepen your pleasure. His wide hands smooth up and down your outer thighs when they tremble on either side of his head, clenching around him as your orgasm hits you with a pleasured whine. He laps up every ounce of honey you leak for him, and sighs hard through his nose at the salty-sweet taste of you.
Only when your legs grow finally lax around his jaw does he pull back from your thighs. A smile curls lazily at his rosier, more swollen mouth. The bottom half of his face glitters in the candlelight with a mixture of saliva and cum — you lift your head in time to watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
“If this truly is my final night alive…” you say through panted breaths, eyes still wide from the shock of your simmering pleasure. “I feel I could finally die a happy woman.”
“I’m glad I could be of service, princess…” Gwayne smiles lazily, grimacing slightly at the ache in his knees as he rises from the unforgiving cobbles. He leans down to lay his warmth back over you. You stop him with a firm hand on his chest.
“I want to be on top this time,” you confess in a breathless whisper, eyes darting back and forth between his.
Gwayne’s brows raise slowly in shock at your sudden display of dominance. The corner of his lip twitches into a smile the same way his cock twitches in his boxers. He nods until the words catch up to him. “As you wish…”
iii. CROWNS & CAGES
You did not weep when they came for you, scarcely a fortnight after your lord husband’s leaving.
Gwayne was gone by first light, perhaps already a league or more away before you stirred awake that morning to the chill of an empty bed. He parted with nothing but a folded scrap of parchment resting where his head had been the night before. In his scrawled handwriting, half-smudged from where his wrist had dragged the ink in haste, he wrote: “Write to me. Don’t die. I’ll build the form for you myself.”
You keep the note tucked safely inside the chest of your corset now, folded so many times that the edges have already begun to soften. You keep it close to your heart like a holy relic, or perhaps, a threat to whatever unlucky son of a bitch kills you first — something to discover on your corpse after they slit your throat, so they’ll know who to answer to upon your husband’s return.
Eventually, the servants ceased asking whether you needed anything, and all your meals came cold. Conversations ceased the moment you entered a room, and doors slammed shut before you could reach them. And then, when word spread that a wild dragon had taken wing not far from here, all eyes of suspicion turned to you — to whom a dragon had never belonged, though the blood in your veins wearied the courtiers all the same. Rhaenyra had already added three new riders to her fleet; she certainly did not need another.
You were no longer a bride, but a prisoner in pretty gowns — it was the Queen Dowager, and your sister by law, who confirmed as much to you.
“I had hoped…” Alicent started slowly, bathed half in sunshine and half in shadow from where she stood before the window in your quarters, watching the distant storm clouds blow in over Blackwater. “That I might never have to ask this of you.”
Her auburn curls swept over her pale shoulder when she turned to face you. Something heavy sat in her round green eyes, as if she wanted you to finish the rest of it for her. But you remained as stoic and silent as ever from where you sat at the small dining table just across from her. Your hands wrung into knots over your skirts, hidden beneath the surface, as you waited for the words of your fate to fall from her lips.
“The council believes that— Should the opportunity present itself, you would attempt to reach the wild beast. The Cannibal, I believe it’s called,” Alicent said. “And through him, Rhaenyra.”
“So…” You sighed, making no attempt to argue the subject. It did not matter whether or not it was true; the possibility was enough to make you a criminal. “The Black Cells, then?”
“No,” Alicent shook her head, half-offended by the suggestion. “Of course not. My cousin, Lord Ormund, he commands the Hightower host. He has agreed to keep you under his… protection for the time being.”
“Protection?” you echoed through a scoff. The word tasted foreign and bitter in your mouth. “What a pleasant name for captivity.”
Alicent’s face flickered with a mother’s sort of sympathy. Her hands wrang together beneath the draping sleeves of her emerald dress.“You will be treated with every courtesy your station deserves, I assure you.”
“If your council means to bargain with me, Your Grace…” you started with a sad smile. “They mistake me for something worth bartering for. Rhaenyra already abandoned e— keeping me hostage will not make her respond to your offered terms.”
“Even still… You would be far safer there than you would be here, whether or not you believe that’s true,” Alicent said. “I know what my brother would wish of me. And Gwayne would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to keep you safe.”
The long journey south smells of wet earth and horse dung. By the time you reach the Hightower encampment — which sprawls across the rolling fields like a second city — your fine silk gown has long surrendered to the dust of the road, and your hands now bear the tenderness of a week spent in the saddle.
Your broad-shouldered escort guides you through the avenue of canvas tents billowing wildly beneath snapping green banners. The air smells of woodsmoke, cooked venison, and salty sweat — the soft breeze carries with it the sound of laughter, barking hounds, clanking chainmail, and shouted commands.
A pair of guards draw back the heavy canvas of the biggest pavilion in the camp. “My lord,” one says to announce your arrival inside, right before the entrance flap closes heavily behind you.
Inside, candles burn despite the lingering daylight, filling the enclosed tent with the smell of beeswax and parchment from the large map covering the long oak table. Pieces carved from ivory and oak mark castles and armies across the whole of Westeros, waiting to be won or maybe burned.
A strange man stands over them with his broad hands planted along the edge, visibly built beneath his ornately decorated armor, and standing several inches taller than the rest of the knights in the room.
Lord Ormund was not pretty like Gwayne, but he was his own kind of handsome, made of sharp edges and strong features. His Hightower-auburn curls are less vivid in color and sheared short. He has his family’s pair of striking blue eyes, too, which feel a little like they’re piercing you when he glances up from his map.
“Leave us,” he commands his guards in a low, melodic voice, keeping his eyes on you as his knights filter out of the tent. Their armor clatters faintly as they go. The man doesn’t say another word until they’re gone.
“So…” he hums, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards. “The infamous dragon bride.”
Your brows bounce at the title. It feels like another chain around your neck. “I suppose I’ve been called worse…” you sigh, studying him with the same curiosity. “You must be Lord Ormund.”
“I must,” the man nods as he rounds the war table at an unhurried pace.
His boots sink into the woven rungs laid across the hard earth with each step. He towers several inches over your head when he plants himself in front of you. He smells of steel and sweat and strongly of incense.
“I expected someone… older.”
His brows raise in amusement. “And here I expected someone taller.”
“Well,” you deadpan, eyes narrowing up at him as your hands clasp behind your back. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ser.”
“Oh, I’ve endured far worse disappointments, my lady, I assure you.” A ghost of a smile graces his pink lips as his eyes soften slightly around the edges. “I give you my word. While you remain beneath my banners, no harm will come to you.”
You sigh hard through your nose. “Yes… People keep promising me that.”
“I’m sure they have… But I intend to honor it.” The certainty of the man’s words unsettles you. It’s strange, you find, to be looked at like you were something worth protecting. “And if you require anything— anything at all. You need only ask.”
You nod slowly with a deep exhale, considering the offer. “A quill,” you conclude firmly.
Ormund blinks. “A… A quill?”
“Yes,” you say. “And parchment.”
“For… What purpose?” he laughs.
You glance over your shoulder towards the tent’s fluttering entrance, where the last light of the early evening burns gold against a sea of green banners. You wonder, briefly, how many soldiers outside this pavilion would celebrate if they found you dead on the morrow — how many would mourn, how many would care enough to do anything at all.
You think, perhaps, that in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one person who would weep for you. And he was a hundred leagues away.
“So that I may write to my lord husband,” you answer finally. “And tell him that I was right… And that he still owes me a farm.”
Lord Ormund allows you to write to Gwayne that night, and every seventh day after. It was the only thing you could look forward to, since there was little else to do at camp. He had been gracious enough to give you your own pavilion at the edge of the command encampment, close enough for the sentries to watch but far enough away to force you into solitude.
It was clean and moderately comfortable — with a narrow cot draped in a single wool blanket, a traveling chest for the few dresses you were allowed to bring, a wash basin, and a small writing table tucked beneath the only slit in the canvas that permitted daylight. Inside smelled of candle wax, pressed linen, and lavender soap.
Outside smelled of war — of pressed metal from the blacksmiths, of men cursing over burnt porridge, of stableboys tending to horses who fouled the earth faster than they could shovel it. It was cruel, how the world went on while you could go scarcely a step without an escort. Eventually, you became accustomed to feeling a hundred eyes upon your back — most curious, others suspicious, some outright hateful.
The letters you wrote to Gwayne, at least, gave you the illusion of escape. You tended to each with careful precision — melting the wax, stamping it shut, then tying it off with a ribbon — and watched from afar as one of Ormund’s knights carried them toward the rookery. It was not until the twentieth day at camp, when you wandered further than you were typically allowed, that you noticed that none of your messages had been sent. You watched the knight toss the letter into the fire, flinching slightly when the flames sparked beneath the fresh kindling.
It had been four days since then.
And you haven’t eaten once in protest.
It took roughly half that time for Lord Ormund’s patience to run thin. He’s suffered the endless whispers of your attempts to starve to death with an increasing displeasure. He commands thousands of knights beneath his banners, serves as the leader of his house with grace, and yet — he still cannot seem to manage to command one lady to supper. It was absurd. Humiliating. And worse, it invited doubt. What army will follow a man whom they believe incapable of governing his own household?
On the fifth evening, after your breakfast tray went untouched that morning, Ormund opts to bring you your supper himself. He marches through the crowded camp with his jaw clenched tight like a soldier headed into battle. His chainmail clanks with every step. Avoiding the stares he gets from surrounding knights feels borderline impossible.
He throws open the entrance of your tent without ceremony. The canvas snaps sharply beneath his aggressive hand as he ducks suddenly underneath it. The light of the golden evening pours suddenly inside around his towering silhouette before the flap falls shut behind him once more, trapping the two of you inside.
There, he finds you lying on your cot, staring upward at the slit in the pavilion where one lonely shaft of sunlight spills through. Your fingers drift lazily through the rays, as if you were trying to catch it somehow.
Your head snaps suddenly to the side at the sudden intrusion — your hair is loose and unkempt, because no one ever taught you how to do it yourself, and all of your dresses are now wrinkled and stained with dirt. The thin white nightgown you wear makes you look more sunken, more lifeless.
Ormund grasps your tray with one hand and reaches for your small writing desk with the other. He lectures you through the distant pang of sympathy in his chest.
“I have commanded men twice your size—” His boots are heavy on the thin rug as he carries the desk over to you. “I have started sieges, I have broken sieges. And yet—” He slams the table in front of you with a dull thump. You try not to cower under the icy blue glare he gives you. “I cannot seem to persuade one prisoner— a lady, no less— to eat her supper. And I confess, it does very little for confidence in my command. So eat.”
Ormund slams the tray onto the desk. The broth steaming in a small wooden bowl sloshes over. Next to it, strips of leftover venison and a broken loaf of stale bread. Your empty stomach twists painfully with a mixture of nausea and hunger.
“So…” you start lowly, clearing your throat when your voice comes gravelly. You rise from your supine position on weak limbs. The fabric of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you turn to place your bare feet on the ground — eyes dull when you peer up at the man from beneath your lashes. “You admit it, then? That I am your prisoner here?”
His jaw clenches tight. His nostrils flare through a sharp breath. He no longer finds amusement in your banter. “Your status here depends entirely on your pliancy,” he spits, ripping off a piece of the stale loaf. “Now eat.”
You flinch when his fist rears suddenly towards your face, holding the broken bread just in front of your mouth. You blink wildly up at him, features screwed in offense. “…Excuse me?”
“Eat.”
You swat his hand away; it moves scarcely an inch. “I’m not a child—”
“Well, at present, you are behaving remarkably like one,” Ormund argues through a tight jaw. “Now open your mouth.”
You respond with only a glare.
Fury rages through the man’s chest. He wishes wordlessly for the strength of the Mother and the Warrior engraved upon his armor as he offers bitterly, “Or shall I make you?”
You spend a long moment staring up at him with eyes cold enough to freeze wine. You hold his gaze as your mouth parts slowly to accept the chunk of bread he pinches between his thumb and forefinger. He places it upon your tongue with a surprising gentleness, considering the wrath he’d had moments ago.
“Chew,” he commands, glaring down the bridge of his nose at you. Your jaw moves slowly. Ormund nods in approval. “Swallow.”
Your heart lurches into your throat at his order. But you do as you’re told, throat bobbing as the piece of bread goes down. Another piece follows soon after; this time, your lips part before he asks you to do so. Relief crosses over his strong features as he places the food onto your tongue. His shoulders sag with the exhaled breath that it feels like he’s been holding for days.
He looks almost worried for you; relieved, almost, to have fed you. A warm, foreign feeling settles in your chest accordingly.
“I am trying… Very hard to be kind to you,” Ormund confesses, scarred hands twitching at his sides. “So I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you insist on making this so difficult.”
“My letters,” you tell him. “Why aren’t they being sent?”
“The rookery master feared they could be intercepted,” he answers plainly. “I could not risk one falling into enemy hands. I… meant to tell you.”
“When?” you spit.
“When I found a safer way to deliver them.”
A bitter laugh sputters from your mouth. “What curious men you Hightowers are,” you quip with narrowed eyes. “So fond of deciding what sorrows I ought to be spared.”
His brows lower in confusion. “Is that not a kindness?”
His answer lingers between you for several long moments. There was no cleverness in his words, only an honesty that strikes you like a fist to the stomach.
“Aye. I suppose it is,” you answer, clearing your throat when your voice catches.
A strange emotion strangles you, and burns at the back of your eyes as you look down at your dress. Your dull nails pick at a smudge of mud on the fabric that will likely never come off. An embarrassed sort of laugh tumbles from your mouth.
“Perhaps I… I spent so long waiting for someone to hurt me that I no longer remember what kindness is supposed to feel like.”
Ormund nods through a slow exhale from his nose. He glances to the side and walks the short distance to the stool that the table had knocked over in his rage. Your wet eyes follow his form as he walks away and then back to you, setting the chair on the other side of the table. You can feel the warmth radiating from his body, even in the scarce distance between you.
“I’ll admit— A man spends enough time at war, they start to forget that mornings are not meant to begin with fear,” he says, reaching again for the loaf of bread, but this time breaking it in half. “I forget myself, at times, but… if you’ll allow me… I’d very much like to prove to you that I can be kind.”
Your weary features soften around the edges. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” you tell him, with a more sincere smile hinting at the corners of your lips. “I am your prisoner, after all.”
“So you keep insisting,” Ormund quips with his own quiet grin. “But I should rather you thought of yourself as my… responsibility.”
Your heart stumbles a beat. Responsibility felt much safer than hostage, or bargaining piece, or burden. It felt, you’ll admit, like a kindness.
iv. SILK & SWORDS
You fall into a steady routine at the Hightower encampment by the fifth moon of your captivity.
Each morning arrives with the same mournful groan of a warhorn that rolls across the grass green hills before the sun has even broken the horizon. You wake to the distant ringing of hammers against anvils, hounds barking for gristles off the cookfires, and knights shouting for their squires. The first hours were reserved for armorers; the afternoons for drilling knights whose swords cracked together until you could feel them ringing in your skull; and the evenings for songs, laughter, and ale.
Your days, however, remained painfully empty.
Lord Ormund had been kind enough to provide you with greater comforts as the weeks went by — cushioned pillows and heavier woolen blankets for when the nights got colder; sprigs of lavender for your bedside to keep out the stench of man; more parchment and colored ink to busy your hands when the days were especially long. And all of them were especially long. He’d given you his leather-bound prayer book, too, and even though you were not an entirely pious woman, you’d read through it enough times to recite each passage from memory.
The camp has since grown accustomed to your being there, ever since Ormund slackened his metaphorical leash on you — “You’ve had more than ample opportunity to run,” he’d said beneath the scratching of his quill. “Besides, where exactly would you go? No one else would take you.” No one bats an eye when you leave your tent, after three days of relentless rain had finally broken, to pick fresh berries from the brushes along the treeline.
Your crimson silk dress scrubs the dewy evening grass as you collect wild raspberries into a small wooden bowl. The juices stain your fingertips the color of red wine. The sweet scent mixes with the smell of wet earth and mint leaves crushed beneath your slippers. You bend at the waist to parse through tangled brambles, searching for the ripest berries. For the first time in months — years, maybe — you feel almost peaceful.
“Is that a love letter—?”
The voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. Your heart lurches into your throat as you jerk to full height again. The small bowl of berries slips from your grasp and rolls through the wet clover like so many drops of scattered blood. Behind you, you find a vaguely familiar hedgeknight, scarcely ten paces away — made of broad shoulders, broken teeth, and greasy hair that falls to his shoulders.
It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to catch your breath.
“I’m sorry,” you say through a tightening chest. “You… You startled me.”
“Did I?” he hums gruffly, in a voice that borders on amusement.
You cower into the hedgerow behind you as he approaches you, reaching you quickly on much longer limbs. He looms close enough for you to smell the sweat and ale and horse piss on his chainmail, close enough for you to lift your chin to meet his gaze.
His eyes never quite reach yours. They linger, instead, on your chest. “Letter from your lord husband, is it?” he asks, motioning with his head.
Your chin ducks to follow his eyes, where the rough edges of parchment nestled against your chest peek out from your corset. Your hands lift to cover it instinctively. “Yes. It’s a… a letter. From home.”
“Mind if I take a look at it?” he asks, taking another daring step closer. You wince at the sour smell of him. “What does Ser Gwayne write his pretty wife, hm?”
“Please, don’t—”
His hand shoots out. Thick, filthy fingers hook beneath the neckline of your gown, hard enough to stretch the fine silk with an audible crack. You react on pure instinct accordingly, lifting your own hand to strike him before your mind could forbid it.
The sound of your palm colliding with his bearded jaw cracks through the hedgerow like a whip.
His head turns slightly under the blow.
Your breath catches in surprise at yourself.
The back of his hand catches you across the cheek before you can blink. A red-hot pain explodes from your ear to your jaw as your world lurches suddenly sideways. You hit the unforgiving earth below with a huff when the air rushes from your lungs. Coppery blood pools thick on your tongue from where your teeth had cut the inside of your cheek.
“You little cunt—” you hear the man say, right before he catches a fistful of your skirts to pull you back towards him. The fabric screams beneath his hand. The cool evening air strikes your legs all at once when the silk rips up to your thighs.
You kick wildly at the man. Your slipper strikes uselessly against his shoulder. Your fingernails claw muddy furrows through the soaked earth.
“I am— Gwayne Hightower’s wife—” You tell him through panted, fearful breaths. He flips you onto your back by your ankle. Your foot burns beneath his grip. Your head strikes the soaked earth. Through the lack of air in your lungs, you heave, “He will have your head for this—”
“Oh, will he?” the hedge knight laughs with a brown-tooth grin. “‘Cause he ain’t here—”
The hand not holding your squirming ankle reaches for the tie in his trousers.
Then, in a blink, steel sings with a clean rasping sound. Warm blood splashes from your right jaw up to your left temple. For a flicker of a moment, you can’t quite comprehend why — not until the hedge knight kneels suddenly before you, with open eyes that have gone strangely distant. He topples suddenly sideways with his neck bent at an awkward angle, head half cut off and spouting bright red blood.
You blink wildly through the haze of death until you find Ormund standing just behind the corpse, chest rising and falling beneath his heavy armor. His longsword drips crimson onto the grass where your raspberries lie.
Sweat from the long day clings to his dark curls, wetting them against his temples and forehead. Flecks of blood dot his jaw like crimson stars. His blue eyes burn with something fierce, but his voice remains remarkably soft.
“My lady…”
You open your mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.
Only then do you notice how violently your body is shaking, buzzing with a white-hot fear, as you scan the scene surrounding you — your torn skirts, the blood staining your chest, the dead body at your feet. You stare at the hedge knight’s gushing throat without fully understanding the sight of it.
Ormund reaches you in three long strides. He sheaths his sword without a word before dropping carefully to one knee. He slides one arm under your leg and his other behind your back, hoisting you upward with a pair of strong arms. The scent of blood and earth gives way to the smell of leather, incense, and bathing oils as he cradles you to the broad wall of his chest.
Your trembling hands clench a fistful of the green velvet cape draped along his shoulder.
“You’re safe, my lady,” Ormund murmurs as he carries you back to camp. “You’re safe.”
Your face finds the hollow space between his jaw and collarbone. You’re not entirely sure if you believe the words he speaks, but you know now that you do believe in the man who speaks them.
v. SANCTUARY & SIN
The weeks that followed could be divided into two — the days before the attack and all the days after.
For a time, you startled far too easily. A dropped shield sent you into a panic. A knight laughing too loudly made your pulse skyrocket. And if a pair of bootsteps walked too closely behind you, you lost all your breath before your mind had time to remind your body that no one meant you any harm.
Nights proved harder still. You dreamt of nothing but rough hands and torn silk and crushed berries that smelled so sweet the thought alone made you sick. One moment you were suffocating beneath the sweaty body of a hedge knight, and the next, your canvas door was thrown open while you were choking on a scream.
Ormund stood silhouetted before you, barefoot, with a sword in his naked hand. He’d reached you with haste, after having your pavilion packed up and pitched again not quite twenty paces from his following the attack — “It’ll be easier that way,” he assured you. “If another fool decides to trouble you, I’d rather not have to cross half of Westeros to remove his head.”
His curls were flattened from slumber, his linen shirt unlaced to reveal his broad chest heaving with panic. His sleep-swollen eyes swept every corner of the empty pavilion before they settled finally on you. His steel lowered as he crossed the tent to settle beside you, smoothing a hand up and down your back despite the way your nightgown clung uncomfortably to your sweaty skin.
“We’ll move your bed into my tent,” he’d said. “You’ll sleep there for the time being.”
It was concern disguised as a command. One you could not refuse if you wanted to.
Ormund’s tent was large enough to pass for a modest hall — maps and banners occupied one half, while the other had become something half-resembling living quarters. Your smaller cot was placed opposite his beneath the same sloping canvas roof, separated by little more than a table crowded with candles and books. You would wake occasionally to find Ormund already seated beside the brazier in nothing but a linen shirt, reading dispatches by firelight while occasionally glancing over to see whether you were sleeping soundly.
You pretended that you were, if only to keep on watching him.
But then the late summer storms arrived; and the unforgiving deluge washed over the camp with enough violence to shake the pavilion you slept beneath. Thunder cracked like an explosion closely overhead, and you woke with another frightened gasp before remembering where you were.
Ormund was already awake, as if stirred in knowing that you were scared.
“If you’re frightened…” he murmured from across the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed his blanketed body, and his face half-smushed into his pillow. “I imagine my bed could accommodate two people without either touching the other."
You crossed the space between your cots and climbed beneath his blankets without another word.
You haven’t left his bed since.
The days soon settle into something almost resembling normalcy. Ormund, you find, possesses an absurd fondness for taking care of you — always making sure that you’ve eaten breakfast before he’s started his mornings; delivering his wool blankets to you before you can complain that you’re cold, warming your hands between his calloused palms when he does so; and escorting you through camp with a protective hand splayed along the small of your back.
No one ever cared for you with such deliberate attention before — even Gwayne, as gentle as he was, could only love you from a respectful distance before the war had sent him off. Your husband washed away into memory, into the note left abandoned somewhere on the forest floor.
You did not know whether he still rode beneath banners or if his corpse had been picked clean by crows. You did know, at the very least, that Ormund was here — he was there in the mornings when you woke and each night when old fears crept back into your skin. It was a dangerous thing, you soon realized, to mistake safety for love. Or more dangerous still, to suspect that the two were any different at all.
You watch from Ormund’s bed — freshly bathed beneath your thin ivory slip, with your legs kicking lazily from where you lie on your stomach — as his squire removes pieces of his armor. A sketchbook lies open before you, alongside a collection of colored inks.
“This is what you get for tightening the straps so much,” Ormund hums as Daeron struggles with the final buckle across the man’s broad shoulders.
“Well, you’d like them to remain attached, wouldn’t you?” the boy quips back.
The man smiles despite himself. “You complain more than any squire I've ever met, do you know that?”
“I learned everything from you, did I not?”
When the final piece of armor comes finally free, Ormund dismisses the boy back to his tent. The entrance cover opens and shuts behind the boy, letting in a rush of cool evening air before it closes again. Silence returns to the expansive pavilion, filled only by the crackling of burning candles.
Ormund, left only in his loose dark breeches and a linen undertunic, walks to the round table to pour himself a goblet of wine. “What is occupying you so completely over there?”
“I’m hard at work,” you answer vaguely.
“So I see.” He eyes you carefully over the glugging of the flagon. A faint, unreadable flicker crosses his face. “Writing to Gwayne, are you?”
“No,” you sigh. “I’m drawing you.”
You set the quill into the inkpot and lift the sketchbook to face the man with a girlish grin, which seems to be becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. Ormund’s light eyes squint to study the page. It was unmistakably him drawn in the ink, though perhaps only if one was exceedingly charitable. The proportions are all wrong: his nose is too large, his mouth is too small, one eye sits higher than the other, and he’s missing his left brow.
His eyes flick to meet yours again. “…Is that intended to be me?” he asks, motioning with the goblet in his fist.
“Of course,” you shrug like it’s obvious.
“Well,” he sighs, raising the cup to his mouth. “I had no idea that I resembled that of a rotting turnip.”
You gasp in faux-offense that’s soon overcome by a fit of laughter. “It is not that bad!”
“My lady…” Ormund huffs sympathetically, abandoning his ale to saunter slowly towards the bed. “This could be considered treason— I should confiscate this immediately."
“You shall do no such thing,” you tease.
“Oh really?” he croons, brows raised in amusement.
He lunges for you in an instant. You jerk back onto your haunches with a squeal, cradling the sketchbook to your chest. You dodge each of his attempts to take it with a girlish gracelessness, laughing harder with each of his failed attempts. Ormund smiles at the sound without realizing it, dropping the table of ink to the rug below before clambering onto the bed to follow you.
One final tug sends the book flying across the bed, and the two of you go to reach for it at the same time. The momentum carries you forward until you land clumsily against his chest, knocking the breath out of him as his back hits the mattress, with you squarely on top of him.
It takes you a long moment to realize your precarious position — your chest brushing his beneath your thin slip, noses nearly touching, breaths nearly entwining. Your laughter fades first, but you still do not move. Ormund’s smile flickers, but his hands lift to rest lightly along the arms you use to prop up your weight on top of him.
You can feel each of his warm breaths fan against your chin. You could get drunk on the ale stained on his mouth from the proximity between you alone. Closer by an inch or two and you would taste it on his lips.
“We ought not,” Ormund murmurs lowly, as if he can read your mind.
“Ought what?”
“This,” he answers. His blue eyes flick briefly in the space separating your mouths. “You are another man’s wife. My cousin’s wife.”
You swallow hard at the mention of Gwayne. It had been far easier to forget him, in truth. “I have not seen my husband in nearly a year,” you reply in a small voice. “I do not even know whether he yet lives…”
Pain etches in Ormund's strong features before disappearing behind his usual practiced restraint. His hands tremble with the urge to smooth away the frown between your brows, but he does not allow himself the satisfaction.
“I swore on oath to protect you,” he says. “To serve you in my cousin’s absence.”
You, without possessing a similar self-control, lift a hand to brush a wild curl from his temple. “And do you intend to keep that promise, Lord Ormund?”
He nods against the mattress. “Of course I do.”
“Okay then…” you hum as a smile tugs slowly at one corner of your mouth. “Then serve me.”
You duck down to close the distance between you without a second thought. The tip of your nose grazes the strong bridge of his as you press your lips to his chapped ones, nothing more than an experimental brushing of your mouths. You go to pull away just as quickly as you came, and whatever restraint Ormund had had before vanishes in an instant.
He lifts his head from the tousled blankets to chase your mouth, cradling your neck with a wide hide to draw you back into him again. The second kiss lands with none of the careful uncertainty of the first. This one is slower, deeper, and far more languid. His tongue licks into your mouth, tasting of wine and the mint leaves he always chews after supper. You sigh through your nose to savor it, melting further into his chest.
Your mouths move together with an awkward sort of tenderness, learning one another by the second. Ormund kisses you far rougher than Gwayne ever did — it’s all tongue and teeth and spit, as if he were committing the taste of you to memory: the meat from your supper, the berry from your tea; the guilt from your broken vows, the relief of being found after believing yourself long abandoned.
Your breath catches in your throat when Ormund suddenly takes charge, urging you onto your back with his mouth still on yours. He pulls off you with a quiet smack, wearing your spit on his rosy mouth like gloss.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks with heavy eyes that dart back and forth between your glassy ones.
You shake your head against the cushions beneath you, features twisting with a pained look at the thought of stopping now.
“Do you understand what will follow? What… vows both of us will be breaking?”
Your eyes glisten as they dance between his blue ones. “The war broke those vows,” you tell him, half-breathless. “Not us.”
Ormund nods wordlessly for a moment, pleased with your answer. “Then open,” he says.
Your mouth parts for him on instinct. He lifts his middle and pointer finger to your lips, wetting them on your tongue, before sliding them in between your bodies. His hand disappears beneath the skirt of your slip. Your head tips back when you feel his fingertips sliding between your velvety folds, brushing your clit before sinking into your waiting cunt.
Your sigh fills the quiet tent, accompanied by the low groan in the back of Ormund’s throat.
“You’re softer than I imagined…” he confesses, almost to himself.
“Imagining me a lot, are you?” you tease on bated breath.
“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “I dreamt of how your cunt would wrap around me… of how you’d soak the sheets… of what noise you’d make when I moved my fingers like this—”
A whine catches in your throat when he crooks his fingers just so, nestling the fatty part of his palm flat against your clit. Your hips buck into his hand despite yourself. Your exhaled whine is half-drowned beneath his breathy chuckle.
“There it is…” he praises.
“Fuck me,” you plead, face crumpling under the weight of your need. One hand twists in his hair, while your other fists in his thin white tunic to keep him close. You only vaguely realize how little you sound like yourself as you plead: “I need it so bad, Ormund, please, fuck me—”
The man goes dizzy at the sound of your begging, as if he brought you into his camp, his tent, his bed, to do anything other than serve you.
His fingers glitter with your slick when he drags them out of your cunt. He brings them to his nose, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales the scent of your musk upon them. You whine at the sight of it — half-disgusted, half-intrigued. You watch with heavy eyes when he brings the same hand into his trousers to fist his half-hard cock fully stiff for you.
It’s a mess of tangled limbs for a moment, as you drag his shirt gracefully from his torso while he attempts to free himself from his breeches. He’s made of tanned skin, toned muscles, and a dusting of auburn hair from his sternum to his stomach. It grows more dense at the root of his cock — which is not quite as long as Gwayne’s, but thicker still and adorned with more prominent veins.
Ormund works himself hard with his fist; the reddened head of his cock leaks pearly drops every time his hand moves upwards. Your mouth waters for a taste. You let him smear it along the folds of your cunt instead.
You curl your arms under his broad arms to splay your hands along his shoulder blades. They flex slightly under your touch as he leans down over you. You tense on instinct when he pierces you with the tip of his cock. “Shh, shh, shh,” he soothes lowly, fighting back his own grunt as you spread so perfectly around him.
He sinks slowly into you, slow enough for you to feel every vein and ridge of his cock as he mounts you until his hips are flush with yours. Your mouth parts. He ducks down to kiss you before a moan tumbles out, swallowing the pretty sound with his mouth.
He stays still against you for several long, agonizing moments. Your hips buck against his in anticipation. “Please move,” you whine, digging crescent shapes into his shoulders with your nails. “I need you so much, please—”
Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been inside another woman?”
Your face screws. “I’d rather not hear about your previous exploits at the moment—”
“Don’t,” Ormund spits, shuddering on top of you when you roll your hips into his once more. He grasps your thigh hard enough to dig bruises into the plush skin with the hand not holding himself up beside your head. His light eyes turn glacial in an instant, darting wildly between both of yours. “I won’t… I won’t last…” he confesses.
Your eyes soften around the edges with a faux innocence. “This isn’t going to be the last time you fuck me, is it?”
The crude word falls so effortlessly from your pristine mouth that it makes his cock jerk within your drooling confines. “I don’t want it to be. No,” he answers, half-shy.
“Then I don’t care how long you last,” you assure him with a lazy grin. “You have kept me hostage for nearly a year— Surely, I’m entitled to make some use of my captor while the realm delays the war, am I not?”
Ormund’s resolve crumbles under your permission. He rolls his hips forward and back again, never quite pulling all the way out of you. He groans quietly when you clench around the sensitive head of his cock; and you swallow down a whimper when the coarse hair below his stomach rubs mercilessly along your sensitive clit.
Your head tips back. He falls to the hollow space between your neck and shoulder.
Ormund’s open-mouthed breaths fan warm along your burning skin as he stumbles into a graceless rhythm, thrusting hard enough to make the wooden frame of his bed squeak quietly beneath you.
The pressure on your clit is relentless. You squirm underneath his sweat-slick body, chasing and running from the pleasure all at once. “I know. I know. It’s okay,” you hear him slur against your skin. “Just take it. Just fuckin’ take it— Fuck—” His voice breaks like splintered glass.
He tenses suddenly above you, taut muscles trembling. You hear his breath catch for a moment, right before a foreign warmth pools in the very pit of your stomach. He groans in time with his release, heavying his weight further against you.
You aren’t far behind.
He grinds his hips lazily to ride out his high, smothering your sensitive clit as the warm, wet, sticky feeling continues to bloom inside of you. “Ormund—” you gasp, tensing beneath him.
“There it is…”the man praises as you tremble underneath him, smearing his lips against your jaw until they reach your parted mouth. “There it is— Fuck, that’s it,look at me.”
Your eyes snap open at his command, bleary and heavy-lidded. You ride out the rest of your orgasm with your gaze locked with his glassy one.
The honeyed moment doesn’t last nearly as long as either of you would’ve liked.
“My lord?”
The two of you sober in a flash as the spell between you shatters. Ormund stills suddenly above you, as if pierced by steel. The warmth flees from his features at once, replaced by the hard composure of the commander of House Hightower. You, too, freeze where you lay beneath him — pulse thrumming hard in your throat as the muffled voice drifts once more through the pavilion.
“My lord—”
“Yes, Daeron,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as he breathes through the rage searing in his chest. “What is it?”
The squire hesitates at his uncle’s harsh tone. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord…” the boy says carefully, hidden behind the covered entrance. “But a messenger arrived from the river road. He bears urgent word from Ser Criston’s camp.”
You feel your stomach sink — or, perhaps, it’s only the mixture of cum seeping out of your still fluttering confines, soaking the sheets beneath you. You feel unspeakably dirty now, and the lack of regret only deepens the feeling.
Ormund remains motionless above you for a moment before sitting back on his haunches. You shiver at the absence of his warmth, and wince slightly when his softening cock slips out of you. “A letter?” he calls to the entrance, brows lowered. “What news?”
“It is sealed, my lord,” Daeron says. “The messenger said it was to be opened by our hand alone.”
Ormund’s confusion deepens. “And who sends it?”
After another brief hesitation, the voice answers solemnly: “Ser Gwayne, my lord.”
"That elegant and lively brother, who had so often captivated her imagination and enlivened the Vatican’s celebrations, had seemed a dependable presence, someone she could always count on in the years to come. It’s reasonable to assume, especially remembering Juan’s fondness for his sister, that he had made generous promises to her, typical of the easy benevolence rich and fortunate men often extend to the women of their household. Perhaps he had vowed to help her navigate the troubling question of her future, even suggesting, as some reported after the Count of Pesaro’s departure, that he might one day take her with him to the land of Borgia dreams: Spain. But his sudden and brutal death had swept away all such plans, leaving Lucrezia facing uncertainty and isolation."
— THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LUCREZIA BORGIA (Maria Bellonci)
Would love to see ormund reacting to Aegon flirting with reader
Faults
Ormund Hightower X Reader
TW: Victim blaming, sexual harassment, toxic relationship, Aegon gets what he deserves.
The Red Keep had changed since you last saw it, or perhaps you had changed.
The celebrations for King Viserys's nameday had stretched into their third evening, and the great hall was a cavern of noise and heat and suffocating light. Thousands of candles blazed from iron chandeliers overhead, from silver candelabras on every table, from sconces along the walls, so many flames that the air itself seemed to shimmer with heat. The king sat at the high table, propped up on cushions, his wasted body draped in cloth of gold that could not hide the ravages of his illness. Your mother sat beside him, her face a careful mask of filial devotion, though you knew her well enough to see the grief beneath it.
Aegon had been looking at you all evening, he was seated directly across from you, a position he had maneuvered himself into with the casual entitlement of a prince who had never been told no. Three years your senior but there was something perpetually adolescent about him, something unformed and hungry. His silver hair was disheveled, his tunic rumpled and stained with wine, and his eyes were glassy with drink. He had been watching you since the first course was served, and every time you glanced up, he was already looking at you with that lazy, proprietary smirk that made your skin crawl.
Ormund sat beside you, engaged in conversation with Lord Beesbury about some tedious matter of trade tariffs. His hand rested on your knee beneath the table, heavy and warm.
"Nieeeeece." Aegon's voice cut through the din, slurred and singsong. He leaned forward across the table, his elbow nearly knocking over his wine cup. "You have been avoiding my eyes all evening. I am wounded. Truly. A man could develop a complex."
You forced a small, polite smile. "I was not aware you were seeking my attention, Uncle."
"Always. Perpetually. Eternally." He waved his cup in a grand, sweeping gesture that sloshed wine onto the tablecloth. "You are the prettiest thing in this hall, and I am a connoisseur of pretty things. Ask anyone. Ask my wife." He gestured vaguely toward Helaena, who was seated several places down the table, her eyes fixed on some invisible point in the middle distance. She did not appear to be listening. She rarely appeared to be listening.
"I think you have had too much wine, Uncle."
"Nonsense. I have not had nearly enough." He drained his cup and signaled for a servant to refill it, his eyes never leaving your face. "You know, I have been thinking. It really is a tragedy that they married you off to Hightower. No offense, Ormund." He raised his freshly filled cup in a mock toast. "But a Targaryen princess should marry a Targaryen. That is how we do things. That is how we keep the blood pure. Instead, they shipped you off to Oldtown like a bale of wool, and for what?"
You felt Ormund's hand tighten on your knee. A warning. A squeeze that was just short of painful. "I am very happy in my marriage," you said, your voice carefully even. "Lord Ormund is a devoted husband."
"Devoted." Aegon rolled the word around in his mouth as if tasting it. "Is that what they are calling it these days? Devoted? Tell me, sweet niece, does a devoted husband have the stamina to keep up with a wife half his age? Because I have heard—" He leaned closer, dropping his voice to a stage whisper that was still perfectly audible to everyone within earshot. "—that the older ones sometimes have... difficulty. In certain areas. Performance difficulties. And I would hate to think of you lying there in your marriage bed, all that fire and youth with a husband who cannot—"
"Aegon." Aemond's voice cut through the noise like a blade. He was seated beside his brother, his single eye fixed on Aegon with cold fury. "That is enough."
"What?" Aegon spread his hands in mock innocence. "I am only expressing concern for my niece's happiness. It is a husband's duty to satisfy his wife, is it not? And if he cannot—well, perhaps she needs someone younger. Someone more... vigorous. Someone who shares her blood and her fire." His eyes slid back to you, and his smirk sharpened. "What do you say, sweetling? If your lord husband ever leaves you wanting, you know where my chambers are. I would be more than happy to—"
"Brother." Aemond's voice was ice. "You are drunk and you are embarrassing yourself. Leave our niece alone."
"I am not embarrassing myself. I am being generous." Aegon's gaze dropped to the neckline of your gown, lingering there with open, undisguised hunger. "Gods, but you are beautiful. All that form, wasted on an old man. Tell me, does he even know what to do with you? Does he make you scream? Does he make you beg? Or does he just grunt and roll over while you stare at the ceiling and wonder what all the fuss is about?"
Your face was burning, you could feel the eyes of the other guests on you, curious, pitying, amused. You could feel Ormund's hand on your knee, tightening, tightening, his knuckles going white.
"I think," you said, your voice barely above a whisper, "that I would like to be excused."
"Oh, do not run away." Aegon reached across the table and caught your wrist, his grip damp and warm. "I am only teasing. Can you not take a joke? The Targaryens used to be able to take a joke. We used to be fun. Before we all became so dreadfully serious about everything."
"Let go of me, Uncle."
"Or what? You will call your husband to defend your honor?" He laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. "Do you think he would? Do you think he would risk offending the king's son for the sake of a blushing bride? He knows which side his bread is buttered on. He will sit there and take it, just like he takes everything else. Just like you take—"
"I believe," Ormund said, and his voice was perfectly calm, perfectly controlled, the voice of a man discussing the weather, "that my wife asked you to release her." Aegon looked at him. For a long, suspended moment, no one spoke. Then Aegon laughed again but it was a different laugh this time, a nervous laugh, and he released your wrist and leaned back in his chair.
"Of course," he said. "Of course. No offense intended. Only a jest between family. You understand."
"I understand perfectly," Ormund said. His hand withdrew from your knee. "Come, my love. The hour is late, and you look tired. Let us retire."
He stood and offered you his hand. You took it, your fingers trembling, and let him pull you to your feet. You kept your eyes fixed on the floor as Ormund led you through the crowded hall, past the tables of laughing guests and the servants bearing platters and the guards standing impassive at the doors. The corridors of the Red Keep were quieter. The torches burned low in their brackets, casting shifting shadows across the stone walls. Ormund did not speak. He did not look at you. His grip on your hand was tight enough to grind the bones together, and his strides were so long you had to half-jog to keep up.
"Ormund," you said, your voice small in the empty corridor. "Ormund, please slow down. You are hurting my hand."
He did not slow down nor did he speak until you reached your chambers, he opened the door, pulled you inside, and closed it behind you with a soft click that was somehow more terrifying than a slam would have been.
Then he let go of your hand, you stood in the center of the room, your heart hammering, your wrist throbbing where Aegon had grabbed it and your fingers aching where Ormund had squeezed them. The chamber was large and luxurious, draped in Targaryen crimson and gold, with a fire crackling in the hearth and a massive bed against the far wall. But it did not feel like home. It felt like a cage.
Ormund walked to the window and stood with his back to you, his hands clasped behind him, his shoulders rigid.
"Would you care to explain," he said, his voice low and cold, "what that was?"
"What what was?" Your voice came out thin and breathless. "I did not do anything. Aegon was the one who—"
He turned. The expression on his face made the words die in your throat.
"Do not lie to me." He crossed the room slowly, deliberately, each footstep echoing on the stone floor. "Do not stand there and pretend you were an innocent bystander. I saw you. I saw the way you looked at him. I saw the way you blushed and simpered and bit your lip like a cheap tavern wench."
"I did not—I was not—" You stumbled backward, your shoulders hitting the wall. "I was uncomfortable. I was embarrassed. I did not know what to do—"
"You did nothing." He was close now, close enough that you could smell the wine on his breath, the faint trace of his sweat beneath the expensive scent of his cologne. "You sat there and let him speak to you like a common whore. You let him touch you. You let him discuss our marriage bed as if it were a subject for public entertainment. And you did nothing."
"I tried to leave." Tears were burning in your eyes now, hot and stinging. "I asked to be excused. I told him to let go of me—"
"You whispered it. You murmured it like a frightened mouse while he pawed at you and made jokes about whether I could still get my cock hard." The crude word hit you like a slap, and you flinched. "Do you have any idea how that looked? Do you have any idea what everyone in that hall is saying about me right now? About us? The Lord of Oldtown, cuckolded at the dinner table by a drunken prince while his wife sits there and blushes and does nothing to stop it."
"It was not my fault." The tears spilled over, tracking hot down your cheeks. "It was not my fault, Ormund. I did not ask for his attention. I did not want it. I hate the way he looks at me. I hate it. But what was I supposed to do? He is my uncle. If I had made a scene, it would have reflected badly on my mother, on my family, on—"
"On your family." He laughed, and the sound was ugly and sharp. "Always your family. Always your mother. What about reflecting badly on me? What about reflecting badly on your husband, the man you vowed to honor and obey? Does that matter so little to you?"
"That is not fair."
"Fair?" He slammed his hand against the wall beside your head, and you flinched so violently that your teeth clacked together. "You want to talk about fair? What is fair about a wife who lets another man put his hands on her? What is fair about a wife who sits there looking like a doe in heat while her own uncle propositions her at the dinner table? What is fair about any of this?"
"I did not—I was not—" You were sobbing now, the words catching in your throat. "Please, Ormund, please. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I did not mean to embarrass you. I did not know what to do. I never know what to do."
"Of course you do not." He stepped back, his lip curling. "Because you are a child. A stupid, naive child who was never taught how to be a wife. Your mother filled your head with stories and poems and let you run wild, and now you are my responsibility, and I am the one who has to deal with the consequences of her failures."
"Do not speak of my mother—"
"I will speak of her however I wish." His eyes were cold, utterly without warmth. "She is the reason you are like this. She coddled you. She sheltered you. She never taught you discipline or duty or sacrifice. She let you fly your dragon and wear your pretty dresses and do whatever you pleased, and now you are a woman grown with the spine of a jellyfish and the judgment of a child. And I am supposed to fix you. I am supposed to make you into a proper wife. But how can I do that when you cannot even sit through a dinner without letting your uncle fondle you in front of half the court?"
"He did not fondle me—"
"He touched you." Ormund's voice was ice. "He touched your wrist and you let him. You did not slap him. You did not scream. You did not do anything except sit there and look pretty and wait for me to rescue you. Again."
You were shaking now, your whole body trembling, your back pressed against the cold stone wall. You wanted to disappear. You wanted to sink through the floor and vanish. You wanted to be anywhere else, anywhere but here, with this man who looked at you like you were something disgusting he had found on the bottom of his shoe.
"I want my mother," you whispered. The words came out broken, childlike. "I want to go to her chambers. Please, Ormund. Please let me go."
He could not let that happen. "No," he said, but his voice had changed. The ice was gone, replaced by something softer. Something almost gentle. "No, my love. You do not need to run to your mother. You do not need to run anywhere. I am here. I am right here."
He reached for you, and you flinched away, but he was faster, gentler now, his hands cupping your face, his thumbs brushing away your tears. "I am sorry," he said, and his voice was thick with what sounded like genuine remorse. "I am so sorry. I should not have shouted at you. I should not have said those things. It is not your fault. None of this is your fault."
You stared at him through blurry eyes, uncomprehending. "But you said—"
"I know what I said." He pulled you against his chest, his arms wrapping around you, one hand cradling the back of your head. "I was angry. I was so angry, and I took it out on you. That was wrong of me. That was deeply, terribly wrong. Can you forgive me?"
"I—" Your voice caught. "I do not understand. You were so angry. You said I was—you said—"
"I said things I did not mean." He stroked your hair, slow and soothing. "I was angry at Aegon. Furious. The way he spoke to you, the way he touched you—I wanted to kill him. I wanted to reach across that table and break his jaw. But I could not. He is the king's son. If I had raised a hand to him, I would have been executed for treason. And so I had to sit there and swallow my rage and pretend everything was fine. And then, when we were alone, I took that rage out on you. The one person who did not deserve it. The one person I should be protecting."
You were crying again, but differently now. Quietly. Your face pressed against his chest, your hands clutching at his tunic.
"It was Aegon's fault," Ormund continued, his voice low and earnest. "All of it. He is a disgrace. A drunken, lecherous disgrace who does not know how to behave in the presence of a lady. And I failed you tonight. I should have spoken up sooner. I should have stopped him before it went as far as it did. I should have protected you. That is my duty as your husband, and I failed."
"You did not fail," you whispered. "You told him to stop. At the end, you—"
"Too late. I acted too late, and you suffered for it. And then I made you suffer more." He pulled back slightly, looking down at you with such regret, such tenderness, that your heart ached. "Can you ever forgive me? Can you give me another chance to be the husband you deserve?"
You looked up at him. His eyes were warm now, earnest, full of love. The monster from a moment ago was gone, vanished as if he had never existed. This was your husband. This was the man who had courted you, who had written you letters, who had made you feel cherished and desired. This was the real him.
Wasn't it?
"Yes," you whispered. "I forgive you."
"Thank you." He kissed your forehead, his lips lingering there. "Thank you, my love. I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I am grateful for it. More grateful than you know."
He held you for a long moment, rocking you slightly, murmuring soft words against your hair. You let yourself be held. You let yourself be comforted. It was easier than thinking. Easier than remembering the things he had said, the way he had looked at you, the contempt in his voice when he called you a child.
"I will make this right," he said finally, pulling back to look at you. "I will speak to the king himself if I must. I will make sure Aegon never speaks to you that way again. I will make sure he knows that if he so much as looks at my wife, there will be consequences. I will protect you. I will always protect you. Do you believe me?"
"I believe you," you said.
"Good." He kissed you, a kiss of apology and devotion. "Now come to bed. You are exhausted. You need to rest. Tomorrow, I will fix everything. Tomorrow, Aegon will learn that he cannot disrespect my wife without answering to me."
He led you to the bed, his hand gentle on the small of your back. He helped you out of your gown, his touch careful, almost reverent. He pulled back the covers and eased you into the mattress, and then he climbed in beside you and gathered you into his arms. "Sleep, my love," he murmured against your hair. "I am here. I will always be here. No one will ever hurt you again."
—
The morning after Ormund dressed himself without summoning a servant, pulling on his training leathers with deliberate, methodical movements. He had learned, over the course of his long life, that there were many ways to deal with a man who had insulted you. Some were public and bloody, leading to trials and executions and the kind of political chaos that served no one. Others were quieter, accidents, properly staged, that left no traces and invited no retaliation.
He had not decided which approach to take when he left his chambers, but by the time he reached the training grounds, the decision had made itself.
The yard was already busy when he arrived, filled with the clash of steel and the shouts of men at practice. Knights of the Kingsguard drilled with their squires. Gold Cloaks ran through formations under the watchful eye of their captains. And there, in the far corner of the yard, he saw exactly what he had hoped to see.
Aemond Targaryen was putting his brother through a series of drills.
The younger prince moved with the lethal grace of a man who had dedicated his entire life to the sword. He was tall and lean and utterly focused, his single eye tracking every movement, his blade flashing in the grey morning light. Aegon, by contrast, looked like a man who would rather be anywhere else in the world. His form was sloppy, his footwork lazy, his sword arm drooping with every passing minute. He was clearly hungover, his face was pale and sheened with sweat, and he winced every time Aemond barked a correction.
Ormund smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. He made his way across the yard at a leisurely pace, stopping to exchange pleasantries with Ser Arriet and to compliment Lord Celsir on his new squire. He was in no hurry. Hurry suggested purpose, and purpose suggested intent, and intent was the last thing he wanted anyone to see.
By the time he reached the corner where the princes were training, Aegon had collapsed onto a bench, his practice sword discarded on the ground beside him. "I am finished," Aegon was saying, his voice hoarse and petulant. "I am done. You cannot make me do another round, Aemond. I am the firstborn. I outrank you."
"You are a disgrace," Aemond replied flatly. "And you will pick up your sword and continue, or I will tell Mother about your behavior at the feast last night. I am sure she would be very interested to hear about the things you said to our niece." Aegon's face flushed. "You would not."
"Try me."
"Good morning, my princes." Ormund's voice cut through their argument, warm and affable. He approached with the easy confidence of a man who had nothing to hide, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. "A fine morning for training, is it not? Though I must say, Prince Aegon, you look a bit worse for wear. Too much wine at the feast?"
Aegon looked up at him, and something flickered in his eyes—wariness, perhaps, or the first stirrings of unease. "Lord Hightower. I did not expect to see you here."
"Did you not? I am a soldier at heart, my prince. Old habits die hard." Ormund smiled genially. "When I am at court, I like to keep my skills sharp. One never knows when they might be needed."
Aemond studied him with his single eye, his expression unreadable. "You are welcome to join us, my lord. I was just attempting to persuade my brother to continue his drills, but he seems to have lost his enthusiasm."
"I have lost my will to live," Aegon muttered. "There is a difference."
Ormund laughed, an easy sound that did not reach his eyes. "Perhaps I can help. A spar, perhaps? Just one round. I am an old man, Prince Aegon. It will be quick. I merely want to stretch my muscles before the day's duties begin."
Aegon looked at him with open suspicion. "You want to spar. With me."
"Unless you are afraid." Ormund shrugged, his tone light, almost dismissive. "I understand. You are tired. Hungover. It would not be a fair match. Perhaps another time."
The bait landed perfectly. Aegon's jaw tightened, and his eyes flicked to Aemond, who was watching with a faint, sardonic smile. "I am not afraid," Aegon said, rising from the bench. "I am the blood of the dragon. I am not afraid of some old man from Oldtown."
"Of course not." Ormund's smile did not waver. "Shall we?"
They took their positions in the center of the yard. Aegon drew his blunted practice sword with a flourish that was more theatrical than practical. Ormund chose his weapon with care, a heavy longsword, well-worn, its edge dulled but its weight familiar in his hand. They faced each other across the packed dirt, and a small crowd began to gather. Squires paused in their duties. Knights turned to watch. Even Aemond stepped back, his arms crossed over his chest, his single eye gleaming with interest.
Ormund let Aegon make the first move. The young prince lunged forward with more enthusiasm than skill, his blade sweeping in a wide arc that would have left him open even if he had been sober. Ormund sidestepped easily, letting the sword whistle past his shoulder, and responded with a light tap to Aegon's ribs.
"Point," he said mildly. "You overextend, my prince. Your footwork needs attention."
Aegon's face reddened. He attacked again, faster this time, a series of strikes that Ormund parried with minimal effort. The old lord moved with the economy of motion that came from decades of real combat, no wasted energy, he let Aegon tire himself out, let the younger man's frustration mount, let the audience see exactly what was happening.
"Another point," Ormund said, tapping Aegon's shoulder. "You drop your guard when you strike. Prince Aemond must have told you that a hundred times."
"Shut up," Aegon snarled.
He lunged again, and this time Ormund did not step aside. He caught Aegon's blade on his own, twisted his wrist, and sent the practice sword spinning across the yard. Aegon stumbled backward, his arms flailing, and Ormund moved in.
What happened next was very fast. Later, the witnesses would disagree about the details. Some would say that Aegon tripped over his own feet. Others would say that Ormund's follow through was simply too powerful to stop. A few—the ones who understood what they were really seeing—would say nothing at all.
Ormund's sword came down in a controlled arc that should have stopped short of contact. Instead, the heavy blunted edge connected with Aegon's right forearm with a sound like a dry branch snapping.
Aegon screamed, he fell to his knees in the dirt, clutching his arm to his chest, his face gone white with shock and pain. The bone had broken cleanly—Ormund could tell by the angle of the forearm, the unnatural bend just above the wrist. A clean break. It would heal, in time. But it would hurt like hell, and it would remind Aegon every day for the next several months exactly who he had insulted.
The yard erupted into chaos. Squires ran for the maester. Knights shouted conflicting orders. Aemond was at his brother's side in an instant, his hand on Aegon's shoulder, his cold voice cutting through the noise.
"Get the maester. Now. And someone inform the Queen."
Ormund stepped back, his sword hanging loose at his side. He arranged his features into an expression of deep, genuine concern. "Gods above. Prince Aegon, I am so sorry. You slipped—I could not pull back in time. Are you all right?"
Aegon could not answer. He was sobbing, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his broken arm cradled against his chest like a wounded animal.
Aemond looked up at Ormund, and there was something in his eye that suggested he understood exactly what had just happened. But he said nothing. What could he say? It had been a fair spar, witnessed by half the yard. Aegon had agreed to it. Aegon had been the one to press the attack. If anything, Ormund had been defending himself.
"I am so very sorry," Ormund repeated, his voice dripping with false concern. "Please, let me know if there is anything I can do. Anything at all. I will pray for his swift recovery."
He handed his sword to a nearby squire and walked away from the training yard, his expression still carefully composed. It was not until he was back inside the castle, climbing the stairs toward his chambers, that he allowed himself to smile.
—
Later, when the maesters had set Aegon's arm and dosed him with milk of the poppy, when the initial shock had faded and the whispers had begun to spread through the Red Keep like cracks through ice, Alicent Hightower summoned her cousin to her solar.
She was waiting for him when he arrived, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, her face pale and drawn. Ser Criston Cole stood behind her, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword, his expression dark.
"You broke my son's arm," Alicent said. Her voice was steady, but there was a tremor beneath it. "You broke his arm in a training spar. Explain yourself."
Ormund closed the door behind him and faced his cousin calmly. "It was an accident. Aegon overextended. I was defending myself. It happens."
"An accident." Alicent's voice dripped with disbelief. "You expect me to believe that was an accident? Half the court is saying you deliberately—"
"Half the court does not matter." Ormund's voice was quiet, but it cut through hers like a blade. "What matters is what can be proven. And nothing can be proven. Aegon agreed to the spar. There were witnesses. He attacked me, I defended myself, and he was injured. That is the story. That is the only story."
Alicent stared at him. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, tears of anger or frustration or grief, he could not tell and did not care. "He is your family. He is your blood."
"He is a drunken lout who humiliated my wife in front of the entire court." Ormund's voice hardened. "He made comments about my marriage bed. He touched her. He offered to service her, as if she were a common whore. And I am supposed to let that pass? Because he is your son? Because he is a prince?"
"He was drunk. He did not know what he was saying—"
"That is not an excuse. It is never an excuse." Ormund stepped closer, his eyes cold. "You have coddled him his entire life. You have made excuses for his behavior, covered up his indiscretions, protected him from the consequences of his own actions. And this is the result—a grown man who thinks he can say and do whatever he pleases without repercussion. Well, there was a repercussion today. And if he ever speaks to my wife again, there will be another."
Alicent's face had gone very white. "Are you threatening my son?"
"I am making a promise." Ormund's voice was calm, almost pleasant. "Aegon will stay away from my wife. He will not speak to her. He will not look at her. If he does, I will know. And I will respond. That is not a threat, cousin. That is a statement of fact."
Ser Criston stepped forward, his hand tightening on his sword. "You forget yourself, Lord Hightower. You are speaking to the queen."
"The queen consort," Ormund corrected, not looking at him. "And I forget nothing. I know exactly who I am speaking to. I am speaking to my cousin, who depends on my support to keep her faction from crumbling. I am speaking to the woman whose son's claim to the throne rests on the swords and gold of Oldtown. I am speaking to someone who should be thanking me for not doing worse."
"Thanking you?" Alicent's voice rose, trembling with fury. "You want me to thank you for breaking my son's arm?"
"I want you to understand the situation." Ormund's voice did not waver. "Without House Hightower, you have nothing. Otto is the architect of your cause, but I am its foundation. My soldiers, my ships, my gold—without them, you cannot hold King's Landing, let alone the Seven Kingdoms. Rhaenyra has the Velaryon fleet. She has more dragons than you do. The only reason you have a chance at all is because Oldtown stands behind you. And Oldtown stands behind you because I command it."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"If you try to punish me for this—if you try to arrest me, or execute me, or strip me of my titles—I will withdraw my support. I will take my soldiers and my gold and my ships and go home. And then you will face Rhaenyra alone. How long do you think you would last? A week? A month? How long before Daemon Targaryen lands on your doorstep with Caraxes and burns this city to the ground?"
Alicent said nothing. Her lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line.
"I thought so." Ormund inclined his head, a gesture of respect that was not respectful at all. "Now, if you will excuse me, I must return to my wife. She has been distressed since last night's... incident. I wish to check on her."
He turned toward the door. "Ormund." Alicent's voice stopped him. He paused but did not turn around. "If you ever harm my son again, I will not care about politics. I will not care about support or gold or soldiers. I will see you destroyed. Do you understand?"
Ormund smiled. "Perfectly," he said. "Good day, cousin."
He opened the door and walked out, leaving Alicent and Ser Criston standing in silence behind him. His footsteps echoed down the corridor, steady and unhurried, the footsteps of a man who had gotten exactly what he wanted, and when he returned to his chambers, when he found you sitting by the window with a book in your lap and a question in your eyes, he crossed the room and cupped your face in his hands and pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead.
"It is done," he said softly. "Aegon will not bother you again. I made sure of it."
You looked up at him, your brow furrowed. "What did you do?"
"Nothing that was not deserved." He stroked your hair, his touch tender. "Nothing that was not necessary. You are my wife. Your honor is my honor. And I will not allow anyone—prince or king or anyone else—to disrespect you. Do you understand?"
You nodded slowly, uncertainty flickering in your eyes. But you did not ask again. You had learned not to ask too many questions.
"Good girl," he said. "Now, what shall we do this afternoon? The gardens, perhaps? I hear the roses are still in bloom."
I'm not sure if I love the way Otto went out yet but it is supremely funny that Aemond asked Larys to bring Otto back to King's Landing meanwhile Larys had him in his murder dungeon the whole time
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