[404superman]

[fire-joestar]

yall have no idea how feral those gifs make me

(such a good milk-drinking boy)

[targlocket]

cregan stark likes to watch his spoiled, pampered wife bathe

"You are in no need of more oils, wife," Cregan mutters, grey eyes watching bedrugingly as you pour yet another vial of scented concoctions into the milky bath water you are lounging in.

He swears it must be the tenth one you added. How a woman can even breathe with so many cloying, flowery smells stinking up the bath chambers is beyond his comprehension. Cleaning oneself needs to be a simple, efficient affair, not a godforsaken parade of every single lotion and oil you own.

"If you are so slighted by it, husband," you lilt, leaning back into the water with a soft, pleased sigh, closing your eyes as you let yourself relax fully, body submerged up to your shoulders. "You may leave and allow me a moment of peace without your brooding."

"I am not—"

"But you are," you interrupt, humming, lifting a hand to thread your fingers along the surface of the water as you speak. "Every time you join me, you do nothing but stand there and brood," the sound of your tongue clicking follows, as if expressing your distaste for this odd tradition your lord husband has instilled in the moons you have been wed. "It disturbs my repose."

Cregan scoffs, having half a mind to not roll his eyes at your audacity. He should be used to it by now, seeing as you have never shied away from making it abundantly clear how much you love being indulged and enjoying your reprise without a single interruption.

And yet, he was not going to allow you to discard him with a flick of your hand and a defiant tilt of your chin whenever you wished to be undisturbed. He was your husband, and if he wanted to be in attendance at whatever ridiculous southern pompous customs you had, he would.

That's why he had asked the servants to put an armchair in your bathing chambers, close by the tub, where he shall sit every time he has the luxury of disregarding or postponing his duties for a while, just so he can watch you bathe and pamper yourself. Cregan did not care if word filtered through the walls that The Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North spent part of his pastime sitting splayed out in a chair in his wife's bath chambers, feasting on one of the most exquisite viewings in the Seven Kingdoms. Let them talk and whisper. He did not need to explain himself to anyone, least of all to gossiping servants and sycophants alike.

His wolfish gaze was shameless as it traced the damp, dewy skin of your neck and shoulders, fingers drumming onto the wooden arm of the chair, faltering in rhythm just a tad whenever you shifted, the water lapping at your curves. He swore sometimes you were moving with the intent to drive him to madness, even if it was the most minute gesture.

"Disturbs your repose," he parroted, lips twitching with amusement at your feigned disdain for his presence. "My apologies for being such a pest to my own wife," Cregan continued, "I was not aware bathing oneself required such solitude."

Your expression shifted, a scowl marring your pretty features as your chin tipped upwards, as if his words had no place even reaching you. "It always requires solitude. You are just adamant to perturb it," you complained, sighing, as if the mere thought exasperated you, which made Cregan's mouth curl further, dripping with mounting enjoyment. "You stand there watching me like some kind of lecher," you accused, scowl deepening, a scoff leaving your plush mouth. "It is unbecoming of a husband to ogle his wife so shamelessly. You northerners have no decorum."

And oh, the way your lips curled every time you mentioned his culture, tone haughty and dipped with venom at the edges, as if spitting out the very word, made his blood sing.

"Just brutes with no finesse," you finished, chin raising just a bit higher, showing him you were above such things, above him, above his culture.

Gods, he wanted to haul you out of that bath and spank you until you cried those fat, pretty tears again, cheeks flushed and voice wet from babbling at him to stop. Cregan was not a man given to punishment easily, especially with the woman he was bound to by law and vow, but he came to understand that there were few ways he could make his wife see reason, and even then, only if you wanted to give in to his whims and relent.

"If you wanted a soft southerner lord with nough but a flaccid cock and no mind of his own, wife," he spoke, lips curling into that slow, wolfish grin, the one where his canines peeked through. A wolf showing his teeth without biting, but making it clear he could if provoked further. "You wouldn't have accepted my proposal so readily, riding for Winterfell not even a fortnight after our sigils were put on parchment."

You scoffed, rolling your eyes in that infuriating way Cregan loved and hated in equal measure, as if his words were nothing but white noise you were forced to listen to. "It was in my best interest to accept," you protested, inclining a little higher, leaning back against the tub, the water lapping at the tops of your damp breasts. A muscle in Cregan's jaw twitched as his eyes followed the movement. "Why would I be the lady of some lesser lord when I can be Lady of Winterfell?" The words were accompanied by a hum, evidently pleased with the title you possessed. "I am nothing but a woman of great ambitions, as you're well aware, husband."

Cregan huffed, more amused than anything, head tilting, not taking his eyes off the way he could make out the pebbled shape of your nipples just shy of peeking above the milky, fragrant water. He knew what you were doing. This little game of yours was as old as time.

You were losing ground, not pleased with the way he was biting back at your attempts to unnerve him, and had no other alternative but to call to his most primal, animal instincts that reside as deep as the marrow of his bones. He was a man, after all, and no stranger to the cravings of the flesh, more so when it came to his infuriatingly enticing wife, bare and glistening, lounging in the tub, indulging his eyes with glimpses and flashes of your body, willing to make him falter in his resolve.

"You never cease to remind me of the fact, wife," he said, feeling his chest puff up a tad at the way you huffed at his words, clearly displeased that he was not indulging your whims still. Not yet. Cregan was enjoying this more than he wanted to admit. "No woman in the Seven Kingdoms can rival you in that regard."

"What about other regards?"

Cregan's mouth twitched again, but he reigned in his expression for now. "Other regards?" He feigned confusion, tilting his head to the side, dragging his eyes from where they traced the shape of your damp breasts, up to your narrowed, inquisitive gaze. "I fear I do not follow. Must you be so kind as to specify, wife?"

Your brows furrowed, body shifting slightly into the tub, the water lapping at your skin, wetting it anew, drawing Cregan's eyes towards every patch for a few moments, rough fingers twitching onto his armchair, but he won't be baited this time. Raising one eyebrow, he waited, grey eyes now solely focused on yours, keeping you ensnared until you gathered the words to throw back at him.

"Am I rivaled in other regards by the women of the Seven Kingdoms?" You asked, chin held high, trying to absolve yourself of the vulnerable undertone woven into the question, gaze sharp, narrowed. But the way one of your hands lifted to grip the edge of the tub, curling around it, gave you away. You needed to ground yourself for this sort of fragility, and it made Cregan's heart soften just a tad every time, melting the frost of the North around it and giving way to the ceaseless warmth you brought with you from the South.

He huffed, letting his mouth form that tender, soft curl reserved only for you, grey eyes crinkling at the edges with barely concealed fondness. "No, wife," Cregan said, tone glazed with honeyed affection, letting his eyes feast on the way your chest heaved with a soft breath, as if his words had eased an unknown burden curled beneath your breastbone. "There is no woman in all the Seven Kingdoms who could dream of besting you."

And still, you scoffed, protest ready on your tongue, bristling in the milky water, never one to cease when you wanted certainty. "If your words are baseless, you may keep them, for I have no use for-"

"Not in my eyes," Cregan interrupted you, tone lowered but firm, halting your tongue before you could descend into yet another one of your haughty deflections.

It was ever pleasing, the way you faltered in the face of his sincerity. Blinking akin to a startled doe, your expression passing from one emotion to another, offense to confusion to reluctant preening. He could see it. Your chest heaving with soft breaths, plush mouth parting, pupils dilating wide enough to encompass the color of your eyes, leaving behind pools of black. And then, the flush. That warmth spreading from the tops of your breasts and climbing up, up, up your throat, splotching over your cheekbones and reaching the tips of your ears.

Mhm, he got you good this time. Cregan might have to ride the high of such an accomplishment for the fortnight to come, if he was lucky. The Gods were ever so merciful to grant him such a gift and let him savor it, too.

"The smell of the bathing oils must've affected you a great deal, husband, to say such theatrical musings," you mumbled, not meeting his eyes for a heartbeat, two, before looking into that northern gray you preached you found so insufferable. "It makes you sound like one of those flaccid men you mentioned earlier."

Cregan could only huff, amused, watching as you tried in vain to deflect and throw whatever attempt at diffusing the meaning of his words back at him. "Sound, maybe," he said, offering you a slow, wolfish curl of his mouth, baring just enough hint of teeth to allude to a threat, but not bestow it. "But I am anything but flaccid, wife. You, of all people, should be familiar with the hardness of—"

"Silence!" You shrieked, one hand dipping beneath the water's surface and swatting upwards, sending droplets of water towards him, attempting to will him into silence. "Have you no shame, you brute? To speak of such things in the company of your wife?"

But he was not perturbed; on the contrary, his lips pulled into a smirk, pleased and smug. Making you bristle truly was the thing he favored most, aside from the feel of your body and the sound of your voice. "Should I speak of such things in the company of someone else, then?"

"Don't you dare! Gods, you're giving me a headache," you fussed, swatting water at him again, eyes narrowed as you demanded. "Help me bathe, so you may amend for your wrongs."

And who was Cregan to refuse such a decree from his wife?

taglist: @pinkdoeweirdo @lustedbby @silkaurum @through-the-looking--glass @pearlessance @chaotichereticcavern @mademoisellepetite @creganed @the-things-i-do-4-love

[kitkatkitzune]

POSTURE PAIN

Pairing: Jacaerys Velaryon x Fem!reader

Summary: Jace is suffering from back pain, you offer to help.

Warnings: 18+, Suggestive, Tbh this is kinda smut, Jace is a little subby, Kind of mentions of time period sexism??, Potential Inconsistencies in the tense it’s written in (who is surprised? the answer is no one)

Notes: Hello! I’m so sorry I didn’t post this sooner like I wanted to BUT I am working on many different fics right now for many different ASOIAF characters!! I’ve even begun to draft for my October event so stay tuned!!

This is my first time writing something so suggestive/smutty so please be kind to me!

&& the header is for comedic purpose because… look at him lol

Word Count: 1.3k

MASTER POST , ASOIAF MASTERLIST

———————

You were curled up on the chaise by the fire with a book in your hands. This was your nightly routine. After shedding your heavy gowns, hair pins, and other jewels you would sit and read while in your thin night shift. You would typically do this until Jacaerys joined you in your shared chambers even though he had told you many times that you need not stay up for him.

You had just finished your chapter when he entered the chambers looking exhausted.

“Long day?” you ask as you close your book, standing up.

He nods, rubbing his neck, “I called for the maids to bring water for a bath.”

You make your way towards him before chuckling, “You need it. You smell like Vermax...”

Smiling, he tilts his head at you, “Yes, I was patrolling today.”

There was a knock on the door and maids filtered into the room with buckets of hot water, quickly making their way to the connected bathing room. They were gone just as quickly as they arrived. Jace never liked or wanted the maids washing him. He was perfectly capable of cleaning himself. Not to mention the fact that you had offered to help him many times after you had been wed, just as he would help you.

You sat beside the tub, taking turns telling each other about your day. You told him of your readings and research in the library, he told you of his conversation with Daemon. Jace did not remain in the bath for long, he never did unless you were bathing together, he didn’t find it relaxing and when the water cooled even the slightest bit he began to complain.

As he got dressed for sleep, you made yourself comfortable on your side of the bed. Jace groaned as he walked across the room, one hand clutching his lower back.

“You sound like an old man,” you say teasingly.

He rolls his eyes, groaning more as he sits on the bed with his back to you, “I feel like one. My back aches and my neck is so stiff…”

You sit up, scooting across the bed until you can rest your hands on his shoulders and your knees are touching his lower back. You tilt your head to look at him, a small frown on your face, “Well my love…”

“Well what?” he turns his head towards you.

“I believe it is from your posture.”

“My…posture?”

“Yes, you stand hunched over and sometimes you walk with your head jutted out.”

He looks offended, “I do no such thing.”

“My love,” you run a hand down his back til you reach the center, “you’re even slouching right now,” you push against his back, forcing him up straight causing his back to curve.

Then you return your hands to his shoulders and pull back slightly, putting him in a more proper sitting position. He looks at you again, only this time he appears shocked, horrified, and also relieved.

“How’d…”

“One of the very first things us ladies learn with our septas is how to stand proper. I don’t believe they teach such things to princes and lords. No, the first thing they teach you is how to swing a blade. Standing straight for me is subconscious but for you… it’s something you need to focus on.”

“You mean to tell me that I have been walking around hunched over my entire life and no one has said a thing?” he asks, exasperated.

“Not many people would dare question a prince… although I will say that Luke seems to stand properly, as well as Joff but he’s still little so that could change! Daemon is… well, sometimes I believe he stands with his shoulders too far back and his chest puffed out.”

Jace sighs, rubbing his temples, “My little brothers stand better than I do? What kind of example am I leading…”

You hum and scoot away from him, back to your side of the bed, “It can also come from stress, you carry a great weight on your shoulders Jace. No jest intended. Your back will likely ache for a while even as you adjust to the new posture… but I know something that will help for now, lay down on the bed.”

He gives you a startled look, his face flushing, “My love I don’t think that would help…”

You gasp, “You’re perverted! No! I meant… lay on your stomach, not on your back!”

“Oh.”

“Mhm.”

He complies, and moves to the center of the bed, resting his head in the crook of his arm. You click your tongue, “Put your arms at your sides.”

Jace does and only then do you move. Slowly, you move to straddle his lower back just above his tailbone. You start up by his shoulders, your hands working at tight muscles near the neck.

He immediately lets out a groan and hides his head in the pillows. You smile to yourself, biting your lip to suppress a giggle.

You hum a song while massaging his back, you can feel the tension leaving his body as you work your magic.

It seems as though he is going to fall asleep, completely relaxed as your hands are getting lower on his back. But that would be too easy. His hips began to rock into the bed, subtly at first and then more obvious, before he lets out a quiet moan.

“Love,” he croaks out, “I’m… sorry,” he hides his face entirely, “wait, please…”

You shush him before whispering, “It is natural Jace,” your hands fall to the bed on either side of the man beneath you as you lean forward til you're laying entirely on top of him, breasts pressed against his back.

“Do you wish for me to continue?” your lips brush his ear and he shivers letting out a noise that sounds like a whimper.

“Hm?” you hum, playfully biting his ear making him shudder, “I can not hear you with your face hidden in the pillows.”

Jace turns his head to look back at you. His eyes are dazed and his cheeks red, “Please…”

You smile, pecking his cheek before leaning back and continuing your work. You can’t help but feel pride every time he moans or groans or whimpers when his hips jerk into the bed. You were just about to stop and offer a proper solution to his current predicament when you felt him tense up harder than before.

“Fuck,” he mumbles your name, “‘m sorry…”

You slip off of his back and onto the cool furs on your side of the bed. He attempts to shimmy down the bed but you shake your head and pull him into your arms. Unable to hide his face between your legs, he hides in your breasts. You run your fingers through his curls, “You’ve made a mess of your trousers,” you tease.

He nips at your skin through your shift and you tug at his hair in response. Jace looks up at you and pouts.

“How does your back feel?” you ask, him being in pain being the main thing on your mind.

“Better, much better.”

“Good, we’ll work more on your posture tomorrow okay? I can begin to remind you if you’d like?”

“Please do,” he mutters, still embarrassed by the situation.

You laugh and pull him back to your chest. Just as you’re about to drift off Jace comes to a sudden, horrifying realization. His voice is muffled due to his face being buried in your breasts, “When I asked you to allow me to court you, to be my wife… I was walking like that? Standing like that?”

You giggle, “Yes Jace, I’m afraid you were.”

“And you still agreed?!”

“You have a pretty face.”

Since he caught a stray during this I must add…

[chuluoyi]

bundle of joy

- gwayne hightower x wife!reader

pious, devout and charming— your knight is hopelessly in love more than ever when you are expecting your first child! however, not everything is smooth sailing...

genre/warnings: suggestive, pregnancy, lots of romance, arguments, hurt/comfort, brief description of childbirth, sunshine!gwayne and grumpy!reader, targaryen!reader (reader is rhaenyra's younger sister), spoilers! from house of the dragon season 1 and 3

notes: gif by @/baelcrtargaryen. just gwayne being a protective husband <3 sigh he's so delectable i want to eat him

Despite how your marital bed was rarely cold and the frequency of your nightly activities, it had actually taken you years to conceive a child.

It had come as a blessing because you adored children and Gwayne, who was so fond of his nephew Daeron and had watched him grow up, had hoped for the day you would bear a child of his own to love wholeheartedly—

“You are... truly? A child…?”

And now, that day is finally here.

The brilliant blue of his eyes shone the moment the words left your lips, unblinking, afraid if he had misheard.

But when sweet, ethereal you nodded with the brightest of smiles, he himself was come undone, a breathless, boyish smile breaking across his face then.

“This is— oh, most splendid news—!”

Gwayne couldn’t help himself— he pulled you into his arms and into a searing kiss. It was full of pure, unfiltered giddiness, the kind that had him laughing softly against your lips in boundless joy.

“Oh, Gwayne...” you sighed into him, relief washed over you at how elated he was. You felt so blessed to have such a kind man as a husband.

He cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs gently brushing your cheeks as his eyes bored into yours.

“I love you. I love you. I swear to you and the Seven above, I will do everything in my power to protect both you and our child.”

If he had loved you deeply before, he was enamored to the point of no return now. In the moons that followed, everything blurred into bliss.

To Gwayne, you were akin to a Valyrian goddess, and he was nothing less than your sworn sword— you could do no wrong, and your word was his absolute law.

And mayhaps those old midwives’ tales held truth, or you were just taking immaculate care of yourself. Then again, chances were higher that he was a simple fool blinded by love, but Gwayne could have sworn... ever since then, you were glowing.

Your smile seemed sweeter now, and the way you would place a hand on your growing belly out of instinct was adorable. The fact that you carried his child, and the radiant joy it brought to your eyes never failed to leave him weak in the knees—

—because the Gods know he loves you so damned much too.

“The Princess… she is absolutely radiant, is she not?”

And as it turned out, he wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

The rank-and-file soldiers were in the middle of their daily drills when you passed by the courtyard. A sudden breeze swept through, catching the silk of your gown and sending a few stray locks of your hair dancing across your face. It was a picture of effortless grace— and to a yard full of sweat-drenched men, an absolute sight for sore eyes.

A pair of low-ranking footmen at the back of the line completely forgot their footwork, utterly spellbound.

“Aye,” the second one murmured, his eyes wide and completely glazed over as he watched you walk. “Like a maiden stepping right out of a tapestry...”

Gwayne’s head snapped toward them, the warm smile he had been wearing just a heartbeat prior when he stared at you vanishing in an instant.

“You there!” he barked, his voice ringing across the cobblestones.

The two footmen jumped and turned to him, faces instantly draining of color. Gwayne strode toward them, his chest puffed out, putting on the airs of a proud and arrogant knight.

“Unless you expect the Princess to wield a blade in your stead, I suggest you keep your eyes on your opponent.”

“Y-Yes, sire—”

Hmph. Now they were cowering before him. How did they forget whose wife they had been ogling just now?

“Ten more laps around the yard,” Gwayne commanded to their dismay, his eyes cold as he lifted his chin up. “And if I catch your eyes wandering from your duties again, I will personally pluck your eyes out and ensure you spend your next rotation cleaning Ormund’s chambers... Now move!”

As the panicked footmen scrambled to begin their laps, Gwayne threw them a dirty look, bridled with utter satisfaction.

He turned back toward where you stood, expecting to find you continuing on your way, blissfully unaware. Instead, he found you standing still, watching the entire exchange with an amused sparkle in your eyes— a delicate hand to your lips to hide your giggle.

Gwayne’s haughty expression crumbled. A flustered flush crept rapidly up his neck, staining his cheeks a dusty pink. Suddenly acutely self-conscious of how loud he had been, he cleared his throat and blinked several times, shifting his weight from one boot to the other.

He offered you a sheepish frown, his eyes pleading for you not to tease him too much when you were finally behind closed doors.

. . .

“What has displeased you, hm, husband?”

That night, Gwayne had just stepped out of the bath, his dark hair still damp, and sleepiness softening his usually sharp features as he took his side of the bed. He wore only a loose, simple linen robe, tied haphazardly at his waist.

“Hm...?” he mumbled, mid-yawn, as he turned to you.

However, his sleep-addled mind was entirely unprepared for the sight of you.

Seven save me, he thought, his throat suddenly dry.

There you were, a gorgeous temptress intent to ruin him in your... what was that? An almost see-through loose night gown?

You didn’t wait for him to answer. Instead, you slithered onto his lap, straddling his thighs. Gwayne’s hands instinctively flew to your waist to steady you, his touch warm as you draped both of your hands over his broad shoulders.

“I only ask,” you murmured teasingly, leaning in close enough that your breath fanned over his lips, “because you looked ready to torment two perfectly well-behaved footmen today. Over a harmless glance.”

Gwayne let out a low, rumbling groan, his eyelids fluttering half-closed as he looked up at you.

“They were staring,” he replied in defense. His gaze drifted down your form, lingering on the widening of your hips where his child now grew. “Rather boldly, I’d say. They should use their ungrateful eyes to look at their targets, not at my wife. Not when you are... like this.”

You tilted your head in a mock cluelessness. “Like what?”

“Ravishing,” he breathed, his bright blue eyes meeting yours as his grip tightening on your hips. “Breathtaking. Mine.”

The possessiveness in his voice sent a thrill through you. Leaning up, he captured you mouth in a slow, deeply sensual kiss. You parted your lips instantly to welcome him— and he tasted of mint and warm water.

“Mmhm... ah...” The kiss deepened, growing heavier and more desperate by the second. Your hands slid from his shoulders to wrap around the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his damp hair.

Unable to help yourself, you shifted your weight, slowly and deliberately grinding your hips against his lap.

Gwayne let out a ragged gasp against your mouth. The friction of your body against his through the thin linen of his robe sent a shiver through his spine, his hands clenching tightly onto your hips to guide the rhythm. His skin was a feverish contrast to the cool night air of the room, as he hardened rapidly against you, consumed by the weight of your warmth pressing so directly into his groin—

“Damn...”

He kissed you fiercely now, his tongue tangling with yours as you continued to press against him, humping him with an intoxicating persistence that had him trembling beneath you.

But just as the heat in the room threatened to boil over, Gwayne suddenly stilled you, gently but firmly halting your movements.

He broke the kiss, resting his forehead against yours as his chest heaved, his breathing shallow and labored. His blue eyes watered, dark with desire, searching your face.

“No, darling, we must stop,” he panted. He swallowed, his thumbs brushing soothingly against the side of your abdomen. “I love you more than my own life— but I will not risk the babe. As much as this tortures me... this is as far as I am willing to indulge us tonight.”

You let out a soft whine, resting your chin on his shoulder. You knew he was only acting out of a protective love for you and the child you carried, but the warmth of him was far too addictive to let go of just yet.

“Very well,” you murmured against his neck, nipping softly at his pulse point. “But I have one request.”

Gwayne let out a breathless chuckle, his hands tracing the curve of your spine. “Anything. You know you have only to ask.”

“Take off your robe,” you petulantly poked his chest. “I want to feel your skin against mine while we sleep.”

“A wanton through and though,” he snorted.

“The babe demands it.”

A hopelessly devoted smile broke across Gwayne’s face. “A punishment and a reward all at once, then.”

Without another word, he obliged. Untying the sash, he shrugged the linen robe off his shoulders. He pulled you back down against him, tucking you securely under the velvet blankets. His toned body was solid, warm, and his skin was surprisingly soft to the touch— a comforting weight you could never tire of.

Pressing a tender kiss to the crown of your head, he wrapped his arms tightly around you, his bare chest warm against your back, his hand resting protectively over your stomach as you both drifted off to sleep.

Days and weeks drifted by, and soon, the weight of your belly could no longer be hidden beneath your dresses.

By all accounts, your life was a blissful one. You had a husband who worshipped the ground you walked on, and you were counting the days until you could finally hold the child you had been waiting for. Even for a princess of the Seven Kingdoms, it was the kind of fairy tale most could only dream of.

Still, even the most beautiful tapestries have frayed edges, do they not?

Though Gwayne’s devotion was sweeter than words could say, his constant hovering these days had begun to feel like... a suffocation.

The tipping point had come on a morning when a sharp, fleeting cramp had made you wince. He had been the one who went pale, immediately ushering you back toward the bed.

“You must lie down,” he had insisted, his voice tight with worry. “I will have the maester brew something. No more walking today.”

“Gwayne, it was a momentary ache, nothing more,” you had sighed. “I cannot spend the next two moons staring at the canopy of this bed.”

But he would frown and your heart would lurch, seeing his pure concern for you.

“For my own peace of mind and for the babe, please?”

His fretfulness felt like a velvet cage, even when you knew it came from a place of pure love.

. . .

In a rare event in which you finally managed to slip away while he was distracted with other things, you retreated to the sanctuary of the gardens, the cool breeze a welcome relief against your skin.

But your quiet peace was short-lived.

As you rounded a stone archway, you caught sight of a figure cowering behind a massive marble pillar, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“Daeron...?” you murmured in surprise, stepping closer.

The youngest of Alicent’s three sons and a ward of Oldtown—also, your estranged half-brother, the young prince was unlike his misguided brothers, and you had known him to be a gentle and sensitive soul. Now five and ten, he was thrust into the grueling world of knighthood, all under the watchful eye of your husband’s cousin.

The boy gasped, hastily wiping his tear-streaked cheeks with the back of his sleeve as he stood.

“Y-Your Grace,” he stammered, his voice thick as he tried to put on a brave face. “Forgive me. I... I did not hear you approach.”

“What is it, sweet boy? Why are you crying?” you gently took his hands, feeling your heart twinge at the sight of his tears.

A skepticism settled in your chest. You had seen how Ormund Hightower conducted himself— and you highly doubted his patience with a sensitive young boy.

“Has he been too harsh with you during your lessons?” you asked gently.

Daeron vigorously shook his head, his eyes wide with fear of causing trouble. “No! No, my lord is... he is only doing what is right. It is my fault for I have failed to meet his expectations.”

That arrogant, demanding windbag, you thought bitterly. To place such crushing weight on a child’s shoulders was reprehensible, and you fully intended to have a very pointed, very unpleasant word with Ormund Hightower later.

But for now, your only concern was the boy before you. Taking Daeron’s hand in yours, you offered him a warm, reassuring smile.

“Very well, if you said so... Now, come with me. Let me show you your uncle’s new collection of swords. He truly can never have too many, or so he claims.”

Your attempt to cheer him up was working. Daeron’s frown was replaced with pure joy as you showed him around Gwayne’s hidden stash of blades, and by the end of the day, he was laughing along with you.

“When will the babe come, Auntie?” he asked, looking up at you with a genuine smile. The title slipped out so naturally he didn’t even notice he had reverted to how he used to call you years ago. Even when you were his half-sister by blood, Daeron much preferred to think of you as the wife of his uncle.

“Soon. Mayhaps in six weeks or so.” You patted your swollen belly, and the young prince’s eyes followed your hand, before cautiously placing his palm over the curve.

In that very moment, the child gave him a firm kick, and he gasped, his blue eyes widened in wonder.

“In awe, are you?” you laughed softly, gently ruffling his hair. “Truthfully, sometimes I still wonder how there is a whole living human inside me, too.”

But he didn’t laugh, nor did he pull his hand away. Instead, he looked up at you, his features settling into an earnestness.

“If it is a girl... I promise I will protect her,” he declared solemnly. “I will grow strong enough so that no one can ever hurt her. I will be her champion.”

Your heart swelled at his words, a lump forming in your throat at the purity of his devotion. In certain lights, he did look like Gwayne.

“I have no doubt you will be the finest champion a girl could ever ask for, Daeron.”

. . .

“Where were you?”

You had only just returned to your bedchambers after quietly escorting Daeron back to his quarters, and the very first thing that greeted you was your husband’s scathing tone.

Gwayne stood near the hearth, his jaw tight and his shoulders rigid. His usually warm eyes were clouded with a coldness you rarely saw in him.

“I have been searching everywhere for you,” he stated, his voice thick with suppressed irritation. “You vanished without even telling any of your maids—”

“I was just in the gardens—” you said, your voice already tight with exhaustion, but he cared not of what you had to say in defense.

“Do you have any idea what went through my head? You are weeks away from labor, you’ve been having cramps, and—”

This had been going on for a while, and honestly, a headache was forming in the back of your head. The accusation, piled on top of days of feeling watched and managed, finally broke the last dam of your patience—

“Can you just... not?!”

You followed the impulse in your chest to yell, the volume of your voice echoing sharply.

“I am sick and tired of being treated as if I am an invalid!” you cried, your chest heaving as tears of frustration pricked the corners of your eyes. “I cannot take a single step, look out a window, or even have a quiet moment to myself— without you hovering over me like a warden!”

It felt satisfying to let this go, but then you looked at him, and—

Immediately you regretted raising your voice. Gwayne looked as though you had struck him across the face.

The worry in his eyes shattered into utter heartbreak, his shoulder slumping. His lips wobbled, his gaze dropping to the floor for a moment before he forced himself to look back up at you.

“I...” his voice cracked. “I am… sorry. I did not— I never wished to make you feel like a prisoner. Or to make you feel sick.”

You parted your lips, immense guilt overwhelming you at the sight of him. “Gwayne, I—”

“You are right, I have been way overbearing as of late.

His expression was somber, his eyes repeatedly straying from your face as if looking at you pained him, while he struggled to voice the words.

“I selfishly thought that since it’s our first child, I have to do everything to ensure your comfort. But in my own misguided sense of... righteousness— I failed to consider how you might feel.”

How did you forget that at the core of his very being, he was just a kind man who would sooner offer himself as sacrifice than allow even the slightest harm to reach you?

He offered you a small, bittersweet smile then—one that didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were shining with unshed tears.

“Tonight, I will leave you to your peace and not disturb you, I promise.”

Your heart clenched when he backtracked towards the door. Just before he reached for the latch, he paused, his eyes softening at you with that same, hopeless devotion.

“But if you should ever need anything— a glass of water, a blanket, or... or if the pain returns... please, tell me. Let me do that much for you.”

Gwayne had stood by his word. Ever since then, there was a subtle distance between the two of you.

True to his promise, he no longer invaded your privacy, but his frequent absences made you incredibly antsy. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on you— for weeks, you had begged for space, but now that you had it, you found yourself restlessly searching the corridors for a glimpse of him.

You craved his warmth. You wanted his solid, comforting embrace, because an unsettling gut feeling had taken root in your chest—a dark intuition that something was amiss, though you couldn’t put your finger on it.

Seeking a distraction to soothe yourself, you decided to spend the afternoon in the gardens, but the summer heat only made you uncomfortable. Deciding you had pushed yourself far too much, you turned to your handmaiden.

“Accompany me back to my chambers,” you instructed softly, feeling the beginning of a cramp building in your abdomen. “I think I need to lie down.”

As you made your way back, your path took you past the oak doors of Ormund Hightower’s private study.

You would have walked right past it, had a certain voice not drifted through the slightly ajar door, freezing the blood in your veins.

“So the King is truly poor in health?” Ormund’s voice echoed from within, entirely devoid of any grief. “I would wager he will soon perish from whatever ailment he is suffering. We must ensure our pieces are perfectly placed on the board the moment he does.”

Your breath hitched. You stood entirely paralyzed, the maid stopping beside you with wide, frightened eyes.

The King. Your father.

You knew Viserys had not been in best health since the last you saw him, but to hear Ormund speak of his imminent death with such casual certainty sent a jolt of panic straight to your heart.

If he died, this fragile peace would shatter. The greens and the blacks would tear the realm apart—

—and both you and Gwayne would be caught right in the center of the storm.

Panic clawing at your throat, you didn’t wait to hear another word. You gathered your skirts and hurried down the hall as fast as your body would allow. Your heart hammered violently against your ribs as the sheer weight of what this meant crashing down on you—

But just as you were about to reach your bedchamber, a sudden spasm of pain ripped through your lower abdomen, so intense it stole the air straight from your lungs—

“Your Grace!” your handmaiden cried.

It wasn’t the fleeting, mild cramps from before— this was a white-hot, tearing contraction that buckled your knees. A cry of agony escaped your lips as you leaned sideways, your hands clutching the curve of your belly as you sank onto the cold floor.

You gasped for breath, but another wave of agonizing pressure rolled over you. The hallway began to tilt precariously, and trembling, you reached blindly down inside your dress when you felt warmth trickling down your thighs— and the sight made your heart stop.

Your fingers were stained a slick crimson. Blood.

A cold dread seized you as your head spun. No, you thought desperately, not the babe. Please, not the babe.

Your vision swam violently, but just as you were losing the last threads of your consciousness, you heard shouts of your name and a strong pair of arms hauled you into his embrace.

Gwayne Hightower. The man who had your heart since you were but a young girl. The man who was besotted enough to court you despite your rejections of him.

He always, always managed to be your knight in shining armor.

He was on his knees beside you, his face completely drained of color, his blue eyes wide with a frantic terror you had never seen in him before.

You could no longer hear the words tearing from his throat, but as the world faded entirely to black, a profound comfort washed over you—

If he is here, then I am safe.

“How did this happen...?”

Your consciousness faded in and out, but you heard bits and pieces.

Gwayne was questioning the maester with his voice cracking more times than not. You knew he was near you as you could feel the constant warmth of his hands gripping yours, trying to pull you back to the surface.

“Oh, my darling,” he whispered against your ear at one point, almost in tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry... I should have been there. I should have never left your side.”

When you finally managed to flutter your eyelids open hours later, the morning sun was filtering through the curtains of your bedchamber. The blinding pain in your abdomen had ebbed into a dull ache.

You tried to shift, a faint groan escaping your dry throat, and immediately felt a weight resting against the edge of the mattress.

Turning your head slowly, you found Gwayne.

He was collapsed in a miserable position on a small wooden stool right beside your bed. His legs were awkwardly bent, one of his arms slung over the mattress to keep his fingers intertwined with yours, while his forehead rested against the edge of the sheets. He was still wearing the same doublet from yesterday, now wrinkled, and his hair was a mess.

Even in sleep, his brow furrowed as though he was having a bad dream— the very sight of a man who had spent the night burning himself alive with worry.

Your heart squeezed with a aching tenderness at the sight of him. Ignoring the dull throb in your body, you weakly squeezed his hand, your thumb gently brushing over his knuckles to wake him.

At your touch, he was roused awake. Gwayne sat up instantly, his head snapping up as a ragged breath caught in his throat. His eyes—bloodshot—scanned the bed frantically until they locked onto your open eyes.

“Darling...?” he asked in a hoarse voice, and when you offered him a tired smile, the wall of defense crumbled completely.

He slid off the stool and onto his knees by the bedside as he pressed a kiss on your hand. His broad shoulders shook as a choked, breathless sob escaped him.

“You’re awake,” he breathed against your skin, peppering your hand with trembling kisses. “Gods, you’re awake. I thought... when I saw the blood, I thought I had lost you— I thought I lost both of you.”

“Is—” you croaked, “our babe—”

“You are both fine. For now,” he supplied, pressing one last kiss on the back of your hand before he straightened himself. He let go of you to sit on the edge of the mattress, slipping his strong arm behind your back to gently lift you so you could drink.

Once you swallowed the cool water and sat comfortably, he set the cup down and placed his large hand gently over your belly. A bitter smile broke through his exhaustion when he felt his child kick him.

“Can you just... let me stay near?” he asked then, his blue eyes shone with tears. “I can’t survive a repeat of what I have gone through yesterday. If something were to happen to you and I wasn’t there, it would tear the soul right out of me.”

He had all rights to be furious at you. And yet, despite everything, here he was— humbly asking for your permission to stay by your side.

Your eyes welled with tears, and you reached out for him blindly. You buried your face into his chest, your hands desperately clutching at the fabric of his wrinkled doublet. He pulled you in instantly, wrapping his strong arms around you and rocking you gently, murmuring soothing sounds against your hair.

“I’m... I’m sorry,” you choked out, your entire frame trembling with the force of your sobs. “I... I was careless—”

“Shh, don’t be,” he shushed, tightening his embrace on you, and you cried harder.

You wept until you had no tears to spare, and when you finally pulled away, you looked up at him through swollen, heavy eyelids.

You love him so, so much. You adored this kind man and his blue eyes and his red hair— and you really wished, with all your heart, that your child would take after him.

“Why are you... not angry with me?” you questioned softly, weighed down by your own guilt.

But Gwayne, as always, only smiled at you, his features softening into that warmth he reserved only for you even at your lowest moments. He gently cupped your face, his thumbs wiping away the damp tracks on your cheeks.

“Have I not spoken these very words to you time and again? How come you always forget them?”

His smile grew incredibly tender as he leaned down to press a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead.

And with his familiar next words, once again, you were reminded once again of what kind of man you had married, and you know exactly how good a father he would be.

“Because to the end of my days... all that I am is yours.”

Your time had come barely five weeks later.

It was a grueling, agonizing ordeal that seemed to stretch on for eternity. Your cries of pain echoed and bled out of your birthing chambers— and anyone who passed by would have their heart broken at the sheer anguish in your voice.

Outside in the corridor, Gwayne was, needless to say, beside himself.

Thoroughly banned from the birthing chambers by the stern midwifes and the head maester, he was a man possessed by helpless terror. His hair a disheveled mess from where his frantic fingers had clawed through it, and his knuckles white and raw from being clenched so tightly in either prayers or an attempt to calm himself.

He had been pacing the length of the hallway since the crack of dawn two days ago, and every time one of your strangled screams echoed, Gwayne flinched, his own eyes burning with unshed tears.

He had faced deaths, had stared down charging knights without a tremor in his hand, but this—listening to the woman he loved scream in agony while he could do absolutely nothing—was a torture that was slowly tearing him apart.

Hours bled into one another. The silence that occasionally fell was almost worse than the screams, leaving him breathless with a suffocating dread.

“She has been in labor for almost two days,” Gwayne rasped, turning to Daeron as if he could soothe his worries. His nephew, though visibly unsettled by your screams, had stayed by his side to offer moral support.

“Two days, and I cannot even hold her hand.”

Ormund paid a brief visit later that afternoon. His cousin had one look at him and patronizingly suggested he go pray in the Starry Sept to calm his nerves. Gwayne’s temper had flared and was about to throw a punch at Ormund’s face if it weren’t for Daeron scrambling to beg him to stand down.

And then, just as he felt he might genuinely lose his mind, a new sound cut through the heavy quiet.

It was a sharp, high-pitched wail. Not yours, but the cry of a newborn babe.

. . .

You thought you would die from the pain alone.

Ever since the terrifying rush of your water breaking, it felt as though your body were being ripped apart from the inside out as you strained and fought to bring forth your child into the world.

And after that one final push that almost had you passed out, the agonizing pressure vanished, replaced by a sudden, hollow lightness and the sweetest of wails.

“It is a girl!” the midwife announced. “Congratulations, Your Grace— you have delivered a healthy, beautiful girl!”

When the midwives placed the tiny, weeping newborn onto your chest, your hands instinctively wrapped around her, shielding her from the cold air of the room. You were entirely spent, your skin slick with sweat and your muscles aching and trembling from the afterbirth, yet you couldn’t take your eyes off her.

This miracle has just come out of you.

As you gently wiped away a stray smudge from her crown, your heart swelled to the point of bursting.

Her little nose and mouth were endearing and closely resembled yours, however there was no trace of silver hair to be seen. Instead, catching the warm candlelight… were soft tufts of red.

You closed your eyes for a brief moment, thanking the Mother, deeply grateful that she would not look like a Targaryen.

She is, in every way, Gwayne’s daughter— a perfect piece of him and yours to keep.

“Bloody hell— just let me in already!”

You heard his voice then, and the smile on your face grew wider. He would be beyond pleased to see this child.

True to your prediction, Gwayne stormed into the room without ceremony a moment later, his eyes instantly locking onto yours. You were in no state to be seen—sweat-drenched, pale, and thoroughly disheveled—and instinctively, you wanted to shrink back from his gaze.

Yet, in his eyes, you had never looked more breathtakingly beautiful.

Cradled securely in your trembling arms was a tiny, squirming bundle wrapped in soft linen. And the sight was enough to almost make him drop to his knees right then and there.

He climbed onto the edge of the bed to pull you gently but firmly into his arms. Hovering over the child he had been eagerly waiting for, Gwayne leaned down and captured your lips in a deep, trembling kiss that tasted of relief and absolute devotion.

“You did it,” he whispered against your lips, his forehead resting against yours as his breath hitched. “Gods...”

Slowly, his gaze drifted downward to the bundle in your arms. The breath left him and he was completely awestruck, the air he usually put on before the court evaporating into nothingness at the sight of this impossibly tiny babe he helped to create.

With a hand that usually swung a steel, Gwayne reached out with unimaginable gentleness. He extended his pinky finger, touching her tiny, flailing hand—

And almost instantly, as if recognizing her protector, the babe’s palm wrapped around his finger, gripping it with everything she had.

“She, oh—” Gwayne froze, shuddering. He stared at her tiny fingers, and then up at the soft crown of her head, his eyes widening as he registered the tufts of copper-red hair just like his.

Seeing how deeply touched he was, your own eyes welled with happy tears. You nudged him softly, whispering the name you had kept locked in your heart:

“Alyrie,” you told him. “Lady Alyrie of House Hightower.”

His mother’s name. The tears Gwayne had tried so hard to hold back during those agonizing hours waiting for you finally spilled over as he turned to you. He let out a wet, shaky laugh as he held both you and Alyrie close to his chest.

“Thank you,” he choked out, kissing your temple.

He then pressed his lips to his daughter’s tiny forehead, his eyes shining with wonder and tears at the very sight of her.

“Our sweet Alyrie... She is perfect. You are both so perfect.”

As you looked at the other halves of your soul, the fragile peace of your bedchamber felt like a beautiful dream. Outside these stone walls, the realm was already fracturing as shadow of the dance of the dragons loomed close— a tempest of fire, blood, and greed that threatened to consume everyone you held dear.

One thing is sure though... both you and him would lay down your very lives to ensure this precious little girl remained untouched by the ash.

[sedonasummer]

ɪ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜ | ɢᴡᴀʏɴᴇ ʜɪɢʜᴛᴏᴡᴇʀ

─ summary: Gwayne comes back from war and is so enamoured of his son. ─ pairing: Gwayne Hightower x wife!reader ─ content: literally nothing but tooth-rotting fluff ─ a/n: i just wanted some softness in my life. Thank you as always for reading🖤

The room lay wrapped in a silence reserved for the hours long past midnight, when the keep had surrendered its last stirrings, and even the wind lay still against the stone. In the hearth, the fire had banked and covered, leaving only moonlight to light the room. Darkness pooled in the corners. A watchman's distant call rose and fell, muffled by walls of stone and panes of glass, then faded into nothing.

Gwayne stood beside the cradle. He wore a loose shirt, its laces undone at the throat so the fabric fell open, revealing the hard planes of his chest. His strawberry-blonde hair, darker in the moonlight than by day, hung loose around his shoulders. One broad hand rested on the carved rim of the cradle, his fingers curling gently over its edge. With the thumb of his other hand, he traced the delicate curve of his son's cheek so lightly the skin barely dimpled. The boy was scarcely a moon old. He lay curled on his back, hands curled into tiny fists, his lips making small, unconscious suckling motions in sleep. He was so new, so impossibly small, that Gwayne could scarcely reconcile him with reality. This perfect, fragile life had grown and entered the world while he was away at war, and Gwayne felt unworthy of any claim upon it.

In the bed across the room, the furs shifted. You had awakened to the cold emptiness beside you. Eyes opened to the dim chamber, your hand reaching across the linen and finding nothing. You sat up slowly, the sheets sliding to your waist, and saw him standing by the cradle, backlit by the moonlight.

He felt your gaze.

"Did I wake you, my love?" he whispered, voice barely more than breath.

You shook your head,  "I reached for you, and you were not there."

A flicker crossed his face, a softening of his mouth, a faint chastening of his brows. He looked back at the baby, then at you. You pushed the sheets away and swung your legs over the side of the bed.

"What are you doing?" 

"I want him to see the moment he wakes," he murmured, eyes already drawn to their son. 

You rose without a sound, your bare feet finding the stone floor, and crossed to his side. "He will, but come rest while he sleeps."

Gwayne shifted at once, opening his arm to draw you close. You fit yourself against him, your shoulder pressed to his ribs, your head turning to follow his gaze into the cradle. Together you watched the babe: the perfect smallness of him, the peaceful rise and fall of his breath, so new to the world, yet so sure of his place in it. "I do not want to miss another moment," Gwayne said, his voice low but carrying the weight of months spent in war; the nights in cold camps, the endless longing for home, for you, to meet the children he left growing in your belly. 

You turned in his arms, hand finding his cheek, and kissed him. His hand was warm against your back as you began to guide him back toward the bed.

Then the baby stirred.

A thin fuss, a hitch in his breath, and he woke. His face scrunched, arms jerking in startled distress.

Before you could move, Gwayne was bending over the cradle, lifting the child. One hand cradled the back of the babe's soft skull, the other supported his tiny body. The rough strength of a warrior gave way to complete gentleness. The infant blinked, ready to wail, but then he met his father's eyes; blue to blue. He stilled, fists unfurling, gaze fixed almost in recognition.

"There now," Gwayne murmured, swaying from foot to foot, his voice low and warm, rough at the edges. Awe lit his features at the miracle in his arms. "I have you."

The baby sighed, eyes drifting closed once more. Gwayne kept his slow rocking, chin bowed, and you stood beside him, your hand resting lightly on his arm. 

[carmysdoll]

HOW SELFISH OF ME !

𐔌 ⠀⠀𓂃 ࣪ ִ⠀⠀gwayne hightower x sweetling reader !

contains ᦸ fluff smut themes more fluff established marriage age gap even tho it’s not mentioned short but sweet ٫٫ 1.5k

❛❛ I think loving you has been the truest thing about me…

Gwayne kissed you with growing fervor, his hands sliding down from your face to the small of your back, his fingers pressing into the dimples of your lower back to press you flush against him. The taste of the spiced wine lingered on his lips, mingling with yours. The bedchamber seemed to shrink around you—the cool air forgotten as heat bloomed between your bodies. 

He slowly backed you gently towards the large canopy bed, too needy to break contact with you for more than a second. When he finally lifted his mouth from yours, just enough to breathe, his dark eyes were half-lidded and warm as they looked into your lilac eyes. “You make me reckless.” He admitted in a husky whisper before claiming another kiss. 

Gwayne’s fingers made quick work of the delicate lilac gown covering your sweet body. His battle-toughened hands were surprisingly deft at untangling the silk and lace. The fabric pooled around your ankles as he deepened the kiss, one hand cradling the back of your head while the other traced down your bare spine. 

Cool air kissed your newly exposed skin, but your husband's body was all warmth—hard muscle against your soft curves. He broke away from your soft lips only to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses along your jawline to that sensitive spot below your ear. A low growl rumbled in his chest and against your skin when you arched into him with a moan. 

”You wanton!” You gasped, a shocked giggle leaving your lips at the feeling of his strong hands taking handfuls of your plump bottom with a squeeze. 

Gwayne’s laugh was a rich and playful sound vibrating against your collarbone before he teasingly nipped lightly at your shoulder. His grip on your backside tightened possessively. 

”Wanton?” He echoed, feigning offense with you—even as his fingers kneaded your skin with shameless appreciation. He continued with a faux cocky tone as he teased you, “You married a handsome, skilled Knight Princess. Did you expect me to be chaste?” 

Before his words even registered, in one fluid motion he lifted you entirely off the ground—your legs instinctively wrapped around his strong waist—and carried you towards your shared bed draped in the finest silks and pillows. The setting sun painted golden stripes across both of you. 

Gwayne laid you down with such gentleness only a man like him could give, before crawling over you. His larger frame cast a shadow that swallowed yours whole. Your eyes never left his as the bed dipped beneath his weight as he braced himself on one elbow beside your head, careful not to accidentally tug on your gorgeous locks. 

His free hand explored your body as if he didn't have it already memorized: tracing the curve of your lip, skimming up your ribs to gently brush against the swell of your breast. His touch was reverent yet hungry—a man starved of his wife’s intimacy after days of being at his cousin and nephews' side. 

The scent of cedar oil and ink from earlier clung to him as he lowered his mouth again, this time aiming for the fluttering pulse at your throat. So delicately begging for his touch. 

Soft sighs and moans left your parted lips as Gwayne worshiped you with the devotion of a man who believed you were his miracle. A Targaryen princess who’d chosen green, chose him. Every kiss he pressed to your skin was deliberate: along your collarbone, down the valley between your breasts, over each rib…

When he reached the delicate edge of your smallclothes, his teeth caught it gently—testing—before slowly peeling it away with his teeth. The cool air made goosebumps rise on your newly bared flesh. A desperate groan escaped him as more of you was revealed to his adore-filled eyes. His hands roamed again, not greedy, but savoring. 

“You’re beautiful.” He breathed against your stomach, saying a prayer to the gods—thanking them for blessing him with a goddess for a wife. 

Your soft hands moved from gripping the sheets beneath you to rest upon your husband’s strong, warm shoulders. A flustered warmth spread through you as you whispered, “You say this every day.” 

Gwayne lifted his head and moved upwards to you. He caught your warm cheeks between both of his soft palms. His gaze was unbearably fond—the same look he only ever reserved for you and his sweet nephew. His thumbs gently caressed your cheeks as his eyes never left yours. His voice was thick with sincerity and devotion as he vowed, ”And I’ll say it every day until the gods tire of me.” 

Then, because he couldn't resist teasing his flustered wife even more, he continued with his sweet tone, “Or until our children grow up and scold us for being so disgustingly in love.” 

Your eyes filled with such love and adoration at your husband's words, at the life he spoke of for the two of you. He leaned down closer and placed two soft, featherlight kisses on each one of your cheeks before sealing his mouth with yours again—this kiss slower but deeper than the ones before. Your hands moved up to his hair as your tongues moved together in tandem. 

Gwayne’s hair—thick, soft, and always smelled of the soaps you use—spilled through your fingers as your fingers tangled in it. He made a pleased sound into your mouth when he felt you lightly tug, the pull sending sparks down his spine. 

His tongue danced with yours in a dance you both knew all too well, warm and slick with shared breaths. One of his hands slid up to cradle the back of your head while the other traced lazy circles on your bare hip. The bed creaked softly as he shifted closer; the weight of him pressing against you was a feeling you hoped you never would forget. 

The bedchambers—usually a place of quiet and untamed love—now pulsed with the sounds of your passion: soft moans muffled against lips, the rustle of silk sheets as your bodies moved together, the occasional breathless laugh shared between kisses. Every touch now was skin on skin, a symphony only the two of you could hear. 

Outside, dusk had fully fallen. Torches along Oldtown’s walls flickered to life one by one—but instead, in your chamber, golden firelight from the fireplace glowed warmly over your entwined limbs and flushed skin. His hand on your hip moved beneath your body as your back arched off the bed—heavenly moans of pleasure leaving your lips—pulling you closer to him. 

Gwayne’s breath came out ragged as he drank in the sight of you beneath him, your back arched like a bowstring, your sweat-slicked skin glowing from the firelight, his love bites blooming faintly along your shoulders and collarbone. Truly, you looked divine. His wife—a goddess who’d chosen his mortal arms. 

“My pretty wife.” He murmured against the curve of your breast before pressing open-mouthed kisses there. Every moan from your lips spurred him on, hands mapping every inch they could reach, mouth following with worshipful kisses along your chest. The bed frame creaked rhythmically now—no longer silent but now singing with passion as your bodies moved together perfectly. 

The cool night air kissed Gwayne’s bare torso as he leaned against the balcony’s stone railing, silhouetted by the touches of Oldtown below. The city sprawled beneath him—alive. Behind him, in the bedchamber's soft glow, lay your peaceful form. Your back rising and falling gently with your near-sleep form as you lay sprawled out on your stomach. Your skin still held faint marks from your lovemaking; hair fanned like spilled silver across pillows. 

He didn't turn around yet, just stared at his home. The major city he wasn’t heir to, but loved deeply. He felt an unfamiliar swell in his chest. Not duty tonight, just gratitude for you, who made his life feel complete. You made him feel more than just the eldest son born from the seed of a second son. 

Your nose brushed against the pillow as you slowly turned your head to face the balcony. Your eyes fluttered open with a small, tired sigh; your tired eyes admired your husband’s strong form. There was no sign of the tension that was normally seen in his body. You called out sleepily, your tone teasing, “Only a man would admire his own city and not his bare wife.” 

Gwayne’s lips twitched into a smile at the sound of your sleepy teasing. The city lights reflected in his eyes as he turned away from the balcony, stepping back inside where warmth and your intimacy waited. He approached the bed silently, padding barefoot over cold stone and rugs. For a long moment, he simply admired you. Your tousled hair, the way the moonlight traced every curve of your bare back. 

Then he sank onto the mattress beside you, his fingertips delicately moving your strands of hair from your back so he could lean down to place a soft kiss between your shoulder blades. His hand then moved down to your lower back, rubbing it soothingly as he quietly admitted to you, “You’re right, the view here is immensely better…how selfish of me.” 

┊࿐ ❛❛ continue on to my…sweetling mlist & main masterlist ❜❜

Იᰍ gwayne hightower my love let me save you :( he’s just so perfect, how could i not write something for him. I’m so proud of my consistency of posting every weekend for like what, 6 weeks? anyways, I love you all my bunnies 🐰 please tell me your thoughts , ideas, and opinions, they are very important and wanted !! comments, reblogs and feedback is very welcomed !! 🐇

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[celestialwyvern]

A FEVER'S HOLD - Gwayne Hightower

SUMMARY - you fall ill and your husband Gwayne insists on nursing you back to health

CONTAINS - fluff, gwayne is whipped, reader recovers quick

A/N - im so sick rn but i couldn't stop thinking about gwayne so why not make something out of it

The draft blowing through the window of your chamber is bitter, but inside the curtains of the bed, the air feels insufferably hot. A sudden fever lays you low, turning your limbs stiff and making the canopy above spin in a blurred haze.

You expect the quiet, shuffling steps of a maester or a line of anxious handmaidens carrying herbal teas. Instead, the doors flung open, and in strides your husband.

Gwayne is still wearing his polished riding boots and a green velvet doublet, his usual posture taut with uncontained panic. His eyes sweep the room until they lock onto your frail form.

“Out,” he commands, voice cutting through the quiet room as he pins the lingering servants with a stern gaze. “All of you. Leave us.”

“Gwayne…” you croak, your throat feeling dry as sand. “You shouldn’t be here… it could be contagious. I know you have duties elsewhere.”

“Let them manage without me for a day,” your husband scoffs, marching straight to the side of the mattress. He drags a wooden chair right to your bedside, the legs scraping loudly against the stone floor. “And do not speak of contagions. I took vows to protect you, sweet wife. I certainly did not swear them just to abandon you to a few trembling handmaidens the moment you catch a chill.”

Without waiting for a response, he leans over you, his cool palm pressing firmly against your burning forehead. A defeated sigh escapes his lips as he measures the heat of your skin.

“Seven hells.” He stares down at you, eyes softening with worry. “You are baking.”

For the rest of the day, Gwayne flatly refused to let anyone else tend to you. His knuckles are red and damp from hours of wringing out wet cloths, his fine doublet lies discarded on the floor, leaving him in his linen shirt. Though he has no choice but to comply when the grand maester sends up a specific remedy meant to break the fever.

It looked to be a thick grey sludge in a small vial of clay, and the moment Gwayne uncorks it, a pungent odor engulfs your senses, passing through your stuffy nostrils.

He pours it into a shallow cup and holds it out to you. You take one look at the murky liquid—the wretched smell amplifying, and you gag, pressing the back of your hand to your mouth as you recoil into the pillows.

“Absolutely not!” you choke out, shaking your head violently. “I would rather let the fever take me than put that thing anywhere near my mouth.”

Gwayne chuckles, his free hand immediately moving to support the back of your head, fingers gently cradling you. “Don’t be dramatic, wife. They are merely herbs. A true Hightower doesn’t shrink from a bit of bark and leaf.”

“Then you drink it,” you challenge blindly, your voice thick with revulsion, trying to push the cup away.

Gwayne simply looks at you, his gaze dropping to your shivering lips. Without a word, he tilts his head. “Fine. Watch and learn how a knight handles a simple remedy.”

He brings the cup to his own lips and takes a swift, deep sip. For a beat, his expression remains unchanged. Then, a violent shudder racks his broad shoulders. His eyes widen, his jaw tightening instantly as he fights his own reflexes. He swallows hard, throat bobbing painfully, before his face twists to one of pure disgust.

“Gods,” he coughs, his voice cracking as he wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “That tastes like a stagnant pond.”

Despite your misery, a weak, breathless laugh bubbles up from your chest. The sight of him willingly ruining his own palate just to ease your fear warms you far more than the heavy furs.

You reach out from under the blankets, your fingers sliding over his hand to take the cup. “Give it here,” you murmur, a fond smile touching your lips. Closing your eyes, you throw your head back and swallow the rest of the bitter liquid in one agonizing gulp. Gwayne can’t help but laugh at your reaction and immediately leans closer, his palm rubbing comforting circles into your back as you shudder from the aftertaste.

Deep into the grueling hours of the night, the room grows quiet, save for the crackle of the hearth. The medicine is working its way through you, and you stir against the pillows to find him hovering close over you, adjusting the blankets.

His face draws near enough that you can feel the cool contrast of his breath against your burning cheek. His eyes soften, heavy with fatigue yet burning with determination. His gaze drifts down to your lips in a silent, instinctual pull.

Sensing his intent, you weakly lift a hand, pressing two fingers against his shoulder to halt his advance. You turn your face slightly into the pillows, hiding your mouth from him.

“No, Gwayne,” you protest faintly, your voice a whisper. “You’re going to fall ill.”

Gwayne pauses, his face just inches from yours. A slow, offended curl lifts the corner of his mouth. “So you deprive me of your affection, wife?”

“I am trying to protect you, you idiot,” you grumble, weakly swatting at his chest.

Gwayne catches your wrist. He lifts your hand, pressing a soft kiss to the back of your knuckles, his gaze never breaking from yours. “I have no use for protection from you,” he whispers against your skin, chest heaving with a quiet sigh. “I would gladly take your fever if it meant easing a single moment of your suffering.”

By the following evening, the hold of the fever finally breaks. The relentless sweating stops, your vision clears, and a welcome strength returns to your limbs.

You’re sitting up in bed, propped comfortably against a mountain of plush pillows, a faint, healthy colour returning to your cheeks at last.

Gwayne remains right beside you. His gaze hasn’t left your face for hours. Leaning over the mattress, his hands come up to move the hair away from your forehead for the hundredth time.

“Hold still,” Gwayne tuts, his eyes scanning every line of your face. “You’re still sick.”

You look up at his face, a playful smile dancing on your lips. “Gwayne, I’m certain the fever is gone.”

“I am the judge of when the fever is gone,” he counters flatly. His thumb traces a lingering path across your cheekbone, his touch so incredibly gentle. “I didn't spend time in this miserable chair just for you to decide you’re cured the moment you feel a spark of life.”

You let out a bright giggle, the sound echoing warmly against the walls. You reach out, your fingers sliding up his forearm to grip his wrist. You slowly pull his hand away from your face without letting go of his wrist.

“I am perfectly well, husband,” you whisper, voice dropping as you lean slightly forward, tilting your head up to challenge his gaze.

Gwayne’s pupils dilate. It was great pleasure to watch him lose his composure. A breath or relief escapes him as he realises the steady strength of your fingers. His gaze drifts slowly down to your lips, then back up to your eyes, holding you trapped in his stare.

A wave of warmth rushes to your cheeks under the intensity of his look, your lips parting slightly.

“Is that so?” he murmurs, the concern on his face shattering, leaving nothing but adoration in its wake. He lets his hand slide from your grip, only to cup your jaw fully, his fingers tangling into the hair at the nape of your neck, tilting your face back. “No more shivers?”

“None.” You slide your hand up his chest, fingers gripping the wrinkled linen of his shirt. You close the remaining distance between you, tilting your face up in a silent invitation.

Gwayne doesn’t hesitate. He leans down, his lips finally meeting yours in a deep kiss. He pulls you flush against his chest, holding you tightly as though he was finally claiming the reward for the long vigil over the only thing in the world that matters to him.

[celestialwyvern]

A FEVER'S HOLD - Gwayne Hightower

SUMMARY - you fall ill and your husband Gwayne insists on nursing you back to health

CONTAINS - fluff, gwayne is whipped, reader recovers quick

A/N - im so sick rn but i couldn't stop thinking about gwayne so why not make something out of it

The draft blowing through the window of your chamber is bitter, but inside the curtains of the bed, the air feels insufferably hot. A sudden fever lays you low, turning your limbs stiff and making the canopy above spin in a blurred haze.

You expect the quiet, shuffling steps of a maester or a line of anxious handmaidens carrying herbal teas. Instead, the doors flung open, and in strides your husband.

Gwayne is still wearing his polished riding boots and a green velvet doublet, his usual posture taut with uncontained panic. His eyes sweep the room until they lock onto your frail form.

“Out,” he commands, voice cutting through the quiet room as he pins the lingering servants with a stern gaze. “All of you. Leave us.”

“Gwayne…” you croak, your throat feeling dry as sand. “You shouldn’t be here… it could be contagious. I know you have duties elsewhere.”

“Let them manage without me for a day,” your husband scoffs, marching straight to the side of the mattress. He drags a wooden chair right to your bedside, the legs scraping loudly against the stone floor. “And do not speak of contagions. I took vows to protect you, sweet wife. I certainly did not swear them just to abandon you to a few trembling handmaidens the moment you catch a chill.”

Without waiting for a response, he leans over you, his cool palm pressing firmly against your burning forehead. A defeated sigh escapes his lips as he measures the heat of your skin.

“Seven hells.” He stares down at you, eyes softening with worry. “You are baking.”

For the rest of the day, Gwayne flatly refused to let anyone else tend to you. His knuckles are red and damp from hours of wringing out wet cloths, his fine doublet lies discarded on the floor, leaving him in his linen shirt. Though he has no choice but to comply when the grand maester sends up a specific remedy meant to break the fever.

It looked to be a thick grey sludge in a small vial of clay, and the moment Gwayne uncorks it, a pungent odor engulfs your senses, passing through your stuffy nostrils.

He pours it into a shallow cup and holds it out to you. You take one look at the murky liquid—the wretched smell amplifying, and you gag, pressing the back of your hand to your mouth as you recoil into the pillows.

“Absolutely not!” you choke out, shaking your head violently. “I would rather let the fever take me than put that thing anywhere near my mouth.”

Gwayne chuckles, his free hand immediately moving to support the back of your head, fingers gently cradling you. “Don’t be dramatic, wife. They are merely herbs. A true Hightower doesn’t shrink from a bit of bark and leaf.”

“Then you drink it,” you challenge blindly, your voice thick with revulsion, trying to push the cup away.

Gwayne simply looks at you, his gaze dropping to your shivering lips. Without a word, he tilts his head. “Fine. Watch and learn how a knight handles a simple remedy.”

He brings the cup to his own lips and takes a swift, deep sip. For a beat, his expression remains unchanged. Then, a violent shudder racks his broad shoulders. His eyes widen, his jaw tightening instantly as he fights his own reflexes. He swallows hard, throat bobbing painfully, before his face twists to one of pure disgust.

“Gods,” he coughs, his voice cracking as he wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “That tastes like a stagnant pond.”

Despite your misery, a weak, breathless laugh bubbles up from your chest. The sight of him willingly ruining his own palate just to ease your fear warms you far more than the heavy furs.

You reach out from under the blankets, your fingers sliding over his hand to take the cup. “Give it here,” you murmur, a fond smile touching your lips. Closing your eyes, you throw your head back and swallow the rest of the bitter liquid in one agonizing gulp. Gwayne can’t help but laugh at your reaction and immediately leans closer, his palm rubbing comforting circles into your back as you shudder from the aftertaste.

Deep into the grueling hours of the night, the room grows quiet, save for the crackle of the hearth. The medicine is working its way through you, and you stir against the pillows to find him hovering close over you, adjusting the blankets.

His face draws near enough that you can feel the cool contrast of his breath against your burning cheek. His eyes soften, heavy with fatigue yet burning with determination. His gaze drifts down to your lips in a silent, instinctual pull.

Sensing his intent, you weakly lift a hand, pressing two fingers against his shoulder to halt his advance. You turn your face slightly into the pillows, hiding your mouth from him.

“No, Gwayne,” you protest faintly, your voice a whisper. “You’re going to fall ill.”

Gwayne pauses, his face just inches from yours. A slow, offended curl lifts the corner of his mouth. “So you deprive me of your affection, wife?”

“I am trying to protect you, you idiot,” you grumble, weakly swatting at his chest.

Gwayne catches your wrist. He lifts your hand, pressing a soft kiss to the back of your knuckles, his gaze never breaking from yours. “I have no use for protection from you,” he whispers against your skin, chest heaving with a quiet sigh. “I would gladly take your fever if it meant easing a single moment of your suffering.”

By the following evening, the hold of the fever finally breaks. The relentless sweating stops, your vision clears, and a welcome strength returns to your limbs.

You’re sitting up in bed, propped comfortably against a mountain of plush pillows, a faint, healthy colour returning to your cheeks at last.

Gwayne remains right beside you. His gaze hasn’t left your face for hours. Leaning over the mattress, his hands come up to move the hair away from your forehead for the hundredth time.

“Hold still,” Gwayne tuts, his eyes scanning every line of your face. “You’re still sick.”

You look up at his face, a playful smile dancing on your lips. “Gwayne, I’m certain the fever is gone.”

“I am the judge of when the fever is gone,” he counters flatly. His thumb traces a lingering path across your cheekbone, his touch so incredibly gentle. “I didn't spend time in this miserable chair just for you to decide you’re cured the moment you feel a spark of life.”

You let out a bright giggle, the sound echoing warmly against the walls. You reach out, your fingers sliding up his forearm to grip his wrist. You slowly pull his hand away from your face without letting go of his wrist.

“I am perfectly well, husband,” you whisper, voice dropping as you lean slightly forward, tilting your head up to challenge his gaze.

Gwayne’s pupils dilate. It was great pleasure to watch him lose his composure. A breath or relief escapes him as he realises the steady strength of your fingers. His gaze drifts slowly down to your lips, then back up to your eyes, holding you trapped in his stare.

A wave of warmth rushes to your cheeks under the intensity of his look, your lips parting slightly.

“Is that so?” he murmurs, the concern on his face shattering, leaving nothing but adoration in its wake. He lets his hand slide from your grip, only to cup your jaw fully, his fingers tangling into the hair at the nape of your neck, tilting your face back. “No more shivers?”

“None.” You slide your hand up his chest, fingers gripping the wrinkled linen of his shirt. You close the remaining distance between you, tilting your face up in a silent invitation.

Gwayne doesn’t hesitate. He leans down, his lips finally meeting yours in a deep kiss. He pulls you flush against his chest, holding you tightly as though he was finally claiming the reward for the long vigil over the only thing in the world that matters to him.

[lady-doe-eyed]

a random thought: Y/N marries one of the Hightower brothers and just so happens to keep a diary, a little book she scribbles in EVERYTHING and keeps either on her person or hidden away.

husband! Gwayne Hightower would never even look at her diary. Like, ever. He respects her privacy too much to intrude and even gives her time to write alone if she wanted it. And if she ever offered to let him read a bit for whatever reason, he would be so touched over it, like oh she really loves and trusts me like that, I'm the luckiest man alive i love my wife ♡♡♡

husband! Ormund Hightower, however, reads that shit weekly. Outright comes up with some little errand or thing she needs to do, something that would likely make her hide the diary in their chambers, and than searches the place when she leaves and does some light reading. Tells the servants to leave him alone a while, makes a cup of tea, and just enjoys his little wife's inner thoughts. And he's not even sorry if she finds out, Ormund's just like...I'm literally your husband, it's my right, love you, babe ♡♡♡

Because Ormund is a little toxic even when he loves you and Gwayne is a Wife Guy 100%.

[lady-doe-eyed]

adding to this...

Because husband! Otto would never read his wife's diary unless he was worried about her. She seems down lately/they had a fight/whatever, and Otto, who is not super great with the emotional stuff (but he tries, he really tries, in the most awkward and devoted way), doesn't know what to do. So he takes a look in the diary for something to help him and it always seems to do just that, her words giving him the insight he needed.

Also, his wife totally knows and decided to look past it because she knows Otto struggles in that regard and doesn't touch her diary without genuinely being worried for her.

[underratedcharacterslover]

Favorite Positions - preferences

[minors dni]

➥ Valarr Targaryen -

(Cowgirl)He loves this position because it allows him to admire you fully. He will lie back against the pillows, his hands gripping your hips or caressing your thighs, watching you with adoration. He enjoys watching you taking pleasure from him, and he loves that he can touch your breasts or play with your hair. It makes him feel like he is worshiping you, and he will often encourage you to set the pace, murmuring how beautiful you look on top of him.

➥ Duncan the tall -

(Lotus)He is terrified of accidentally hurting you with his size, so he prefers positions where he isn't crushing you. He loves to sit against the headboard or on the edge of the bed and have you wrap your legs around his waist. Holding you in his arms burying his face in your neck or shoulder.

➥ Aerion Targaryen -

(Mating press)He is obsessive , he needs to every emotion on your face as he fucks you. He loves this position because it feels exposing for you and powerful for him. He will pin your legs back against his chest or shoulders, opening you up completely. He delights in the deep penetration this allows, often leaning forward to choke you with kisses or bite your neck while making eye contact.

➥ Baelor Targaryen -

(Missionary)He prefers missionary because it allows for maximum skin contact and allows him to look into your eyes and kiss you deeply throughout. He rests his weight on his forearms to avoid crushing you,he wants to feel your heart beating against his chest and hear every hitch in your breath, every whimper you let out, he needs to be close enough to whisper praises against your lips, and see your expressions when he’s thrusting into you.

➥ Maekar Targaryen -

(Prone bone)In this position, he can cover your entire body with his own ,He likes to wrap his arms around you from behind, holding your hands or gripping your shoulders, pinning you to the mattress. It allows him to thrust deep and hard without needing to be gentle.

➥Lyonel Baratheon -

(Standing up) He rarely has the patience to make it all the way to the bed before the desire takes over. He loves to lift you up, pinning you against the nearest wall, your legs wrapped tight around his waist. He loves the feeling of you clinging to him for support grasping his shoulders and back.

➥ Gwayne Hightower -

(Doggy style) He is a man who appreciates beauty so he isn't shy about enjoying the view. He loves to lean over your back, pressing his chest against you, whispering filthy praises into your ear while he watches the way your body moves with his thrusts. It allows him to take charge and set a rhythm that leaves you breathless. He’s the type to keep a hand on the back of your neck or tangled in your hair,reminding you who you belong to.

➥ Raymun Fossoway -

(Spooning) he just wants to be close to you. He loves the intimacy of spooning, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling your back against his chest. It allows for slow, comfortable lovemaking where he can nuzzle your neck and whisper sweet nothings.

[underratedcharacterslover]

Hi! First of all, I just wanted to say that I love your writing, you capture each character's essence beautifully. If I my ask, for the akotsk+hotd characters, finding out a knight they fought against/gave their favour is secretly a woman?

How they react when they find out knight they just sparred is a woman -preference

A/n:thank you! I’m glad you enjoy my work 💞

➥ Baelor Targaryen -

You had just faced him in the sparring ring, and while he eventually disarmed you, you made him work for it. When the tip of his sword catches the edge of your helmet and sends it clattering to the dirt, your hair completely spills out. The yard goes dead silent and Baelor lowers his sword, a look of respect settling over his handsome face. He steps forward, offering you a hand to help you up. "I wondered how a knight so small moved with such flawless grace” he murmurs, his voice a low, and gentle. He gives you a small, genuinely impressed smile “Well fought, my lady. Though I suspect you'll need a better helmet strap if you intend to keep making fools of my Kingsguard."

➥ Maekar Targaryen -

When he knocks your helmet off during sparring and realizes he has been trading brutal blows with a woman, he slams his sword into the dirt, his jaw clenched"Is this a mummer's farce?!" he barks, pacing in a circle around you. He feels like a fool, convinced you have made a mockery of his honor. But when you stand your ground, bloodied lip and all, refusing to look away from his eyes, the anger slowly fades. Maekar values strength above all else. He stops moving, staring down at you with a scowl. “Come to the training yard tomorrow at dawn. If you're going to break the laws of gods and men, you will at least learn to properly guard your side."

➥ Aerion Targaryen -

The Young Prince gave you his favor, a ribbon as a joke, tossing it to the "mysterious, quiet little knight" just to amuse his friends. But when you get thrown off the horse and he strolls over to mock you, only to see you pulling off your dented helmet to reveal a flushed, glaring woman... Aerion’s mocking grin fades. He is devastatingly charmed. He crouches beside you in the dirt, ignoring the gasping lords around you. "Well, well," Aerion smirks, his eyes trailing over you. He reaches out, boldly plucking a stray piece of hay from your messy hair. "I knew there was a reason i was so captivated by your form in the saddle. Keep the ribbon, sweet knight. But I think you owe me a private show of your... swordplay... in my tent to thank me for it."

➥ Duncan the tall -

He just knocked you into the dirt with a blow from his shield, and when your helmet rolls away, revealing you are a woman, Dunk drops his sword like it’s on fire "Gods be good!" he yelps, his voice cracking. The nearly seven-foot giant scrambles backward, tripping over his own feet, landing hard in the dust. His entire face turns red "I hit a lady! i’m sorry! i didn't know, i swear it on my knighthood!" He crawls over to you, his clumsy hands hovering anxiously over you, completely terrified to touch you ,but desperate to know if he hurt you , He will be apologizing to you, blushing furiously, and offering to carry your armor for the next six months.

➥ Gwayne Hightower-

When your helmet comes off, he stands frozen,“This is... this is highly unacceptable”Gwayne stammers, looking around as if waiting for a septon to come explain this to him. He can't stop staring at the way your hair is stuck to your sweaty neck, or the fierce, fire in your eyes. He clears his throat aggressively, trying to regain his composure. "You could have been killed, my lady. It is very improper." Despite his tone, he absolutely insists to escort you to the maester himself, unable to leave your side.

➥ Lyonel Baratheon-

When you manage to land a solid blow against his breastplate before he finally knocks you down, he reaches down to rip your helmet off, intending to see the face of the man who bested him. When he sees a woman, everyone around training yard goes silent until Lyonel throws his head back and lets out a loud laugh,”A woman! by the Gods, the Warrior himself sent me a woman!" He reaches down, ignoring your shock, and hoists you up off the ground by your waist, actually spinning you around once before setting you down. He slaps you on the pauldron ,his eyes shining with delight. "You hit like anvil, little storm! go put some ice on that jaw, and meet me in the feast hall tonight. You're drinking at my table!"

[cottageinthecore]

Ormund x Reader Thoughts

Thinking about a modern au where Ormund is running the Hightower Group (corporate family run business) and is married to Reader who he gifts the most expensive clothes and jewelry they live with Gwayne in the family estate and are raising Daeron. They have a cat Tessarion who Ormund is constantly beefing with.

[ange1archive]

a quiet morning with your husband ormund hightower

wc. 800

no war! au

the faint, gray light of early morning just starts to seep into the solar, filling the large room with cool shadows. high up in the tower, the air is drafty and cold, clinging to the heavy stone walls.

ormund sits at his large weirwood desk, weighed down by everything he has to do so early in the morning. spread out in front of him is an overwhelming pile of ledgers, tax records, and trade reports. he already has a faint headache from the stress, and his tense shoulders and tight jaw show just how exhausted he is, even though he has only been awake for half an hour. his fingers are smudged gray with ink, holding his quill loosely as he forces himself to focus on balancing winter food supplies against grain taxes.

then, the quiet click of the heavy oak door breaks the silence, and the stress on his face immediately starts to melt away.

you walk into the room, your bare feet making soft rustling sounds against the rushes on the floor. the cold stone sends a sudden chill through your toes, contrasting with the still warm linen of your nightshirt. but you carry two heavy mugs of hot, spiced honeyed milk, steam rising softly into the dim air to cut through the cold.

"you are working again," you whisper, walking over to his desk. leaning over his shoulder, you press a soft kiss to the dark curls at the back of his neck. "the harbor masters can wait until the gulls stop screaming, my lord."

ormund catches your wrist, his touch warm against your chilly skin. with a gentle pull, he brings you down to sit in his lap. his hand rests comfortably on your hip, his thumb softly tracing circles through your nightshirt.

"trade waits for no man, sweetling," he murmurs, though he doesn't sound serious at all. his dark eyes soften as he looks up at you, taking in your sleepy, relaxed face. for a moment, he forgets about his heavy title and just looks at you. "least of all a hightower. the citadel expects reports on the granaries by noon."

he takes one of the warm mugs, sets it down near a huge stack of papers, and wraps both arms around your waist. leaning forward, he buries his face in your neck and takes a deep, quiet breath, letting out all the stress of his work as he holds you close.

"stay with me a moment," he whispers, his voice rough from sleep. "before the septons and the maesters wake and demand we pretend to be sensible."

you laugh softly, the sound light in the big, quiet room. "if i stay here, you will only keep reading about ironwood shipments. come back to bed."

he lets out a small huff and a faint smile, though he stays sitting in his chair. "my lady, the city is already waking. if i do not finish these ledgers now, i will be tied to this desk until dusk."

"let them wait," you say softly. you slide off his lap, take his ink-stained hand in yours, and give a gentle tug. when he hesitates, you step closer, resting your hands against his broad chest and pressing him back against his chair. "ten minutes, ormund. the starry sept hasn't even rung its second bell yet."

his eyes search your face, softened by the genuine warmth in your smile. he looks back at his desk—at the tall piles of paper, the drying ink, and all his unfinished work—and then down at your bare feet. the choice is easy.

"you are terrible for my duty," he grumbles, but all the tension finally leaves his shoulders.

"i am the lady of the high tower," you remind him with a small smile, pulling his hand until he finally stands up. "it is my sworn duty to keep you from working yourself into an early grave."

a quiet chuckle escapes him as he gives in, letting you lead him across the cool floor toward the bedroom. the stone beneath your bare feet loses its bite with every step as he follows your lead, his heavy hand intertwined with yours, his long fingers warm and slightly rough against your own.

inside, the bedchamber is a dark sanctuary, completely shielded from the morning light by the thick and heavy velvet curtains draped over the tall arched windows. the bed itself is still messy with tangled linen and heavy woolen quilts, which still hold the comforting warmth from the night before.

ormund climbs under the thick blankets with a long sigh that seems to release every ounce of tension left in his body. the moment you slide in beside him, he doesn't wait; his long arm sweeps around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest until there is no space left between you. the sharp chill of the drafty solar vanishes instantly, replaced by the warm heat radiating from him.

"ten minutes," he mutters, his voice a low rumble against your skin. he leans down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead, his stubble lightly brushing your skin as his heavy eyelids flutter shut. "not a second more, my lady."

you cuddle closer, tucking your chin into the comfortable crook of his shoulder and resting your head against his neck. your breath hitches for a second at the sheer warmth of him before settling into a steady rhythm. beneath your cheek, you can hear the strong beat of his heart.

"ten minutes, my lord," you whisper back, your hand resting gently over his ribs, feeling the deep rise and fall of his chest with every breath he takes.

[fire-joestar]

Oh god I ABSOLUTELY adore those domestic moments where they’re doing something so simple, so ordinary, just everyday life 😭 It’s so nice to read something without all the drama and political upheaval for once. Just a husband and wife (and their adopted son). I would’ve loved to see Daeron here too but even without him this story felt complete. I’d love to read even more domestic stories like this if you ever feel like writing them. Thank you for this wonderful story!

[nastyhotd]

#225

[fire-joestar]

[titi-292]

Whole cock and balls on display before Lady and Lord of the house

Lord I have seen what you do for others please let me be next

[fire-joestar]

[lovebugism]

BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, KIN OF MY KIN ─── ormund hightower

summary: a glimpse into the years you and ormund raised daeron before the war took its toll, and all the years after. (10k)

characters: ormund hightower / wife!reader, daeron targaryen, alicent hightower, viserys i targaryen, mentions of rhaenyra and daemon

contents: established relationship, found family, domestic bliss, angst, hurt/comfort, protective!ormund, canon divergent, not proofread, cw for mentions of pregnancy complications and miscarriages, brief mentions of blood and gore, canon typical manipulation and psychosis from ormund towards the end lol

( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )

115 A.C. / Oldtown

The bed is still warm from your blood on the morning the babe arrives.

It had not been quite two days since the maester had drawn the small, still shape of your daughter from you and told you, gently enough as not to break you further, that she had never drawn breath at all. You had told none of the household that you had been carrying her at all, save for the maesters and your closest of handmaidens — for you had learned, after the second loss, how courtiers feed on grief like vultures to carrion. So while you wept for days longer than your babe would ever live, the rest of Oldtown simply assumed that their lady had taken ill with a woman’s ailment, and kept to her rooms accordingly.

But today the King is coming, and your mother would surely turn in her early grave if she knew the lady she raised up planned to receive a king from a sickbed — pallid, unlaced, and undone.

“There is no harm in resting, my love,” Ormund coos from across the room, watching with attentive eyes as your handmaiden laces you into a gown of Hightower green. You keep yourself braced on the wooden back of a chair and grit your teeth with every tug, pulling carefully to conceal the subtle bump of your stomach.

The man tilts his head and crosses his arms over the chest of his emerald doublet, in a feeble attempt to extinguish the worry searing between his lungs. “Viserys is a king man. He will understand. Alicent, more than anyone, would understand—”

“And what has Alicent lost?” you argue, sharper than you intended. Your head whips hard to the side in time to find Ormund flinching beneath the bite of your words — a small flicker at the edges of his eyes; a brief lowering of his brows. 

You soften with a sigh a moment later and remind yourself that Ormund lost something too, even if the loss was not pulled from his body to claim it. 

“Forgive me, I… I only meant that… The Queen has four living children. And she carried each one with grace— There is no part of her that could possibly understand how I feel… And I wouldn’t wish it upon her besides.”

Ormund exhales through his nose and takes a step closer, boots scuffing the cobbles. “Then at least let me tell them that you are unwell—”

“No,” you dismiss with a shake of your stubborn head, eyes shutting briefly when the corset tightens again. “I refuse to be spoken of like some frail, ailing thing while the King sups at our table.”

Your gaze is wet with unshed tears when they open again, snapping to Ormund’s pale ones with a glimmering determination. “I am the Lady Hightower,” you tell him, brows raised and eyes firm. “So I will greet them standing. On my own feet. In my own home.”

Ormund’s chest, still heavy with grief, blooms with a distant sort of pride at your words. Perhaps because a part of him had long understood that you did not always dream of being the Lady Hightower. Your marriage was made of meetings and ledgers and alliances rather than any actual tenderness, as was true in most great marriages in Westeros. He knows, had you had it your way, you would’ve wed that gardener’s boy you grew up with — who you attempted to bring with you to Oldtown upon your betrothal, along with many of your household’s servants.

Ormund had the brawny, olive-skinned boy sent away within a fortnight — the moment he understood what kind of feelings the peasant boy had for you, and you for him. It was perhaps the first mad thing he ever did for you and, by Ormund’s later admission, the first time he realized that he might love you truly. (Though he had not thought it mad at the time, or love until many moons later, when he was struck with the sudden realization that the thought of Oldtown with you in it would be entirely unbearable.)

“Then we shall go,” Ormund nods in acquiescence as he plants himself just ahead of you. His gaze fixes into a sterner look a second later, as he tilts his chin to his chest and ducks into your eyeline. “But know I am not happy about this.”

“And yet Oldtown will remain standing anyway,” you joke in a softer coo. “I have faith that we’ll survive one of your unhappy mornings, my lord.”

The walk from your chambers to the gates of Oldtown is not long, but you feel every stone beneath your slippers as if the journey were some great pilgrimage across the whole of Westeros. 

You brace Ormund’s strong arm with both your hands, fingers curling into the fine wool of his coat hard enough to blanche your knuckles. He slows his long stride to match your smaller, more careful one without a word shared between you — a wall of green and muscles at your side, shielding you from the curious eyes of courtiers wondering why their lord and lady moved so slowly. So close.

It’s the first time you’ve tasted fresh air in three days. The breeze smells of the sea from the harbor and fish from the markets — mixing with the sweet citrus of the orange and lemon trees blooming in the gardens. Their white petals scatter like snow along the pale stone with every gust off the bay. You breathe in deeply through your nose, trying hopelessly to clear away the metallic tang of your own blood stubbornly clinging to the inside of your nostrils.

“His Grace, Viserys of House Targaryen,” the herald calls as the royal party files in on fine horses and gilded carriages, black banners snapping in the wind. “First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men.”

Viserys is the first to exit when the caravan finally stills. He descends the steps a knight places down for him, portlier than you remember from your last journey to King’s Landing, some years before your marriage. His kind face has started to wither from fatigue and age alike. The crown seems heavier upon his head, though perhaps it’s only from where his silver hair has started to thin at the scalp.

Alicent follows out just behind him. She wears a black dress with drooping sleeves and a veil to cover her long auburn curls, fit for a funeral procession. A knight of white armor and long black hair helps her descend the steps as she cradles a small, dark bundle squirming in protest in her arms.

You sink into a curtsy. A white-hot pain swells from the pit of your stomach to the top of your spine — a lightning strike that burns for minutes after. You grip Ormund’s arm until your fingers tremble, though the polite smile on your face remains when you rise again.

“Ormund,” Viserys greets with an easy smile. He clasps your husband’s free arm with a genuine affection while his tired eyes drift along the white stone towers of the city. “My… Oldtown is just as fair as I remember it.”

“I agree, Your Grace, though I confess I am far more partial,” Ormund responds with a dry humor and a knightly smile. “I hear the view improves the longer one is forced to stare at it.”

Viserys laughs while, beside him, Alicent tries and fails to summon her own. Her elegant features are worn from the weeks of travel, many of which you imagine were spent balancing the fussing weight concealed against her chest just now.

“And my lady…” Viserys inclines his silver head towards you, studying your face with a pair of kind eyes. “You look well.”

You feel, in a word, like death dressed in Hightower green. You feel hollowed out and stitched together again, the farthest thing from well. But you nod once and thank the King all the same, profoundly grateful when your voice doesn’t shake.

“Truly. Marriage suits you both well,” Viserys nods. “Though, I admit, I’d hope Daeron might have had a cousin or two near enough in age to grow up beside him here. Once he’s old enough for such things, of course.”

Ormund tenses beside you. 

His arm feels very suddenly like holding onto stone. His pale eyes turn glacial in a flicker; a withheld grief that he forces himself to swallow down the second it rises like bile in his throat. You say nothing at all. You just keep smiling and pray to whatever god will hear you that you do not weep in front of the King and all his men.

“But there’s still time— You’ll have one of your own before long, I’m sure of it,” the older man continues, possessing no notion of what had happened behind these walls hardly two days past. If he notices anything amiss, he does not dwell on it, and turns instead to Alicent. “Go on. Let them see the boy.”

Alicent’s arms tighten instinctively around the bundle in her grasp and inhales sharply through her nose. It had been her own decision that Daeron be sent to her family’s ancestral home. Her last child was not quite six months when she counseled her King to send him to ward, far from the chaos of King’s Landing. But she finds herself suddenly plagued by the harsh realization that this will be the last time she will hold this baby as he is now. The next time she’s like to lay eyes on him again, he’ll be an unrecognizable young boy, and not nearly the small thing fussing against her collarbone now.

“He hasn't slept," Alicent warns as she steps closer. Her green eyes are warm and weary when they flit to you. “He didn’t take well to the carriage. Or the ship. He’s cried the whole way from Blackwater, I think. Poor thing…”

“I’m sure we can manage a crying babe, my Queen,” Ormund says gently, though there’s a distant aching in his voice disguised as good humor that only you could recognize. “I grew up with Gwayne, if you remember. I’m more than acquainted with wailing boys by now.”

Alicent musters a small smile and closes the distance between you to settle her son in your arms. 

He’s warm — that’s the first thing you notice — he’s a small furnace swaddled in Targaryen black. He stirs briefly at the transfer from one chest to another, round face screwing tight in the prelude to a wail. Your heart clenches to brace yourself for that sound. It never comes.

The babe turns his face into the curve of your throat and settles into stillness with one small fist curled into the fabric of your gown. The tiny sound he makes isn’t a cry, but it isn’t quite a coo either. He sleeps, finally, in your arms — not even two days after you held your daughter between them, who had never awoken at all.

Ormund’s wide hand settles at the small of your back. Even in its steadiness, you feel the subtle tremor of his fingers against your spine. His throat tightens with the sudden urge to cry at the sight — of you, still frail and yet so bravely composed, cradling another woman’s child after laying your own to rest in the sept. He swallows through the hands of grief strangling his throat and feels a warmer feeling settling in its wake.

“Well…” Viserys hums, watching the baby sleep against you with a proud look in his weathered eyes. “It seems the boy’s found his corner of Oldtown already— Isn’t that lovely, Alicent?”

The woman nods, though shock still etches slightly in her pale features and behind the dark green of her eyes. “Of course, Your Grace,” she says and clears her throat, blinking back her tears with a queen’s practiced grace. “Thank you both for taking him.”

“He'll want for nothing here," Ormund swears with a firm nod. “You have my word. We'll raise him as if he were our own trueborn son.”

You pull the blanket gently back to peer at the sleeping baby swaddled within it. He’s practically all cheeks, with his mother’s mouth and nose. 

You had been certain, two days past, that your life had surely ended with your daughter’s. That there would be nothing more to life than a hollow, vacant silence. But now, there is warmth — and a babe’s slow breath fanning along your collarbone. 

You do not yet have a name for the foreign feeling swelling inside of you. It’s not joy, not yet, but it isn’t grief either. Or, at least, not only grief. And for now, that would have to be enough.

127 A.C. / Training Yard

The sound of clashing steel finds you before the sight of it does. The ring and scrape of blade on blade carries across the bustling courtyard, where you’ve gone to look for a young prince who was, as Maester Yorrick informed you with a palpable impatience, nearly an hour late for his lessons. You find the boy exactly where you imagined he would be — sword-training with his uncle, who has since stripped down to a pale tunic now darkened with sweat from the exercise.

Daeron, now thirteen years of age, is all knees and elbows from a sudden growth spurt that had taken him seemingly overnight. He presses a defensive attack upon his uncle with all the fierceness of a knight, but with the gracelessness of a teenage boy. Even you could tell from where you stood that his swing had no hope of landing. Ormund turns the blow aside with a lazy flick of his wrist, no more troublesome than swatting a fly from the air.

“Awful,” you hear the man scold from afar. When Daeron grits his teeth and presses forward once more, Ormund steps back and lets the boy’s momentum carry him a half stride too far. His blade misses his mark by inches. “Gods, that’s even worse—”

Daeron lunges a third time, fuelled now by a boyish rage that twists his freckled features. Ormund steps inside the overextended reach, hooks a boot around the boy’s ankle, and trips him onto the dirt with his blunted blade pressed to his ribs. Daeron hits the ground with a thud, red-faced and breathing heavy. His long auburn tendrils cling to his sweaty temple when he whips his head to glare up at his uncle.

“Dead,” Ormund proclaims from where he stands over the boy, flat but not totally unkind. He raises his brows and tilts his chin to his chest. “If this were a real sword, I’d have had your head before the thought to swing finished forming in that head of yours.”

Daeron twists himself upward and shoves the faux blade away with a boyish scowl. “You always say that,” he grumbles, refusing the hand Ormund extends to help him up. He rises to full height on his own and swipes dirt from his pale palms.

“Yes. I always say it because it's always true. You're thinking with your temper again— I can see it in your shoulders before you’ve even moved,” the older man lectures as he turns on the heel of his boot and walks off a few paces. “Again. And this time, think before you swing. Not after—” 

“I think that’s enough for this morning,” you call to them as you step further into the yard, dress skirts rushing around your ankles in the summer breeze. “Maester Yorrick has been waiting all morning. And his patience, unlike yours, my lord, has its limits.”

Daeron nods once, shoulders sagging with an absent relief. “Yes, ma’am—”

“Give us a few more minutes,” Ormund dismisses simultaneously. “He’s close to getting his footwork right. I can feel it.”

You flash the man a look — one slight lift of your brow, one flicker of dullness behind the eyes. Years of marriage have honed that wordless look to a firm edge, one which finds Ormund like a blade. He nods in concession with a heavy exhale through his nose.

“You heard her, boy. Go on,” Ormund says, jerking his chin toward the tower and extending his hand out for the practice sword.

Daeron obeys without question. He passes the dull blade over and crosses the yard to you. You see the sweat and dirt streaked across his freckled face the closer he gets. “Come here to me,” you sigh and catch his round chin between your thumb and forefinger when he plants himself ahead of you. You swipe the filth from his cheeks with the hem of your sleeve like you’ve done since he was small enough to fit in one arm.

“I’m not a child anymore, you know," Daeron reminds you with a childish grimace as he suffers your motherly affections. “I’m a squire now.”

“Oh, a squire, are you?” you croon in response with an obvious air of sarcasm. You smooth wild auburn hair from his temples before pressing a chaste kiss to his hairline. “Go on now— before Maester Yorrick decides to make you study your histories until sundown.” 

Daeron nods and ducks past you towards the tower stair, though you catch the corner of his pink mouth twitching upward into a grin before he’s turned away. You watch him leave with an attentive stare as Ormund discards the training swords at their posts. He approaches you in long, slow strides, allowing you to see the mark that training has left upon him — the way the sweat dampens his dark curls and the collar of his tunic, making the fabric stick to his broad shoulders and toned chest. 

He smells of sweet wine, musky bathing oils, and salty sweat when he towers just before you. He tips his chin to his chest and raises his brows to his hairline, pale eyes glimmering with an expectant look.

“…Well?” 

You blink up at him with a feigned innocence. “Well, what?”

“My kiss,” he answers with a shrug like it’s obvious, like he were a man coming to collect his debts. “You gave the boy his, and I’ve spent half the morning training him— I should think that I’ve earned at least that much.” 

“Oh, really?” you squint. “After you told the boy he’s like to lose his head?”

“I told him the truth,” Ormund argues with an unrepentant laugh and takes a slow step closer to you. “Is the truth unkind merely because it stings a little going down?” 

His hands splay along your waist, wide and warm along the edges of your corset. It takes everything in you not to cave for him right there, in the full view of the crowded courtyard. You cross your arms over your chest instead. “If you keep being so hard on him, he’ll grow to hate sword training altogether—”

“May be. But he will go on alive a good deal longer for having learned it the hard way now— instead of on a real field, with real steel, without me there to guide him.” Ormund ducks his head to catch your eye, pale gaze glimmering in time the pink smile tugging at his lips. “Surely you are not truly cross with me, my love…” he croons quietly.

You shrug with a raised chin, unwilling to concede so easily. “Perhaps I am.”

“Well, then, it’s hardly my doing,” he chuckles, a sound far warmer than the silver-gold sunshine sprawling over the courtyard. The pads of his thumbs smooth over your ribs in an absentminded affection. “You've gone so soft on the boy that you can scarcely bear to watch him lose a practice bout, without petting his hair over it after."

“Well, someone in this household has to be soft with him," you argue lightly, more teasing now than truly cross. Your slipper scrapes the dirt as you take a short step closer to him. What little distance remained between you closes now in an instant; each rise and fall of his chest brushes your folded arms. “You spend your mornings convincing the poor boy the world means to kill him, and I spend my nights convincing him that he could rule the world entire if he wished... Perhaps he’ll come out well-balanced for it, in the end.”

“Assuming one of us doesn’t kill the other over the method first,” Ormund quips.

“Precisely,” you nod.

“Well, I think it’s a fine system,” the man agrees gravely, drawing you an impossible inch closer by the hands still on your waist. His breath fans warm across your jaw as he leans in closer, still smelling of the mint leaves he’d chewed after breakfast. “And one I certainly intend to go on employing indefinitely… If my wife forgives me long enough to let me kiss her.”

His low voice glitters somewhere in the center of your chest. Your eyes narrow despite the small smile curling hopelessly at your mouth. “I don’t think I’ve yet decided,” you lilt.

“Well, I have,” he croons quietly, and does not wait for your retort before leaning down to press his lips against yours.

His broad nose flattens into the side of yours under the weight of his kiss, a slow and languid thing — as natural as the white waves ebbing and flowing against the pale stone tower of Oldtown. Your hands twist in his pale tunic billowing in the sea breeze, dissolving into the man like salt in water. 

There is nothing you would not forgive this man for, you think distantly to yourself. There is no madness he could not lead you toward, not if he kisses you like this the entire way there.

130 A.C. /  Ormund’s Solar

The raven arrives like all the rest — unceremoniously, on a sunless grey morning, from the trembling hands of the weathered maester. You tend to your needlework by the crackling hearth, burning low to fight off the morning chill blowing in from the sea, while Daeron reads in the opposite chair with one leg slung over the arm of it — both of you still waking with the early morning.

Across the room, Ormund sits at his desk and breaks the seal with a dull crack. Your gaze drifts to the man as he unrolls the letter, parchment whispering beneath his ringed fingers. You watch his pale eyes flit across the words once, and his brows lower in confusion a moment later. He shifts in his seat and reads it again, slower this time. His spine straightens with a soldier’s subconscious instinct as he draws a deep breath in and forgets to let it go. 

The quiet feels loud as it swells within the solar. The popping fire startles you briefly, as you get lost in Ormund’s wordless dread. You feel his silent panic as if it were your own. You rise from your seat and lay your needlework on the cushion behind you, careful not to trouble Daeron’s reading as you stroll to the man’s side.

“Ormund?” you call quietly to him. “Ormund— What does it say?”

He says nothing in response; he just lifts his ringed hand and passes you the parchment curled between his middle and forefinger. His eyes remained fixed on a negligible chip in the cobblestone wall across the room as you pluck the paper from his hand. His silence is not convincing; his silence, as you’ve learned in years of marriage, is far more frightening than any voice he could raise.  

Your eyes dart over the scrawled ink thrice over, just as he had, because your mind refuses to process the words on the first two passes.

“By the time this reaches you, the city has already fallen. Rhaenyra Targaryen holds King’s Landing and names herself Queen upon the Iron Throne. She has taken the Queen Dowager prisoner, as well as the King’s wife and last living heir. Send word of your household’s safety. Guard the boy.” 

The letters blur and steady and blur again, swimming before your eyes. Your blood runs cold while the glowing hearth simultaneously fills the room with a near-unbearable heat. As your breaths come faster and shallower to you, you hear a small voice call from behind you.

“Is something wrong?” Daeron wonders aloud as he glances up from the heavy novel in his lap. His auburn brows knit low over his green eyes, casting a faint shadow over his freckled cheeks, which are slowly starting to lose the softness of boyhood.

“Go on to your chambers, Daeron,” you tell him in a voice strangely steady compared to how shaken you feel. “It’s time to break your fast. I’ll have the servants fetch it for you.” 

“I’m not hungry,” the boy insists as he rises slowly from his chair, setting his book aside and walking slowly from the hearth. His eyes dart back and forth between your profile and Ormund’s when both of you refuse to look at him. His shoulders straighten with a strangling tension. “What’s happened? What does it say—?”

“Daeron,” Ormund snaps, voice cutting through the quiet room like a blade. His eyes are similarly sharp when they snap finally to the boy’s pleading once. “Listen to your mother, boy. Go.”

Mother, he says. The word lingers and hangs in the air for a long moment. Even in his newfound worry, Ormund’s eyes still flicker with a startled awareness at how easily the slip-up had escaped him, though there is little time to dwell on it now. 

Daeron's pink mouth parts with some half-formed protest at the ready. Whatever words he could conjure up on such short notice turn to dust on his tongue at the look his uncle gives him, chiseled features hardening into an unfeeling sort of look. Daeron exhales a held breath, gathers his book from his seat, and heads for the door without further argument.

Ormund’s knowing voice follows him out: “And don’t stand outside the door eavesdropping, either. Straight to your chambers. I'll know if you've stopped on the stair."

Only when the door shuts behind the boy with a soft click do your teary eyes lift from the parchment in your trembling hands. You say nothing for a long moment. The muffled sounds of the bustling castle fill the silence — the sounds of an oblivious world still living, though it feels a little like yours has stopped.

“I know," Ormund says before you’ve spoken, before you’ve needed to speak. “I know.”

“Okay,” you nod once. “So what are you going to do?”

He huffs a not-quite laugh. “I’ve only just found out about this. As have you,” he answers, a little sharper than he means to. “I’ll need a moment to think about the problem before you ask me to solve it, my love.” 

“A moment is no longer a luxury we have,” you argue, voice rising despite yourself and wavering on every syllable with a palpable fear. “Rhaenyra has dragons, Ormund— she has Daemon and three new bastard riders sworn to her besides. She does not need a moment to bring any of them to our door.”

Your dress skirt spins around your ankles when you turn suddenly in place. Ormund’s pale eyes follow your form as you storm back towards the hearth, ranting the whole way there.

“She will come for him, Ormund— not if, when. She will stop at nothing to silence any claim that challenges her own,” you continue, voice cracking under the weight of your unshed tears. “Daeron is a threat to her! Simply by breathing, he is a threat to her, and she will not leave him idling here out of some… familial courtesy for some half-brother she’s never met.”

The flame crackles quietly when you toss the letter into it. The wax seal blackens and weeps; the ink turns slowly to ash. You’d hoped that destroying those words might, in turn, settle the uneasy feeling they’ve brought you; but to no avail.

“I know that,” Ormund nods with a jaw clenched tight, ringed fingers curling into fists over his thighs beneath the desk. 

“Then think!” Your shout bounces off the cobbled walls as you turn to face him once more. His face blurs behind the burning tears clouding your vision. The swelling emotion thickens your voice as you yell to him, half-wild with a preemptive grief. “I have already buried children who never got to draw breath— I will not bury another who has drawn fifteen years of them under this roof! Do not let them take him, Ormund— I don't care what it costs. Do not let them our boy!”

Ormund’s chair scrapes the cobbles as he rises slowly to full height. He crosses the solar in slow, silent strides. Your glassy eyes stay locked with his as he nears. You peer stubbornly up at him from beneath your lashes, clumped with unshed tears; but you do not protest when his palms smooth over the outsides of your elbows to pull you into his arms. 

You melt hopelessly against his chest, fisting the back of his doublet in both hands, and trembling slowly as you choke down a sob. Ormund’s wide hands smooth along your back and feels his chest tighten with a striking, familiar ache. He thought once there was no worse sound in the world than hearing your weeping over a lost child; but he knows, now, that there is something equally as troubling: your weeping over a child you fear you’re about to lose and feeling like there is no time yet to stop it.

“I will not let anyone take him,” Ormunds promises evenly, with a distance that suggests he’s already assembling a plan in the depths of his mind. His arms curl tighter, pressing you harder against him. “I swear it to you. By the gods, they will not have our son.”

You pull back from him, just far enough to search his steady gaze with your wearier one. “But how?” you press weakly, more of a demand than a real question.

Ormund ponders for a long moment. The shadow of his adam’s apple rises and falls in his throat as he swallows. And when he speaks again, the words fall from his tongue flat and even, as if he were testing each one the moment they left his mouth.

“No one at court has laid eyes on the boy since he was a babe in arms…” he answers lowly, brows lifting to his hairline. “Alicent hasn’t seen him in years… There is no one outside these walls who would know what he looks like… So if they come— when they come… I suppose Rhaenryra would presume any silver-haired boy as Viserys’ heir.”

Your brows furrow as confusion twists slowly across your face.

“We’d only need enough lye and patience,” Ormund continues with a shrug. “And a boy willing enough to answer to a name that isn’t his, and to go with Rhaenyra, should her dragons come calling.”

You tense within his hold as the words run through you like ice-cold water. “You mean to… to send a different child in his place?”

“Yes,” Ormund answers instantly and without apology. “It isn’t a kind plan, I know. And I won’t pretend that someone else’s son won’t have to suffer for it, if it comes to pass, but… You did not ask me for a kind plan.”

You grieve the heat of his hands when he lifts them from your back, just to smooth his gently calloused palms over your jaw a moment later. He rubs the rough pads of his thumbs along your burning cheeks. You melt into his touch of warm velvet and peer up at him with teary eyes. Ormund’s gaze softens around the edges as his mouth lifts into a sad sort of smile.

“You asked me not to let them take our boy,” he continues lowly. “And however cruel it may be… this is but the only coin I have to buy that promise with.”

You know that a part of you should be horrified. You know what he is describing is a monstrous thing — an innocent boy’s whole life offered as a shield for another’s. You search deep within yourself to find that terror, but cannot seem to locate it. Instead, you find relief, like a crack of sunlight peeking through storm clouds — the very hint of a promise that your family was not long in the dying just yet.

“Do it,” you hear yourself say, shaking your head between his hands. “Whatever it costs… Whoever it costs… Do it.”

Ormund nods with a deep inhale through his nose, leaning forward to press his mouth to your hairline — to seal his promise with a kiss.

130 A.C. / Tumbleton Sept

Rhaenyra's dragonriders come for Daeron not nearly a fortnight into the army's march. Ormund sends the son of a merchant in his place — a boy of the right age and the right pale coloring, plucked quietly from Oldtown and dressed in borrowed finery before anyone thought to look twice. “Be brave, young prince," Ormund had said to the blanch-haired boy, only for show, though what he really meant was: “I will have your family hanged if you do not play your part.”

Ormund knelt before Daemon Targaryen and swore his fealty to the Queen, but marched on for Tumbleton the second the dragons took flight, all the shame. 

The chaos follows them there, too.

Daeron attempts to seek a momentary refuge in the foreign castle’s candlelit sept. A cramped chamber made of brown stone and hazy smoke from the flickering candles, where Tessarion grumbles in protest of captivity. The lack of sunlight has dulled her fluorescent blue scales, and has made her ill-tempered due to the lack of exercise. Daeron alone she allows close, pressing her great head into the boy’s small neck, and momentarily forgetting about the heavy chains around her throat when he pets her stony scales. 

Ormund finds him there. Ormund has a way of finding him anywhere. It is a gift and a curse, perhaps — comforting when Daeron was small and frightened of the dark; but less so now, when Daeron’s every attempt at solitude is interrupted by his uncle, constantly watching him as if he were a traitor to be surveilled and not his kin.

“I have warned you against indulging in affections for the best,” Ormund says as he approaches. The man cradles the boy's freckled cheeks in his wide, calloused palms despite Tessarion's low growl of warning.“You are a good boy,” he says, and in the very same breath, without losing the tender smile on his face: “You have a taint in your blood,” and “You must be king.”

Ormund makes less and less sense to him these days — the throes of war, Daeron supposes, though a part of him is frightened that it began long before that. 

Sometimes he thinks Ormund only makes sense when you’re near enough to translate his tangled, wild emotions back into something grounded and real. You’ve always had a way of gentling the man; usually with nothing more than a steady hand along his wrist to calm whatever storm had been moving within him. 

Daeron has seen you do it a hundred times over without ever quite understanding how. But he prays now for your swift return from the city, so that you might do it again — so that you might soften whatever unfamiliar thing has taken root in his uncle when he commands his soldiers to drag in the peasant man from earlier that afternoon. The one who broke Ser Garrick’s nose defending against his own wife’s assault; an act any decent lord would have called simple justice. 

Ormund draws his sword from its sheath at his hip. The hiss of the steel leaving the leather fills the small stone sept, loud enough to echo off the old walls that have likely seen a great many prayers and, Daeron suspects, not so very many murders. The older man turns the blade and offers the embellished hilt to the boy, pale eyes hardening when he hesitates.

“We have risked much and more to raise you up,” Ormund says, strong features twisting into something resembling offense. “Surely, you do not wish to disappoint us now.”

Us. Daeron is pulled into his uncle’s orbit at that single syllable alone; the unbearable thought of failing the only two people in this world who have ever troubled themselves to love him — one standing before him with a blade held out like a peace offering, and the other somewhere in the depths of the dark city but still steady on his mind all the same.

Daeron lays his palms out flat before his brain has fully comprehended the motion. He prays Ormund doesn’t notice how they tremble when he rests the sword upon them — the weight of the blade cold and heavy upon his fingers.

Daeron’s hands tremble around the ornate leather hilt of Ormund’s sword. His misty eyes find the prisoner kneeling just before him on the cold stone — bloodied and chained for a crime any noble man in Westeros would surely commit with honor — before glancing slowly to where his uncle looms behind him. Candlelight flickers in shades of orange-gold upon the man’s chiseled features, pooling a deep black in the hollows of his eyes.

“What would Mother think of this?” Daeron hears himself ask, voice cracking under the weight of the tears burning hot in the backs of his eyes. 

It is his last and most desperate attempt to reach for his uncle, just as he has seen you do, and to pull him back from the dangerous ledge he stands upon. But he knows the man has already made up his mind; and he knows that there is no version of him that walks out of this sept without spilling blood.

Ormund’s face softens slightly, though there is little tenderness in what he asks of the boy now. “Alicent would understand,” he coos in a gentle voice. “War asks difficult things of every great house—”

“I didn’t—” Daeron swallows hard, smaller now than moments before. “I did not mean the Lady Alicent…” 

Realization flashes across Ormund’s face — a visible recognition of exactly which woman the boy had meant, and has always meant every time the word slipped accidentally from his mouth and was never corrected for it after. Daeron was not yours by blood, but he was yours in every other way that matters. The small, warm weight of him stopped crying the moment he was placed into your arms fifteen years ago, and never truly stopped being yours since.

Still, Ormund does not soften for it. If anything, something in him hardens further as he takes a slow step closer to the boy.

“Your mother would be proud,” he answers, brows lowered as if the answer was the plainest thing in the world. “Don’t you see? Any strike against this army is a strike against her, against everything she’s built to keep you safe… Any man who raises his fist against our men raises it, in the end, against her… And do you not want to protect her, just as she has spent every day protecting you?”

Daeron swallows hard. The weight of Ormund’s words feels heavy in his throat, heavier than the blade in his hands as his trembling fingers tighten around its hilt. His teary green eyes linger on the steel, flickering shades of gold in the candlelight. 

“No, please, I beg you,” the battered prisoner rasps, dried blood matting at his curls from whatever rough handling had brought him here. “I have a family, my lord. Please—”

Daeron’s eyes lift to find the man’s pleading gaze and linger upon him for a long while. He sees your face in the very back of his mind, the only real mother he’s ever truly known, and hears Ormund’s disappointed voice layered over it as he draws the heavy blade back. 

Then he strikes. 

The cut is not clean. The blade lodges at an off angle in the man’s corded neck and sticks somewhere deep between flesh and bone. The man’s pained shout comes out wet and gargled, bouncing off the cobbled walls and in the depths of Daeron’s mind. 

The boy’s body flinches from what his own hand has done as bright crimson blood spouts from the gaping wound and splatters along the old stone. 

His face crumples as he removes the blade. It takes a world of strength in his thin arms to wrench it out again. A quiet whimper sounds in his throat when the blade drags against bone and stumbles backward when the man’s limp body collapses at his feet with a dull smack. Dark blood spreads slowly across the stone in a widening, glistening pool that catches the candlelight like moonlight on the bay.

Daeron looks down at the crimson dripping off the steel blade. He does not notice his uncle’s approach until his broader hands are gently guiding the sword from his fingers — fingers that no longer feel like his own. 

Ormund wipes the steel clean against the dead man's tunic, one side and then the other, with the methodical care of a man cleaning a hunting knife after a kill. He sheaths the blade back into its hilt and closes the remaining distance between him and the boy.

When Daeron’s mind finally returns to his body — ears still ringing, vision still hazy — his wide eyes snap to his uncle’s face and sees a quiet pride swimming in his features once more. It’s as comforting as it is horrifying. And when Ormund's strong arms wrap around the boy’s shoulders and draw him close to his chest, that feels like a dizzying concoction of the two even more so.

“I am proud of you, boy…” Ormund tells him as he leans in close, pressing his mouth to the boy’s hair in a near-kiss, though he whispers to him instead:  “Do not tell your mother of this. Understood?"

Daeron does not answer, though Ormund does not ask him for one now.

130 A.C.  /  Tumbleton Castle

You return to the castle late in the evening, weary down to your bones from the long day. 

You had gone into town with what coin and grain the army could spare, and found Lady Kat there among the frightened smallfolk, tending to the smith's wife, whose arm still sat bound in a rough splint. The woman's round face was kind, but you knew that no amount of offered bread or soft words could cure what comfort had been taken from her.

“Do you know where my husband is?” she had asked you before you left, with something desperate in her voice that made you wish you had a better answer than the only truthful one you could give.

“I’m sorry. I do not know," you told her, smiling in what sympathy you could muster, honest in your ignorance if nothing else.

The question sits strangely in your chest on the ride back to the castle, though you struggle to place exactly why.

Dinner is already laid out by the time you arrive. The long table is embellished with more food than Tumbleton's starving smallfolk have likely seen since the war began. The notion sits heavy in your stomach before you’ve even entered the dining hall, where Ormund rises from his seat to greet you. 

His warmth is striking, a shade too bright for the late hour. He presses a jeweled chalice of ale into your hand with a tender grin and a pair of soft eyes, asking after the wife and the town's wounded with an attentiveness he doesn’t usually spare for such small domestic accounts.

“Sit,” he tells you with one wide hand along the small of your back to urge you the short distance to the table. “You've had a long day, my love. Eat something before it goes cold."

Confusion floods your face at the emptiness beside your usual seat. “Where's Daeron? He hasn’t missed out on lemon cakes since he was old enough to chew them.”

“He's not feeling well. Best to let him rest,” Ormund answers with a polite smile as he pours himself a goblet of wine. His soft eyes flit between you and the glugging flagon. “Sit with me, love. I’m sure you’re half-starved yourself."

He sits down in his cushioned seat at the head of the long table and gestures for you to take yours. You remain stubbornly in place, because you know him far too well for anything else. Years of marriage have taught you every register of his voice; every flicker behind his eyes; every twitch in his features. And this one, all warm and careful and slightly too eager, is one you’d learned to trust least of all.

“What have you done?” you deadpan.

Ormund scoffs a breathless laugh, bouncing his broad shoulders in a shrug. “Why do you insist I’ve done something?” 

“Because I can hear it in your voice.”

Ormund huffs again, though it’s more of a sound of surprise than true laughter this time. “Well, I assure you, dear wife, I have done nothing at all.”

“Is that what will Daeron tell me?” you press. “When I go to his chambers and ask him myself?"

“He will tell you that I'm an excellent uncle and an even better husband," Ormund quips with his elbows propped on the table and his pointer fingers steepled together. “And also that you ought to sit down and eat your supper with your poor husband, before you go making a production out of a boy's upset stomach.”

You leave despite his words, led purely by the intuition swirling in your stomach that drags you directly to Daeron’s chamber door. You knock once and receive no answer — when the silence holds on the third try, you let yourself in and find the boy alone in his room, curled small on the edge of his bed in a way that strikes you deep in the chest; a reminder of that swaddled babe curled against your chest fifteen years past.

He does not look up when you enter, nor when you lower yourself gingerly onto the edge of the mattress beside him without a word. His shoulders shake in small, tight increments as he struggles to choke down his own sobs. He drags each breath in through his nose and holds it for a beat too long until it shudders out of him again.

He freezes when you lay a gentle hand on his shoulder, going rigid against whatever emotion he’s trying not to shake loose.

“What's happened, my love?" you coo to him, gentling your voice the way you might for a much younger child. “Tell me."

He shakes his auburn head against the pillow and sniffles to himself. “He told me I couldn't…"

“Who? Ormund?”  you press and feel a preemptive anger kindling hot in your chest before you’ve even heard the whole of it. “Well… Your uncle tells me a great many things that I’ve long since learned to ignore. So I imagine he can spare us the indulgence of a secret or two.”

After another shaky breath, Daeron pushes himself up from the mattress. He snivels wetly and wipes his flushed cheeks with the back of one hand. You smooth down his wild flaming tendrils until he finds the words to speak.

“The blacksmith…” he wavers. “The one who struck Ser Garrick this morning…”

Your stomach swirls with a sick feeling when he trails off. Your blood runs cold with a fear of what he might say next. You think instantly of the woman with the kind face and the splinted arm, asking so gently if you knew where her husband had run off to. You have to remind yourself to breathe again as you ask, “What of him?”

“Ormund made me…” Daeron’s breath catches in his throat with a horror reignited in the pit of his chest. “He said any strike against the army was a strike against the crown. Against me. Against you.” He forces each word out through unshed tears and feels half-furious at himself when his voice shatters. “He told me it would be a king’s justice. That it— that it would make you proud.”

The boy’s eyes lift to yours then, glassy and green and rimmed red. They dart back and forth over your face, searching for an ounce of comfort within it.

“Are you?” he asks in a voice barely above a whisper. “Proud of me, I mean.”

You nod until the words have climbed through the fear swelling in your throat.

“Of course I am,” you answer breathlessly, but with no hesitation at all despite the dread searing in your chest. “I have been proud of you since the day I met you. Nothing you could do— Nothing of what your uncle made you do could change that. And you did it, I have no doubt, because some part of you believed it would keep our family safe. Protecting the people you love, even when doing so costs so much, is no easy feat, my love. I know this better than you might think…” 

Your mind drifts to the pale-haired boy — the merchant’s son who was brown of hair before you found him. The boy who was borrowed and dressed up in a prince’s wardrobe and sent off to whatever fate Rhaenyra’s justice had in store for him. The boy who is very likely chained or worse for a crime that was never truly his, simply because you and Ormund decided his captivity was a fair trade for Daeron’s freedom.

Daeron watches your eyes well with tears of your own, and his freckled face crumples further at the thought of hurting you further. “I did not mean to make you sad…" he mutters with a wet gaze that flits between yours.

“You haven't," you tell him firmly, though your voice remains steady. You gather the boy into your arms and press your cheek against his hair, feeling his tear-stained cheeks wet the skin of your chest. “I’m not sad, my love. I promise. I only love you. That's all….”

You sit with him for a long while after that — until his breathing steadies and his shoulders lose their edge. Only then do you rise, with one last kiss to his forehead, and leave him to whatever uneasy slumber he can manage after what the long day had done to him.

You run into Ormund on your way down the long corridor. His broad form towers in the narrow passageway as his wide hands splay before him in confusion. “What’s taken you so long? Your dinner’s already gone cold.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Your shoulder scrapes along his arm as you shove by him with little affection. Ormund huffs and falls easily into step with you on his much longer legs. The two of you move through the stony corridors in a silent tension that grows with every step you take, torchlight guttering along the damp walls as you pass them. The words of an argument well in your throat the whole way to your chambers and refuse to break free until the door has shut finally behind you.

“I cannot believe you!” you shout, features twisted in anger. “How dare you tell my son to lie to me! After everything—"

Ormund shakes his head. “I only told him to spare you a grief that serves no purpose—"

“You told him to kill a man, Ormund! A smith. A husband.” The words come out through a jaw clenched tight. Your eyes glitter in the flickering candlelight with every one that spills from your mouth, hands gesticulating wildly at your sides. “I stood in that town not an hour ago and told his wife I didn't know where he was. And I didn't know, because you hadn't thought to tell me you hadn’t let him go at all! And now I have to carry that too, on top of everything else because you've decided I didn’t need to be troubled with it—”

“It’s war!” Ormund shouts, voice ringing through the cobbled walls. His handsome features harden instantly as he stares you down with emotionless pale eyes. His long fingers curl into fists before relaxing once more in a repeated cycle intended to calm him. “I will not apologize for teaching that boy what war requires of men who mean to survive it. For now, it’s only Ser Garrick’s broken nose, but we will have far worse than that done to us before this war is through. If Daeron doesn’t learn that now, he’s as good as dead—”

“He’s sixteen—”

“He’s the King's last trueborn son, with any righteous claim to the throne!” Ormund thunders over your teary retort, approaching you with long strides. “He is the rider of a dragon that is the only thing standing between this army and total ruin— What don’t you understand about that?”

Ormund towers over you at once. His firm hands close hard around your arms, keeping you close and unmoving before him. He ducks his head to your height, eyes darting wildly between yours.

“Do you think I enjoyed putting that sword in his hand?” he continues, quieter now. “Do you think I've slept easy a single night since we left Oldtown, knowing what I'm shaping him into— why I have to?”

You swallow hard through a tight throat, peering up at him through the tears clouding your vision. “I think you’ve decided his suffering is a fair price for war,” you waver. “And I think you decided that without asking me.”

“Yes,” Ormund nods without reservation. “I have decided a great many things without asking you first— I did not ask you first when I decided to blanch that stranger’s hair and send him off in Daeron’s place, did I? And yet you still thanked me for it with your words and body when it kept our boy breathing.”

His words tear right through your chest. You shake your head in protest of them even though you know that he’s right — that you are no better than Ormund even in his madness; that you would do worse and more for Daeron if the war called for it, if you were brave enough to do it. 

“Did I complain, all those years, when grief after grief left this house without an heir of its own blood?” Ormund goes on, quieter now but no less harsh, as his features twist in a stifled sort of anguish. “Did I complain when courtiers wondered in whispers why a man would stay wed to a wife that could not give him an heir?” 

You flinch at his words like you can feel them physically, tearing you from the inside out, though his long fingers caging you force you to stomach them.

“I never complained. Because I love you and because I understood it was no fault of your own,” Ormund continues. “So I have earned, I think, the right to make one hard choice without you looking at me as though I’ve become some monster for it.”

Anger pricks your skin beneath your heavy gown like needles.

It is not the unfairness of the blow of his words that sends you reeling, but rather the sheer astonishment at how low he has stooped in his fury — in his grief. It is, perhaps, the cruelest thing he’s ever said to you; made crueler still for how plainly he does not seem to recognize his own cruelty at all.

“Say that again,” you tell him in an emotionless monotone. “Say it plainly, exactly how you mean it— that you think I am some monster—”

“I didn’t mean…” Ormund huffs and hangs his head, tense shoulders dropping as the lingering anger slips from his skin like rain. “I am not saying this to be cruel— Gods know, I’d sooner cut out my own tongue before I meant any cruelty to you.”

His pale eyes are wet and soft again when they lift to meet yours. His hands loosen their grip on your arms as they lift to cradle your cheeks, softly calloused and warm like velvet along your blazing skin.

“Daeron is the only child either of us has been permitted to keep,” the man continues, softer now. “He is not merely a boy I love, though gods know I do, but he is the only proof that we were ever meant to be parents at all… After everything this life took from us in the trying… Do you understand what I’m telling you?"

“So what?” you press, voice breaking. “The only way he gets to stay ours is if he survives long enough to sit a throne? Is that the only way to remove the taint from his blood— that’s what you called it, right?”

Ormund softens further in the face of your anger.

“Without Aemond, without Vhagar, this army has no dragon to answer to whatever Rhaenyra sends against us next… But Daeron has Tessarion, and Daeron has a claim that half this army would follow into the fire itself,” he coos gently to you, as if anything louder might break you entirely. His thumbs smooth gently along your cheekbones, wiping away a tear that clings stubbornly to the burning skin there. “The war is coming here, my love. It is not a thing we can shield him from any longer. He is our only hope of surviving what is coming, and every bit his birthright to lead it."

“Surely…” you trail off in disbelief, wild eyes searching his bluer ones. “Surely you do not mean to make our child fight in this war."

“It is the will of the gods,” Ormund croons as if it were that simple.

Something in you knows, as each word spills from his mouth, that this is not a man reasoning clearly. You can hear it in the smoothness of his voice and in each too-quick answer on his tongue. And yet, you want more than anything for him to be right. You want it so badly it frightens you — for the gods to will this war’s end, for Ormund’s victory, for your son’s survival. 

You don’t realize you’re crying until Ormund draws you fully into his chest with one wide hand along your back and another cradling the back of your head. Tears fall from your lashes and wet the front of his emerald doublet.

“Listen to me…” he mutters into your hair. “If he sits that throne, no one in this realm could ever call him anything but ours. He is Viserys’s heir, yes, but he became a Hightower the moment you held him— and if he rules, no man will ever again whisper that he is not truly yours. He will restore ancient order to the throne. That is how we keep him.”

You shake your head in protest as you lean back from him again, just far enough to peer up at him with tear-heavy eyes. “Just bring him back to me,” you plead fiercely to him. “When this battle is done, I don't care what it costs you to manage it. Bring him back—”

“I will," Ormund nods with the same iron certainty that has carried you through every hard year of your marriage. “I swear it to you. I’ll bring him home—”

“And you,” you remind with a stern finger jabbed into the center of his chest. “You come back to me, too— I have buried enough of what I love in this life, Ormund. I will not bury another. You come back to me. Both of you.”

He nods and leans down to press his forehead against yours. Each of his heaving exhales through his nose fans warm across your chin.

“I will,” he breathes against you, thumbs sweeping again along your cheekbone. He shifts against you to brush the smallest of kisses to the bridge of your nose — so gentle that it makes you feel like crying. Your hands curl hard around his wrist to keep him close. “The gods owe us a debt. And we will see it repaid in full before this war is through, I promise you.”

You cling to the certainty in his voice the way a drowning woman clings to driftwood; the way a starving woman clings to the memory of her last full meal — you cling to him the way a grieving woman clings to the gods themselves.

[fire-joestar]

“It had not been quite two days since the maester had drawn the small, still shape of your daughter from you and told you, gently enough as not to break you further, that she had never drawn breath at all.”

I just started reading.…

“I am the Lady Hightower,” - slay 💅

«Ormund had the brawny, olive-skinned boy sent away within a fortnight — the moment he understood what kind of feelings the peasant boy had for you, and you for him. It was perhaps the first mad thing he ever did for you and, by Ormund’s later admission, the first time he realized that he might love you truly.»

Wow… I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before. It’s actually pretty original. Usually when a character is shown being jealous, this jealousy is directed toward another character we know. But in this way? I honestly can’t think of anything similar. It’s such a cool idea. it’s subtle, yet clear enough for us to understand Ormund’s feelings. damnnnn

«He slows his long stride to match your smaller, more careful one without a word shared between you — a wall of green and muscles at your side» we know he is huge 😩

“Though, I admit, I’d hope Daeron might have had a cousin or two near enough in age to grow up beside him here. Once he’s old enough for such things, of course.” BITCHHHH WHO ARE YOU

«He stirs briefly at the transfer from one chest to another, round face screwing tight in the prelude to a wail.» NOT THE ROUND FACE OMG omggggg 😩😭

«The babe turns his face into the curve of your throat and settles into stillness with one small fist curled into the fabric of your gown.» I want to eat him 😩😩😩 babyyyy Daeron

«He’s practically all cheeks, with his mother’s mouth and nose.» I imagine it and my heart melts completely

«Ormund steps inside the overextended reach, hooks a boot around the boy’s ankle, and trips him onto the dirt with his blunted blade pressed to his ribs. Daeron hits the ground with a thud, red-faced and breathing heavy.

“Dead,” Ormund proclaims from where he stands over the boy, flat but not totally unkind.» Oh he's enjoying it))

“Come here to me,” you sigh and catch his round chin between your thumb and forefinger when he plants himself ahead of you. You swipe the filth from his cheeks with the hem of your sleeve like you’ve done since he was small enough to fit in one arm.

girl those cute details will be my death stoppp. I can't comment on every sentence 😩 your writing >>>> everything else

«…he suffers your motherly affections. “I’m a squire now.”

“Oh, a squire, are you?” you croon in response with an obvious air of sarcasm. You smooth wild auburn hair from his temples before pressing a chaste kiss to his hairline.» STOPPPPPP

“My kiss,” now big baby’s turn))))

«His broad nose flattens…» you know what? I had to put my phone down, get up and walk a couple of laps. GOD THATNK YOU SOMEONE MENTIONED HIS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL NOSEEEEE. NOT JUST NOSE, BROAD NOSE. you make me happy only with this some words

“Listen to your mother, boy. Go.”

Mother, he says.» girl why did I shed a tear wait

I can’t even come up with right words rn. I was literally reading this holding my breath with my hand over my mouth bcs I was so overwhelmed by how incredibly touching it was. I genuinely don’t know what to say or write. I don’t even have the right image or meme to express how I’m feeling right now 😭😭 omg I love them

“Do it,” you hear yourself say, shaking your head between his hands. “Whatever it costs… Whoever it costs… Do it.”

«Ormund nods with a deep inhale through his nose, leaning forward to press his mouth to your hairline — to seal his promise with a kiss.» I do love that maternal madness

«It is a gift and a curse, perhaps — comforting when Daeron was small and frightened of the dark» MY BABY 😭😭😭

“What would Mother think of this?” Daeron hears himself ask

“I didn’t—” Daeron swallows hard, smaller now than moments before. “I did not mean the Lady Alicent…”

Do you expect me to read this and function normally for the rest of the day? HELL NO! my chest hurts

“Where's Daeron? He hasn’t missed out on lemon cakes since he was old enough to chew them.”

WILL YOU STOP SHAKING MY SOUL, WOMAN??

ok you did it again and I WONT TELL YOU ANYTHING OKK damn

“Did I complain, all those years, when grief after grief left this house without an heir of its own blood?” Ormund goes on, quieter now but no less harsh, as his features twist in a stifled sort of anguish. “Did I complain when courtiers wondered in whispers why a man would stay wed to a wife that could not give him an heir?” BITCHHHHHHH [2] HOW U DARE

“I never complained. Because I love you and because I understood it was no fault of your own,” oh.. okay

I can’t quote the entire ending of this masterpiece here but I’ll just say that those last few paragraphs had my soul in a chokehold. I just stared at one spot trying to process everything, then reread it and then sat there processing it all over again. I read the ending several times. It was such a powerful moment. The way it portrays two people longing to become parents yet facing the possibility that it may never happen… (I absolutely adore stories where my favorite character ends up with a dozen babies, but in this story their childlessness actually highlights just how deep the bond between Ormund and his wife is even though their marriage began as an arranged one). The idea that their only chance at becoming parents could slip through their fingers, desperation and the depth of Ormund’s love… I know so many fans of the show interpret his love as abusive or twisted but to me his characterization here feels true to the era he lives in and the circumstances that shaped him. I also adore your rader. She has self-respect but she also loves her husband enough to compromise when it matters. She’s not some childish, immature girl, she feels like a grown woman!

I love everything about this story. honestly don’t think I have enough words to express just how much I’ve fallen in love with it or how excited I am for your future works. I’m always so interested in seeing your interpretation of Ormund. Even though most of this review ended up being about Daeron, pls know that there are so many things about Ormund and reader that left me completely speechless. I just can’t find the words to do them justice

[simpingthroughcenturies]

A Conquest of Breath

Pairing: Ormund Hightower x pregnant wife!Reader

Synopsis: A clash of wits beneath the canvas frame, his sudden terror turns to protective flame. She meets his roaring anger with her tongue, but melts beneath his weight before it’s done. His heavy, breathless conquest holds total sway, to claim the slight, sweet swell she risked away.

Warnings: SMUT 18+, Fingering, (Early Stage) Pregnancy, Argument, Dubcon, Male Dom, Protective Fury, Size Difference, Breath Control/Prolonged Kissing, Biting/Marking, Overstimulation, Rough Handling, Power Play, Breast Play, Semipublic Sex, Controlling Behavior

Word Count: 3.7k

A/N: this fic is based on a request & ideas by @fire-joestar 🫶

The heavy velvet flap of the pavilion did not just close; it violently shattered against the wooden stakes as Ormund kicked it shut, the heavy iron-shod heel of his riding boot punctuating his fury with a sound like a small thunderclap.

The air inside the tent was instantly suffocating. It was a sprawling, multi-roomed traveling structure built for the Lord of the Hightower, but the sheer, volatile volume of Ormund’s temper made the canvas walls feel as though they were closing in.

The atmosphere was thick with the scent of unwashed leather, crushed pine needles from the rugged trails, the smoky residue of tallow candles, and the pure, terrifying heat of a Hightower wrath.

Outside, the temporary war camps of the Reach’s vanguard were settling into a quiet, disciplined evening routine. Inside, Ormund was an absolute storm.

”You have the sense of a newborn calf,“ his voice boomed, deep and scraping from the back of his throat, vibrating the very marrow of her bones.

He had not even unbuttoned his heavy, wool-lined traveling doublet. The dark green velvet was stiff, reinforced with thick boiled leather across the broad span of his shoulders, making him look less like a husband and more like a merciless warlord ready to sentence a treasonous garrison to the gallows.

”The rocky banks of the Honeywine? Outside the perimeter of our scouts? In your condition? Do you take me for a fool, or do you simply hold your own life in utter contempt?“

Lying back against a mountain of rich, plush sable and fox furs on the low traveling cot, she did not even flinch. She was a grown woman, fully settled into the skin of her maturity and the formidable reality of her station. She knew exactly how to handle the legendary Hightower temper—not by shrinking, but by anchoring herself like the foundation of the High Tower itself.

Slowly, deliberately, she began to massage her swollen, aching feet. The pregnancy was still in its earlier stages—her belly bearing only a slight, soft swell that was easily hidden beneath the heavy folds of her fine wool skirts—but the sudden shift in her body’s balance had turned what she intended to be a brief, liberating stroll into a grueling, exhausting ordeal. Her ankles were puffy, her skin felt tight with discomfort, and a dull, throbbing ache radiated up her calves from the unaccustomed strain. She was still adjusting to the early, heavy fatigue of carrying his child, an exhaustion that left her breathless far too quickly.

When her foot had caught on a patch of uneven, loose slate near the riverbank, her breath had hitched. It had not been a fall, just a heavy, clumsy stumble that made her back ache fiercely.

But Ormund, who had been riding nearby inspecting the vanguard, had reacted as if a scorpion had struck her. He had dropped from his stallion, his face white with a stark, blinding terror that immediately solidified into raging fury. Before she could even utter a syllable of protest, he had unceremoniously hauled her over his massive shoulder, ignoring her furious demands for decorum. He marched her straight back through the center of the camp in front of half the Reach’s assembled nobility. She had spent the entire walk back swearing under her breath that she would strangle him in his sleep.

”Daeron, sweetling,“ she said, her voice smooth, cool, and entirely cutting through the heavy, masculine roar that filled the pavilion. She did not look at Ormund. Instead, she looked past the towering bulk of her husband toward the entrance of the tent.

Young Daeron Targaryen hovered there, his once pale, silver-gold hair now in the deep auburn of House Hightower. The boy’s hand was white-knuckled on the hilt of his training sword, his violet eyes wide with a genuine, anxious panic. He was a Prince, but he was also a boy fostered in Oldtown, and he had never seen his uncle’s wrath directed so fiercely at the woman who normally served as the calm, steady center of their world.

He looked ready to step between them, his young shoulders tense with a protective instinct he did not quite know how to execute.

She offered the boy a small, deeply reassuring smile, her gaze steady.

”Go find Sir Gwayne. Tell him your uncle requires a cold pitcher of ale to soothe his scorched throat. And remain at the campfires until the sun sets. The air in here is far too thick for a young Dragon.“

Daeron looked at Ormund’s rigid, towering back, then back to her. The absolute, unbothered maturity in her eyes, the sheer calmness she exuded while standing in the path of a storm, was the only thing that gave the young Dragon the courage to move.

Recognizing that his aunt was entirely in control of the situation, he bowed quickly and scrambled out of the pavilion, the heavy velvet flap falling shut behind him with a soft, final thud.

The moment the boy was gone, the fragile truce of public appearance shattered. She turned her sharp wit directly on the beast remaining.

”If you bellow any louder, Ormund, the High Septon will hear you all the way from the Starry Sept,“ she murmured, her voice dripping with a dry, tired sarcasm that she used as a shield against her own deep-seated anxieties. She unlaced the heavy, dust-covered leather of her walking shoe and let it drop to the floor.

”I went for a stroll. I am a grown woman, not a fragile piece of Myrish glass to be locked away in a cedar chest. I wanted fresh air. I wanted to feel the earth beneath my feet because your Maester’s strictly ordered diet of boiled fowl and bland porridge makes me feel as though I am chewing on old parchment. I am suffocating in this camp, Ormund, and I will not be caged.“

”Your feet are swollen to the bone!“ Ormund roared, taking a massive, heavy step toward the cot that made the floorboards beneath the rugs groan. The sheer size of him filled her entire vision—shoulders like an anvil, a chest broad enough to shield three men in his thick velvet tunic.

”You call it a stroll? You call it fresh air? You are carrying my child—the heir to Oldtown, the future of my house! The child is a fresh, delicate thing in your womb, and yet you think it wise to wander beyond the camp guards where a loose stone could send you crashing down? You could have collapsed. You could have bled. You could have–“

”I did not collapse!“ she countered sharply, her own temper finally igniting. She sat up abruptly, bracing her hands behind her on the thick furs, ignoring the sharp twinge of protest from her lower back. She tilted her chin up, meeting his furious, dark gaze with an unyielding fire of her own.

”I slipped! A minor, clumsy misstep because my body no longer feels entirely like my own. And instead of letting me rest, instead of offering me a hand like a husband, you hauled me over your shoulder like a prized stag and embarrassed me in front of our entire vanguard. You made a spectacle of your wife, Ormund.“

She took a sharp, ragged breath, her voice dropping into a deeper, more biting register.

”But we both know you are not truly furious at my fatigue. You are furious because you cannot command the rocks beneath my feet to bow to House Hightower. You are furious because my body, and the life beginning inside it, is the one thing your armies, your wealth, and your titles cannot completely control or guarantee the safety of.“

Ormund stopped dead in his tracks. His jaw clenched so hard that the heavy muscles in his cheek twitched violently.

Inside his chest, a sickening, agonizing knot of pure terror tightened. Her words cut through his anger like a Valyrian steel blade, striking the raw, bleeding nerve he tried so desperately to hide.

He was not just angry; he was terrified. He knew how fragile these early moons were, how easily a new life could slip away before it ever had a chance to take root truly. The birthing bed was a slaughterhouse for noblewomen, a battlefield where his sword, his shields, and his immense physical strength were entirely useless.

The thought of losing her—of his home turning cold, of the light in his life being extinguished while he stood by, helpless—was a nightmare that haunted his every waking hour. When he had seen her stumble on those rocks, his soul had left his body. His anger was the only armor he had to keep from falling to his knees and begging her to never leave his sight.

And yet, the absolute arrogance of her tongue, the complete lack of fear she displayed while staring down his worst wrath, was the very thing that made him worship her. She was his match in every sense—a formidable woman who refused to break. But right now, combined with that lingering, sickening terror, her defiance made something dangerous snap inside him.

The martial wrath did not fade; it ignited into something entirely different, a dark, possessive, and overwhelming heat.

”You think this is a game of wits?“ he growled, his voice dropping into a low, predatory octave that vibrated straight through the floorboards, losing its booming roar and gaining a quiet, terrifying intensity.

”You think I care about the vanguard? You think I care about titles?“

In three slow, deliberate strides, he crossed the remaining distance between them. The sheer, predatory gravity of his movement made her pulse hitch, a sudden, heavy throb of anticipation blooming deep between her thighs. But as his strong hands reached down to grab her waist, she did not shrink back into the furs. Her own frustration, her own need to push back against the suffocating walls of his hovering protection, boiled over.

Using his forward momentum and her own unyielding leverage, she wrapped her arms around his neck, fingers digging into the thick collar of his doublet, and pulled down with all her might. At the same moment, she shifted her weight with a sudden defiance that caught him entirely off guard.

With a low grunt of genuine surprise, the massive warlord stumbled slightly forward. She twisted her hips, leveraging his bulk against him, and pushed him back against the heavy cushions and furs of the cot. In a flash of stubborn rebellion, she dragged her body up, straddling his muscular thighs, pinning his legs beneath her own.

For a breathless, triumphant second, she was on top. She looked down at the Lord of Oldtown, her face flushed, her eyes blazing with a fierce, intoxicating glare of dominance. She braced her hands flat against his heavy, leather-trimmed doublet, feeling the rapid, powerful thudding of his heart beneath her palms.

”I am the Lady of the Hightower, Ormund,“ she gasped out, her chest heaving as she tried to maintain her authority over him.

”You will not cage me. You will not dictate where I walk, and you will never carry me like a beast of burden through your camp again–“

Ormund lay beneath her for a fraction of a second, his massive chest rising and falling beneath her hands. Then, his dark eyes flashed with a sudden, dangerous amusement that instantly melted into pure, suffocating dominance. A low, gravelly chuckle rumbled deep in his throat, a dark sound that vibrated right through his chest and into her palms.

”An admirable effort, my love,“ he whispered, his voice dripping with a raw, protective heat that made her core ache with sudden wetness.

”Truly. But you forget who commands this army. And you forget exactly who you belong to.“

Before she could even register the shift in his muscles, his calloused hands came up, gripping her hips like iron bands. The sheer, effortless power in his arms was staggering. With a single, terrifyingly easy surge of brute strength, Ormund completely reversed their positions. He did not just push her off; he twisted his heavy torso, lifting her entire body and rolling her over in a single, fluid motion.

The world spun for a breathless instant, and then she was flat on her back beneath him, her breath completely stolen by the sheer speed and weight of his movement.

He followed her down instantly, his broad frame safely but completely trapping her beneath him. The sheer physical contrast of their bodies was on absolute display; he was a mountain of muscle and dark velvet, completely enveloping her smaller, softer form.

Yet, even in his primal need to master her, his instincts ruled his movements. He was hyper-aware of the slight, tender swell of her lower belly. He positioned his thick, heavy thighs to flank hers perfectly, taking the brunt of his own weight, and threw his immense bulk onto his elbows, hovering over her so that he pinned her completely without placing any dangerous pressure on her stomach.

The containment was absolute, flawless, and terrifyingly beautiful. She was completely mastered, her brief rebellion utterly crushed beneath his weight.

Her sharp tongue opened to lash him again, to find some way to reclaim her defense, but Ormund was entirely done listening.

He slammed his mouth down over hers.

It was not a gentle kiss. It was a total conquest—a deep, bruising, utterly possessive claim that completely smothered her breath, cutting off her voice before she could form a single word. His tongue parted her lips with a rough, commanding urgency, drinking in the quiet, helpless gasp of shock she let out.

For a woman who valued the deep, intense intimacy of a kiss above all else, the sheer, crushing force of his mouth was intoxicating. It drove out every coherent thought from her mind, replacing her anger with a desperate, clawing hunger.

She tried to turn her head, an instinctual reaction to find a pocket of air, but Ormund’s large hand moved to her jaw. His thick fingers locked her face in place with unyielding firmness, forcing her to take every single ounce of his desperate, terrified passion. He kissed her as if he were trying to possess her soul, as if he could force his own breath into her lungs to keep her safe forever. He kissed her until the air in her chest burned, until her hands stopped pushing against his broad shoulders and instead tangled frantically into the dark, thick hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him down, begging for the very weight that threatened to consume her.

When he finally pulled his lips away by a fraction of an inch, the silence of the pavilion was broken only by their ragged, desperate breathing. Her lips were dark, flushed, swollen, and slick with their shared saliva, parted in a frantic gasp for air.

”You belong to me,“ Ormund snarled against her damp skin, his hot breath sweeping over her burning face. He shifted his bulk slightly, his hand sliding down the front of her gown to rip open the delicate linen laces of her chemise with a rough, impatient jerk. He dragged the fabric down, exposing the slope of her shoulder and the elegant curve of her neck.

”Every breath in your lungs. Every step your feet take on the earth. You do not risk what is mine, do you hear me? You do not terrify me like that again.“

Before she could form an answer, his mouth dropped down to the sensitive juncture where her neck met her shoulder. He did not merely kiss her skin; his teeth grazed the flushed flesh, biting down with a sharp, possessive pressure that bordered on painful.

She cried out, her voice a sharp, breathy gasp. A direct spike of intense, white-hot pleasure darted from the bite straight down to her core, making her lower stomach tighten with a fierce, throbbing ache. His teeth sunk deeper for a second, leaving a dark, immediate mark on her skin—a visceral, burning brand that would remain for days, a reminder of who owned her.

”Let the camp see it tomorrow,“ Ormund muttered against the fresh wound, his voice a dark, rough purr that vibrated against her collarbone.

”Let my knights and the lords of the Reach see exactly what happens when my wife decides to wander beyond my sight. Let them know you are claimed.“

His large hand slid further lower, moving over the rounded swelling of her breasts. His fingers tightly cupping and squeezing the sensitive, aching flesh through the torn linen, completely overwrought by the lush fullness that came with her early pregnancy.

He bunched the ruined fabric in his fist, pulling it down roughly until her breasts were completely bared to the warm, candlelit air of the tent. They were heavy, their nipples tight and hyper-sensitive from the child growing within her.

Ormund let out a low, guttural groan at the sight, his large, rough thumb dragging heavily across one tight peak. She arched off the furs with a sharp, breathless gasp, her hands gripping his velvet sleeves for anchor.

The sheer overstimulation of his rough hands on her aching chest was dizzying. He pinched the swollen bud between his calloused fingers, rolling it firmly, sending a ruthless wave of heat straight down into the heavy, weeping pulse between her thighs. She whimpered, her hips rolling instinctively against his heavy thigh, completely undone by the harsh friction.

”Ormund… please,“ she whispered, her composure entirely shattered, her voice cracking with raw, trembling need. She was entirely at his mercy, her body screaming for fulfillment.

”You are too heavy… I cannot breathe… please…“

”Good,“ he growled, his dark eyes burning down into hers with a fierce, ungodly devotion as his hand moved back up to grab her jaw, tilting her head back.

”Do not breathe. Do not think of the shore, or the diet, or the camp. Only think of me. Only feel what I give you.“

He locked his mouth over hers a second time, renewing the prolonged, suffocating kiss, sealing her desperate whimpers behind his teeth. He starved her of air deliberately, using the restriction of breath to heighten every single sensation running through her nerve endings.

At the exact same moment, his large hand slid beneath the heavy layers of her skirts, pushing through the fine linen and silk until his fingers found the soaked, burning heat between her thighs.

She was already dripping, her body completely betraying her anger, slick and scalding hot.

Ormund let out a dark, approving rumble deep in his chest against her lips as his fingers sank into her wetness. He drove two fingers deep inside her, the thickness of them stretching her engorged walls, filling her so completely that she let out a muffled sob into his mouth.

But he gave her no time to adjust. His thumb found her hyper-sensitive bundle of nerves, burying itself against the swollen bead. He did not tease her, did not offer a gentle prelude; he ground his thumb against her center with a relentless, heavy, rhythmic friction that perfectly matched the brutal, deep, wet strokes of his tongue inside her mouth.

She was completely, utterly trapped. She was unable to move her head away from his locking grip; she was unable to move her hips away from the brutal pleasure of his hand. The sheer restriction of breath from his unbroken, crushing kiss, combined with the explosive, wet heat of his fingers stretching her inside and his thumb ruthlessly punishing her clitoris, turned the pavilion into a blur of pure sensory madness.

Her mind emptied of everything but the burning friction. Her inner muscles clamped down frantically around his fingers, convulsing in tight, desperate, weeping waves as the relentless overstimulation pushed her to the absolute brink of her sanity. She was flying apart, her controlled mind shattered by the primal force of his mastery.

Her eyes rolled back behind closed lids. Her fingers dug into the thick furs beneath her until the fabric tore, her legs trembling violently where they were pinned wide by the immovable weight of his heavy thighs. She tried to scream his name, tried to beg him to stop or to hurry—she was unsure which—but the sound was swallowed entirely by his bruising lips, muffled into a desperate, choked moan that vibrated deep in his own throat.

The prolonged kiss continued, deep and unbroken, holding her right at the precipice of an unbearable peak. The lack of air, the deep fullness of his fingers, and the heavy, unyielding rhythm of his thumb created a perfect storm of overstimulation. Her body could not hold it back any longer.

The climax hit her like a monstrous wave crashing against the stone cliffs of Oldtown. Her body violently convulsed, her internal walls locking down in a tight, crushing spasm around his fingers. She shattered fiercely beneath his massive weight, entirely undone, her hips bucking helplessly against his hand as a brilliant, blinding release claimed her senses. She came hard, her body weeping against his fingers, her muffled cries of pure ecstasy echoing inside his locked mouth.

Ormund held her through the entire shattering wave. He did not lessen the pressure of his thumb, dragging her through every single throbbing ripple of her orgasm, keeping his lips locked tightly to hers until her violent trembling slowly subsided into soft, ragged breaths.

Slowly, mercifully, he pulled his mouth away. A long, thin silver thread of saliva connected their lips in the dim candlelight. A dark, intensely victorious smirk played on his lips as he looked down at her dazed expression, her chest heaving heavily against his broad, velvet-clad chest, her eyes half-closed and unfocused.

The terror that had gripped his heart all evening was gone, replaced by a profound, worshipful calm. Her body was safe, she was here beneath him, and she was entirely his. His thumb gently wiped a stray tear of pure overstimulation from her flushed cheek, his touch suddenly shifting into the deeply tender, reverent care that always followed his fury. He looked down at the woman who ruled his heart, his chest swelling with an all-consuming devotion.

”Next time,“ Ormund whispered, his voice low, gravelly, and fiercely protective as his massive hand came to rest reverently over the slight, warm swell of her belly, his thumb tracing the new life they had made together, ”I will carry you the entire way. You will not take a single step.“

©simpingthroughcenturies

[fire-joestar]

«…and the pure, terrifying heat of a Hightower wrath.»

It's starting, hooray! so exited face his anger 😍😍

«Lying back against a mountain of rich, plush sable and fox furs on the low traveling cot, she did not even flinch.» slay queen. don’t let a man bother you, even your hubby - iconic 💅 she is during his tantrum:

«She was a grown woman, fully settled into the skin of her maturity and the formidable reality of her station.» you know that writer will shake your soul when you see that her reader is an adult woman. I feel seen

«Daeron, sweetling» MY BABY 🤧🤧🤧🤧

«The air in here is far too thick for a young Dragon» wowwww absolute poema 😳

«not a fragile piece of Myrish glass to be locked away in a cedar chest» I SAID LITERATURE

there's something hot about his mood swings.

Ormund: Reader:

I loooooove how you don't point it out to the length of their marriage, but you clearly let us know by describing their interactions in such a way that it seems like they've been together for 30 years, still fighting each other and still loving each other deeply.

«The birthing bed was a slaughterhouse for noblewomen, a battlefield where his sword, his shields, and his immense physical strength were entirely useless. The thought of losing her—of his home turning cold, of the light in his life being extinguished while he stood by, helpless—was a nightmare that haunted his every waking hour.» hold on damn 😭😭😭 thats sad…

omg omg the tension between them when she climbed on top of him... AAAAAA HELPPPPP I’m giggling and breath heavily

«And you forget exactly who you belong to.“

…. he was a mountain of muscle and dark velvet, completely enveloping her smaller, softer form.» lord have mercy I need to take a break

«She was completely mastered, her brief rebellion utterly crushed beneath his weight.» is this whole fckn paragraph the best description of size kink/difference EVER??? I dare yessssss, girl give me a break

”Every breath in your lungs. Every step your feet take on the earth. You do not risk what is mine, do you hear me? You do not terrify me like that again.“ SIR YES SIR

god i'm so happy about focus on kiss. it's hotter than anything (BUT this part was magnificent too 💅)

«Her body was safe, she was here beneath him…» I think about this part a little more than necessary

well… you chewed my soul and spat it back. it's so well written my God. I can't find the words to describe how good it was (which is why I used memes like a moron 😭). such a canonical Ormund, such a lively, non-infantilized wife and just the secxxx, which is described so deliciously that I want to stick this story on my forehead. Thank you a lot baby, one of the fav work here