morning breakfast with husband! gwayne and your son! daeron. inspired by daeron asking for gwayne in the latest episode .
daeron knows that love exists because you and gwayne exist.
its fluid, golden liquid, dancing in the way gwayne spoons the honey in your sweetened tea before you've even made it to the breakfast hall. he hasn't eaten yet, he waiting for your entrance and the moment his eyes set foot on your frame through the door he's up in an instance. daeron doesn't even hear the scrape of his chair or the clunk of his shoes on cold ground, nor does he hear the small breaths from his uncle's quickened pace. no, this happens at light speed, like a natural born reaction that gwayne is drawn to you.
daeron sees the slow smile mirrored across your faces, a teasing joke that the two of you only know and he sees gwayne take your hand, bring it to his lips with such grace, such nobility and restraint that you scrunch your nose up in delight; feeling exactly how it felt all those years ago when he first courted you. the sound of your laughter swirls like the honey in your tea, like a magnet gwayne's ears perk up and he leans in to press a kiss to your forehead. he knows daeron is behind back at the table so he doesn't do more, he knows what it is to be respectful and not, though you do a damn well job of making sure he forgets most of the time. but for the sake of his nephew, he stops. he offers you his arm that you take instantly, slotting in perfectly next to his as his steps slow to match yours, a piece of harmony.
daeron watches with a smile as gwayne reaches the table, he walks past his chair first, knowing you'll want to reach out press a featherly kiss to his hair and a warm palm to his jaw. "good morrow, my sweet," and the glint in your eyes lights his whole world bright. its motherly the way you tend to him, the way he's always ever known it to be you and gwayne. gwayne and you. ormund, when its not you and gwayne. oh how he wishes it will always be you and gwayne.
he misses the heat as soon as your hand leaves his face with a ruffle to his hair and you take your designated seat in between your husband and son, one that gwayne has already pulled out for you and tucks you in. its a marvel how he does this all one handed, one firmly tucked into yours and daeron almost giggles boyishly at how such a love, so firm and strong can exist in turbulent times as such. but this is normalcy, your purpose and when gwayne brings your sweetened tea to your lips, the ceramic a nice warm and not burn just the way you like you sigh in bliss.
"thank you, my love," you whisper tenderly and he smiles, one for himself in pride and the other to you in devotion. your attention turns to daeron as gwayne begins to tuck into his meal. its a rhythm, you talk with daeron about his valyrian lessons, how his dragon riding is coming on, his interests, his rest, all these details are important to you. daeron almost feels bad for the way he's sucking in your attention but gwayne pays this no mind. the subtle shuffle of cutlery against his plate and besides, he's too busy rearranging your plate- he wipes the jam he knows you like clean off his dish and onto yours. and without even taking your eyes off your nephew, you move the fruit he likes off yours and onto his.
gwayne murmurs a "thank you" against your skin, the breath hot and heavy with a kiss to your neck as you're still turned to your nephew.
"you're doing extremely well, daeron," you lean in and pat his hand reassuringly. and daeron's heart swells with immense pride, all he's ever wanted was to do good with the cards he's been dealt.
"very well," gwayne's head bobs from your side of view, "you make our house very proud, you make us very proud," and just like the honey in your tea, daeron melts into something dangerously softer. the love you and gwayne share has always opened its orbit in the presence of daeron, and now it sucks him in whole, a nice warm tuck to an easy rest.
"though i'm afraid you'll have to start eating soon my heart, lest your uncle devours this whole spread," you jest and as daeron's body vibrates with an entertained chuckle, your head is thrown back into a fit of giggles, muffled as your tucked into your husband's chest as he tries to pretend outrage and offense. you look up to him, secure in his hold and soften.
"good morning to you, wife," he teases and for a second, gwayne forgets all about the young one seated centimetres from you and closes your mouth over his. in all the moments daeron has been raised in your care, there's no words to describe how you and gwayne are when you are with each other. daeron's heard the stories, been trained with the noble knight and knows how fearless, how co-ordinated and lethal his uncle can be. but he also knows the whispers, the laughter, the love existing in mundane moments. gwayne doesn't need to be loud to command the room, he certainly has commanded yours and daeron's life with such ease. but never has he seen his uncle so unguarded when he is by your side, so enamoured and oh so, normal.
"yes it seems it is a good morning," you whisper in return, content in his hold and by his side for life.
daeron eats the rest of his breakfast with quiet contempt and as he stares out to the resting sun with all its beautiful blue and white, he wishes that in his lifetime he hopes to get as lucky as you and gwayne have. to find a love seems an easy feat, but to find a love and yourself in another and to find reasons to fight for that love each and every day, that is rare.
𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Gwayne Hightower x Targaryen!reader
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 5.0k
𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: MDNI, Fluff, Smut, Forbidden Love, Mutual Pining, Sexual Tension.
𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Gwayne Hightower has spent months restraining himself from the princess's advances. Tonight, you decide to test just how strong his honour really is.
: ̗̀➛ [𝐧𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧] [𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭] [𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐨𝐱]
𝐚/𝐧: this has probably been done before but here it is anyways, because i could not get the idea of my mind.
As Rhaenyra’s younger sister, the court has never quite known what to make of you.
Where she is fire and defiance, you are the hush that follows a storm. The Realm's Delight burns bright and bold, a dragon in human skin—you, by contrast, are the candlelit glow that softens every sharp edge, the cool hand on a fevered brow. You are poised, graceful, perfect in every way they demand you to be. You are the very portrait of a princess they can understand.
But perfection is a cage, and you have long since memorised the bars. You know the precise weight of your gaze to make a lord nod in approval. You know the exact angle of your smile to disarm a suspicious lady-in-waiting. You know the weight of your crown—figurative though it may be—and you wear it with the practised ease of a woman who learned to perform before she learned to speak. You have honed this mask until it fits like a second skin.
Only a handful have ever glimpsed the woman who paces her chambers at midnight, who laughs too loudly in private, who speaks truths that would curdle the milk in the court's golden goblets. And of that handful, only one has ever made your pulse stutter with something sharper than mischief.
Gwayne Hightower knows you.
He knows the real you—the one who hides behind porcelain smiles and demure silences. He has seen you crack a joke so improper that even Ser Harwin choked on his wine. He has watched you roll your eyes at a lord's tedious monologue and then turn to him with a look that said, save me from this, and he had—he always had, with a gallant and utterly doomed excuse that whisked you both away. He knows you, and that knowledge is precisely what makes this game so dangerously, exquisitely entertaining.
There was a time, in the earliest days of this dance, when you doubted yourself. You wondered if you had imagined the tension—if the heat you felt was merely your own desire reflected back at you by wishful thinking. You are a princess, after all, and he is a Hightower. The wall between you is not made of stone; it is made of duty, of oaths, of the thousand invisible chains that bind a man of honour to his station.
But you watch him now with sharper eyes, and the truth is undeniable.
You see it in the rigid set of his jaw when you enter a room, as if he must physically brace himself against the sight of you. You see it in the way his knuckles go bone-white where he grips his sword belt, the leather groaning under the pressure. You see it in the subtle hitch of his breath when your hand rests on his arm a moment too long—that tiny, betraying stutter that no one else would notice, but you have memorised like a prayer.
And you see it most of all in what he doesn't do.
Oh, he wants you. That much is as clear as the morning sun through the Red Keep's windows. But more than that, he knows you know. And that knowledge is a slow poison in his veins. He is a knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a son of the Faith, a Hightower. He has sworn oaths and signed pacts and built a life on the sacred foundation of his honour. He cannot act on his desires. He cannot even acknowledge them.
So you push.
You push because you can. Because there is a peculiar, intoxicating power in knowing that you are the sole architect of his torment—that a single brush of your fingers against his sleeve can send him spiralling into a silence so deep it borders on prayer. You are the sculptor of his suffering, and you wield your chisel with the precision of a master.
You push because he lets you. Because for all his oaths and his honour and his desperate, clinging restraint, he never once tells you to stop. He never walks away. He never asks you to leave him be. He simply stands there, a man made of stone and duty, and lets you carve your name into his fractures.
You do it in the training yard, when you appear at the edge of the lists with a goblet of water and a smile that says I brought this for you, Ser Gwayne.
His sparring partner stumbles, caught off guard by the sudden presence of a princess where one has no business being. Gwayne does not stumble—he is too disciplined for that. But you see the way his shoulders tighten beneath his tunic, the way his grip on his sword goes white-knuckled. You see the way his gaze darts to you and then away, as though looking too long might burn him, might sear through his carefully constructed walls and leave him bare.
You wait until he has lowered his blade, until the other knight has retreated with a bow and a mumbled excuse, before you step closer. Close enough to count the sweat on his brow. Close enough to see the pulse hammering in his throat.
"Your form is impeccable," you say, soft enough that only he can hear, as you press the cup into his hands. Your fingers linger on his—not a graze, not an accident, but a deliberate, unhurried caress that lasts three heartbeats too long. "Then again, I've always admired how controlled you are."
The word lands like a blade between his ribs. You see it in the slight flare of his nostrils. You see it in the way his jaw tightens, a muscle leaping beneath the skin. You see it in the way his thumb twitches against the goblet, as though he is physically restraining himself from reaching for you.
His swallow is audible. "Princess," he says, and his voice is rougher than usual, like gravel smoothed by too much restraint. "You should not—"
"Should not what?" You tilt your head, all innocence, all wide-eyed confusion that you both know is a lie. "Compliment a knight on his skill? How dreadfully improper of me. I shall have to write to the High Septon and confess my sins immediately."
A ghost of something—frustration? longing?—flickers across his face. "You know that is not what I meant."
"Do I?" You take a step back, just enough to make him lean forward unconsciously, just enough to prove your point. "Then perhaps you should be clearer, Ser Gwayne. I am, after all, only a simple princess. I cannot be expected to read minds."
His eyes darken. There is a storm in them now, a tempest he is fighting to contain. "You are many things, princess," he says, and his voice is barely above a whisper. "But simple has never been one of them."
The admission costs him. You can see it in the way his chest rises and falls too quickly, in the way his knuckles are white around the goblet. He has said too much. He knows it. And you know he knows it.
You smile—slow, satisfied, victorious—and you walk away before he can take it back.
You push him at the feast, when you dance with him—because you arrange it, because you are a princess and he cannot refuse, because you have learned exactly which strings to pull to make the court's expectations align with your desires. A word here, a smile there, a subtle mention to the right lady-in-waiting that you would so enjoy a turn about the floor with Ser Gwayne Hightower, and the pieces fall into place as neatly as stones in a mosaic.
He knows what you have done. You see it in his eyes when he approaches you, summoned by the queen's own hand, his expression a careful mask of courtly composure. He knows he has been maneuvered. He knows you have trapped him in a web of propriety and expectation, and he knows he cannot escape without causing a scene.
And you revel in it.
You take his hand, and you let him lead you to the floor, and you press closer than propriety allows. Your chest brushes his. Your thigh slides against his as you turn. You are a shadow against him, a whisper of silk and warmth, and you feel the tremor that runs through him like a plucked string.
"Relax, Ser Gwayne," you whisper against his ear, your breath warm on his skin, your lips so close that you almost—almost—brush the shell of his ear. "The court is watching. Would you have them think you cannot stand the touch of your own princess?"
His hand tightens on your waist—just for a moment, a reflexive clench that speaks of longing more than any words could—and then he forces it to loosen. You feel the effort it costs him, the way his fingers uncurl one by one, as if he is peeling them away from something precious.
"They would think nothing of the sort," he grits out, his voice so low it is barely more than a vibration against your skin. "They would think a Hightower knows his place."
"And what place is that?" You tilt your head, eyes sparkling with mischief, with challenge, with the knowledge that you hold all the power here. "At my side? In my shadow? Beneath me?"
His step falters. Just one beat, a stumble so small no one else would notice—a catch in the rhythm that lasts less than a breath. But you notice. You always notice. You catalogue it like a victory, like a trophy, like another stone in the fortress of his composure that you have so carefully chipped away.
His eyes meet yours, and there is something dangerous in them now. Something hungry. Something that looks, for just a moment, like he might forget every oath he has ever sworn.
"You play a dangerous game, princess," he says, and there is something raw in his voice now, something frayed at the edges, like a rope that has been stretched too thin for too long. "One day, you will push too far."
"And what will you do then, Ser Gwayne?" You smile up at him, sweet as poison, innocent as sin. "Will you finally catch me?"
The question hangs between you, heavy with implication. You see the war in his eyes—duty against desire, honour against want, everything he has been taught against everything he has come to crave. You see him imagine it: reaching for you, pulling you close, forgetting the court and the oaths and the thousand eyes that watch.
You see him remember himself.
He does not answer. He cannot answer. The words are trapped in his throat, caught between his teeth, held back by a lifetime of discipline. But his eyes tell you everything—that he is drowning, that he is burning, that every moment spent in your presence is a war he is steadily losing.
And you, sweet princess, have never been one to surrender.
You let the dance continue. You let him lead, let him pretend he is in control, even as you feel the tension radiating from him like heat from a forge. You let him hold you, let him spin you, let him guide you through the steps with the precision of a man who is using every ounce of his focus to remember where his hands are allowed to be.
The evening ends with Gwayne Hightower excusing himself early, pleading a headache, and you watch him leave with a knowing smile that curls at the corner of your lips like a secret shared with no one but yourself.
Your sister finds you moments later, eyebrow arched, a goblet of wine in her hand and a knowing glint in her eye.
"What did you do to him?" she asks, and there is no accusation in her voice, only amusement. Only the curiosity of a woman who knows her sister too well to be fooled by innocence.
"Nothing," you say, innocent as a lamb, wide-eyed as a dove. "I simply danced with him."
Rhaenyra snorts, a sound most unladylike and utterly familiar. "You danced with him the same way a cat dances with a mouse.”
You smile and say nothing, because she is not wrong. Because she has never been wrong about you, not really, not when it matters. Because she knows you better than anyone, and she knows exactly what you are doing.
But she does not stop you. She never does.
Tonight, you have reached a brazenness you would otherwise not think yourself capable of.
But that is the thing about walls—once you have chipped away at them long enough, they do not so much crumble as dissolve, leaving you standing in the ruins of who you used to be, marveling at the woman you have become. And tonight, that woman is not content with whispers and glances. Tonight, she wants to hear him break.
You know he stands guard outside your chambers. You know it as surely as you know the beat of your own heart—that steady, traitorous rhythm that quickens every time you so much as glimpse his silhouette in a crowded hall. You can picture him there now: broad-shouldered and impossibly still, his silhouette backlit by the sconces that line the corridor. The flickering torchlight catches the copper in his hair, burnishes the sharp lines of his jaw. His hand rests on his sword hilt in that familiar, easy grip that speaks of decades of discipline—but you know better now. You know the tension that lives in his shoulders like a second skeleton, a permanent weight he carries because he refuses to let it go.
His jaw will be set in that maddening line of stoic resolve as he surveys the darkened hallway. The perfect knight. The unshakable sentinel. A man carved from stone and oaths.
You intend to shake him.
The fire crackles low in the hearth, casting amber shadows across the stone walls, painting the room in shades of gold and crimson. The night air has turned cool, carrying the faint scent of rain from the open window—the first promise of a storm rolling in from the Blackwater, the distant rumble of thunder a fitting prelude to the tempest you are about to unleash. You left the door unlocked. Not ajar, not obvious—just unlocked. A test. An invitation. A trap baited with silk and sin.
You let your shift slip from your shoulders.
The silk pools at your feet like water, a whisper of ivory against the cold stone floor, and the cool air kisses every inch of your exposed skin—raising goosebumps across your chest, your stomach, the sensitive flesh of your thighs. You shiver, but not from the cold. Never from the cold. You are burning from the inside out, a furnace stoked by anticipation, by the knowledge that he is just beyond that door, that he can hear everything.
You lie back on your bed, the sheets soft and rumpled beneath you, and you let your hand drift lazily down the plane of your stomach. You are deliberate in your slowness. You are an artist, and this is your masterpiece—a performance meant for an audience of one, even if he refuses to acknowledge it. Even if he stands rigid and unyielding, pretending he cannot hear, pretending you do not exist beyond the role of princess to his protector.
But he can hear. And he does exist in the space between your thighs, whether he knows it or not.
You make no effort to stifle the sounds that escape you.
They begin softly—small, breathy sighs that could almost be mistaken for restlessness, for a woman turning in her sleep. A whisper of pleasure, barely audible, a thread of sound you let hang in the air like silk. You test the waters, waiting, listening for the telltale creak of leather shifting outside your door. Nothing. Not yet. He is made of sterner stuff than that.
So you push harder.
Your fingers find the heat between your thighs, and you trace slow, aching circles around that sensitive peak with practiced precision. You know your own body like a map you have studied in the dark—every curve, every hollow, every place that makes you gasp. And you let yourself feel it, truly feel it, because this is not merely performance. This is want. This is hunger. This is the fire that has been building since the first moment he looked at you like you were the sun and he was desperate for a taste of the burn.
A moan escapes you—low and throaty, the kind of sound that belongs in a shadowed alcove, in the tangle of sheets, in the quiet space between two bodies that have given up pretending. It is the sound of a woman who has stopped caring about propriety, who has abandoned the mask of the perfect princess and let the woman beneath claw her way to the surface.
Another. This one sharper, catching on the edge of a whimper as your fingers press harder, faster, chasing something that feels perilously close to release. You arch your back against the pillows, letting your head fall back, your hair spilling across the linens like a white halo. Your breath comes in ragged, uneven gasps, and you do nothing to quiet them. You let them swell and crest, filling the chamber with a symphony of your own making.
And you know he can hear you through the oak of the door.
You bite your lip, frustration coiling hot and heavy in your belly. Is he truly that steadfast? That unmovable? That infuriatingly honourable? You have given him every invitation, every provocation, every whispered temptation. You have stripped yourself bare, not just of silk but of pretense, and still he stands there like a sentinel carved from the very stones of the Red Keep.
You press harder, faster, your breathing growing ragged as you chase the thought of him—his hands instead of yours, his mouth on your throat, his weight pressing you into the mattress. You let your eyes flutter closed, let yourself imagine it is him touching you, him drawing these sounds from you. You imagine his breath hot against your ear, his voice rough with desire, whispering all the things he cannot say in the light of day.
The silence from the other side of the door is absolute. No shuffle of boots. No sharp intake of breath. No telltale clink of armour betraying a shift in stance. It is as if he has turned to stone, as if he has willed himself into a statue of duty and denial, carved from the same unyielding marble as the Seven themselves.
You are about to give up. About to abandon this foolish game and finish what you started in bitter, solitary frustration—when—
Knock. Knock.
"Princess?" His voice is low through the door, carefully measured. Painstakingly neutral. The voice of a knight addressing his charge, nothing more. "Is everything all right? I thought I heard... sounds of distress."
You almost laugh. Distress. How perfectly proper. How adorably chivalrous. If you weren't already so wound up, so aching and empty, you might find it endearing. But you are far past endearing. You are past patience, past games, past pretending that the heat between you is anything less than a wildfire waiting to consume you both.
You do not answer.
Instead, you let your fingers slide deeper, the wet sound obscenely loud in the quiet chamber. You let a moan spill from your lips—deliberate, wanton, unashamed—knowing he can hear every shameful, beautiful note of it. You arch your back, let your breath catch in a sharp gasp, and you let his name fall from your lips like a prayer you have forgotten how to stop praying.
"Gwayne..."
"Princess?" His voice is sharper now, edged with something that might be worry—or might be something far more dangerous. The careful mask is slipping. You can hear the crack in his composure, the faint tremor beneath the steel. "I'm coming in. Forgive me."
The door swings open.
He stands silhouetted in the firelight, one hand on his sword, his eyes scanning the room for threats—for assassins, for intruders, for anything that might explain the sounds that have been tormenting him for the past quarter-hour. His body is coiled and ready, a predator prepared to strike, every muscle taut with the promise of violence.
Until they find you.
And then he falters.
Everything about him goes still. His hand falls from his sword, limp at his side, as though the weapon has become an afterthought, as though every lesson of his training has been rendered meaningless by the sight before him. His chest, rising and falling with quickened breath, seems to freeze mid-inhale, the air trapped in his lungs like a prisoner. His eyes—those lovely, terrible, agonized eyes—trace the curve of your body, the arch of your back against the rumpled sheets, the slow, indolent movement of your fingers still buried between your thighs.
You watch the recognition dawn on his face. The moment when the sounds he has been trying to rationalize—the soft moans, the ragged gasps, the whispered invocation of his name—finally find their source. You watch him put the pieces together, watch him realize that every moment of torment he has endured tonight was not an accident, was not a dream, was not something he could dismiss with prayer and denial.
He knows he should look away.
You see it in the way his gaze flickers, just for an instant, toward the door. You see it in the muscle that leaps in his jaw, the desperate clench of his teeth. You see the war in his eyes—the battle between every oath he has ever sworn and every desire he has ever denied.
He knows he should turn. Should close the door. Should pretend he saw nothing and scourge himself with prayer and penance for the rest of the night. He should walk away and never speak of this, never acknowledge this, never let himself remember the way you look right now—sprawled and wanton and utterly, devastatingly his.
But he cannot.
His eyes travel down the column of your throat, past the rise and fall of your bare chest, over the soft curve of your stomach, to where your fingers move in slow, torturous circles. You watch him watch you, and the power of it is intoxicating—headier than wine, sharper than any blade. You have defeated the great Ser Gwayne Hightower without ever touching him. You have brought him to his knees without ever leaving your bed.
He swallows. You watch his throat work, watch the struggle play out across his features—the desperate, agonizing push and pull of duty against desire. "You—" His voice cracks, and he clears his throat, tries again, the words scraping past his lips like broken glass. "You said you were in distress."
"Did I?" You tilt your head, all mock innocence, all wide-eyed confusion that you both know is a lie. "I don't recall saying anything at all."
He flinches as if you have struck him. "Princess, I—"
"Gwayne." You say his name like a command, like a plea, like a prayer. You hold his gaze as you slowly, deliberately, begin to move your fingers again—a languid, unhurried rhythm that you know he can see, that you know he cannot look away from.
The word hangs in the air between you, heavy and charged. For a long moment, neither of you moves. Neither of you breathes. The fire pops and crackles. The rain patters against the window, a soft percussion against the stone. The world goes on outside, oblivious to the cataclysm happening within these four walls.
And then he breaks.
It happens in the space between one heartbeat and the next. One moment he is standing there, frozen in the doorway, a man carved from stone and oaths. The next, he has crossed the room in three swift strides, and suddenly he is there, standing over the bed, looking down at you with eyes that have abandoned all pretense of restraint. His chest heaves. His hands are still fisted at his sides, but they are shaking now, trembling with the effort of not reaching for you.
Your fingers graze his wrist, and he shudders.
The contact is electric, a spark that leaps between you like lightning, like the first crack of thunder before a storm breaks. You feel the tremor that runs through him—the way his muscles jump beneath your touch, the way his breath catches in his throat like a man who has been drowning and has just been offered air. His control shatters.
He falls to his knees beside the bed, his hands finding your hips, gripping them with a desperate, almost bruising intensity. His forehead drops to your stomach, and you feel the hot, ragged puff of his breath against your skin—warm and uneven, a man fighting for composure and losing. He is shaking. The great Ser Gwayne Hightower is shaking like a leaf in a storm, undone by the mere touch of your hand.
"I cannot," he gasps into your skin, the words muffled against your belly, his lips brushing your flesh with each desperate syllable. "I cannot—I swore—"
"To protect me," you say softly, your fingers threading through his hair. The strands are soft beneath your touch, copper and gold catching the firelight, and you gently scratch your nails against his scalp. He moans—a low, broken sound that vibrates against your skin. "You swore to protect me, Gwayne. Not to watch me waste away from wanting you."
He looks up at you then, and the agony in his eyes is breathtaking. His face is flushed, his pupils blown wide, his lips parted and slick. He looks like a man who has been dragged through the Seven Hells and has finally glimpsed salvation—and is terrified it will be snatched away.
"You are a princess," he says, and his voice cracks on the word, splintering like glass. "You deserve—"
"I deserve what I want." You cup his jaw, forcing him to meet your gaze. Your thumb traces the sharp line of his cheekbone, feeling the stubble that scrapes against your skin. "And I want you, Gwayne. I have wanted you since the first moment you looked at me like I was something worth burning the world down for."
His breath catches. His eyes search yours, desperate for something—permission? Absolution? A reason to stop fighting? "You know—"
"I know everything." You smile, soft and tender and achingly sincere. "I know you have been fighting yourself for months. I know you stand guard outside my door every night and pray for strength. I know you dream of me, just as I dream of you. And I am still asking."
The last of his resistance crumbles. You see it go, see the war finally end in his eyes—the way the tension drains from his shoulders, the way his hands loosen their desperate grip on your hips, the way his expression shifts from agony to something rawer, more vulnerable, more his.
And then he is surging up, his hands sliding from your hips to your back, pulling you against him as his mouth crashes into yours.
It is not gentle. It is not chivalrous. It is the kiss of a man who has been starving for years and has finally been offered a feast. It is desperate and hungry and so full of longing that it steals the breath from your lungs. His hands rove across your back, mapping the curve of your spine, pulling you impossibly closer as though he is afraid you will disappear if he loosens his grip for even a moment.
His tongue sweeps across your lower lip, and you open for him like a flower to the sun, letting him taste every last inch of your surrender. He groans into your mouth, a deep, guttural sound that reverberates through you, and you feel the last of his control slip away. His hand tangles in your hair, tilting your head back, and he deepens the kiss—claiming, consuming, devouring.
You kiss him back with everything you have. All the months of longing, all the whispered fantasies, all the nights spent imagining this moment—you pour it all into the kiss, letting him feel the weight of your desire, the depth of your want. Your fingers curl into the fabric of his tunic, pulling him closer, and you feel the solid warmth of his chest against yours, the rapid drumbeat of his heart echoing your own.
When he finally pulls back, he is breathing hard, his forehead pressed to yours, his hands still gripping you like you might disappear. His eyes are closed, his lashes dark against his flushed cheeks, and you watch a single tremor run through him—the aftershock of a lifetime of denial finally broken.
"I am going to burn for this," he murmurs, and there is something like wonder in his voice, something like awe. "I am going to burn in the deepest pits of the Seven Hells for what I am about to do to you."
You laugh, soft and breathless, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw. "Then we will burn together."
His eyes open, and the look he gives you is devastating—raw and tender and full of a love he has been too afraid to name. "You are not afraid?"
"I have never been afraid of the fire," you say softly. "I have only ever been afraid of being cold."
He kisses you again, softer this time, a gentle press of lips that speaks of promises and devotion and a future neither of you can guarantee. When he pulls back, he traces the curve of your cheek with his thumb, his eyes never leaving yours.
"Then I will keep you warm," he whispers. "For as long as you will let me."
a princess wed to a dashing knight should be living a fairytale—but gwayne hightower is also the son of the schemer who would soon plunge the realm into civil war. how long can you resist his charms... when he proves time and again that his affection is as genuine as his honor?
genre/warnings:
arranged marriage, unrequited love, hurt/comfort, yearning, jealousy, mentions of injury & blood, fluff and lots of kissing afterwards, sunshine!gwayne and grumpy!reader, political drama, targaryen!reader (reader is rhaenyra's younger sister), spoilers! takes place in season 1 of house of the dragon
notes:
gif by @/bladeofdreadfort. wc. 4.5k ! hotd s3 is finally here and so does my man gwayne <3 i really loved writing this so i hope you’ll enjoy it!
For the longest time, Gwayne had known that the matter of his marriage were not his to ponder. As the son of the Hand of the King, his future was a tapestry woven by him in a series of cunning, calculated moves.
Yet, he had never truly expected to be betrothed to you—a princess of the realm.
The young princess for the queen’s brother. By every measure, it was a masterful stroke of politics and his father had once again outdone himself. After binding his sister to the king, it was now his turn to seek the heart of the realm’s most coveted maiden after the Princess Rhaenyra.
However, to Gwayne, you were more than just a political alliance. You were a paragon of beauty, the girl haunting his dreams, the princess who has stolen his heart—
But seven hells, were you also one hard lady to entice.
Every charming smile he threw your way was met with an arched, unimpressed brow. Every poetic compliment he rehearsed tasted like ash and shattered against your coldness. You didn’t swoon like the ladies at the tourney grounds, nor did you soften at his obvious attempts to woo you.
Instead, you looked at him as if you could see right through the nervous man underneath.
Your assessing gaze was currently fixed on him from the shade of the courtyard gallery. Down in the dirt, Gwayne was sweating through his padded doublet, trying his absolute best to look formidable as his sword clashed against his squire’s shield—because he knew you were watching.
He has to look good. Your wedding was in three weeks, so he was fighting to impress—determined to give you a show of how your betrothed was as dashing as the realm claimed him to be.
With theatrical flair, he executed an aggressive sequence before driving his squire back with a heavy strike, deftly sweeping the poor lad’s legs out from under him, and sending him sprawling into the dirt with a breathless thud.
Breathing heavily, Gwayne smoothly rested the point of his sword near the fallen boy’s chest in a classic pose of victory.
“You are just dead,” he declared with his signature grin, before turning to where you were.
You leaned against the stone balustrade, looking down at him with an expression of mild, patronizing amusement. He flashed you a hopeful, boyish grin that begged for even a shred of your approval.
And as if deciding to grace him with your presence, you descended down the stone stairs. Gwayne’s smile widened, and he met you halfway as you reached the bottom.
Ignoring the staring stableboys, he dipped his head and took your hand, placing a kiss on it.
“Princess,” he greeted, his dark blue eyes meeting yours with an excited crinkle.
“An impressive display, Ser Gwayne,” you replied, smoothly pulling your hand back from his grasp. He was giddy, about to thank you for the compliment, when—
“I must commend your passion. It takes a truly remarkable knight to exert such effort against a boy half his size who is actively paid to lose to him.”
Gwayne winced slightly, but the grin quickly returned to his face, refusing to let your sharp tongue deter him.
“A knight, no matter the age, must practice for all manner of foes. It shall be a good lesson for my squire to learn,” he countered softly. He had always been a naturally courteous man, but he had been practicing an extra measure of gentleness ever since the betrothal was announced, even when you remained frosty.
He hoped that you would recognize it—that you would see he was willing to bend his pride just for you.
However, you merely lifted your chin higher, your eyes flashing with a challenge.
“Is that so? My, what a chivalrous soul you are. I suppose I shall sleep soundly knowing you are defending the realm with your immense prowess and formidable army of squires.”
One thing he could never truly understand, though... he hadn’t asked for this match any more than you had, yet why did you look at him as you would a liar?
And it hurts because... he remembers how the more innocent, younger you, who had wiped blood from his face, hadn’t looked at him as you do now.
“We are to be married in no less than a moon,” he reminded you, still with a smile. “Tell me, Princess... what must a man do to earn a genuine compliment from his bride?”
You held his gaze for a beat, letting the silence stretch just long enough to watch the slight twitch in his jaw. Then, a devastatingly sweet smile graced your lips as you tilted your head.
“Compliments are but wind, my good ser. If we are to marry soon anyways, what use would flattering you with empty words do?”
Gwayne let out a defeated chuckle. “I shall just continue striving to become a man worthy of your hand, then.”
You had just insulted him and mocked his swordsmanship in the same breath, and yet, somehow, he still found himself tethered to you still.
What a fool he was.
He didn’t give up just like that, of course. Gifts was also Gwayne’s language of affection.
He had commissioned a seven-pointed star necklace for you in Oldtown, crafted from the finest silver and diamond. He had watched his late mother and sister find such profound comfort in it, and so he had believed it would make a fine gift for you.
Yet, now that he presented the gleaming jewelry to you, you were rendered silent.
“You do not like it,” he realized, a note of disappointment building through his usual confidence.
“It is exquisite. Truly,” you started, your voice gentle but lacking the reverence he had anticipated. “But... you must not expect me to wear it often.”
“Is it the design? If it offends your sensibilities, I can have it redone, or—”
“I assure you, I know your intentions are kind,” you looked at him, a certain sternness in your eyes. “It is just a matter of preference, is all. I treasure this necklace from my mother rather greatly, and wearing it is how I keep her close to me.”
The tragic death of Queen Aemma was not so easily forgotten, least of all when you resembled her so much. Gwayne’s smile faltered, the enthusiasm in his eyes dimming when his gaze found the sapphire necklace of Arryn falcon on your neck, a heirloom passed down.
He looked down at the silver star resting in the wooden box, suddenly finding it so plain, before forcing himself to meet your gaze again.
“I just want you to know that... you are in my thoughts, constantly,” he murmured, his gaze rising to meet yours again. “Whenever I see something I consider beautiful, I think of you. I want you to have it. You should know I have no underlying intentions other than that.”
You gave him an appreciative nod, pursing your lips together. “Your kind thoughts are much appreciated.”
So he had failed, again. Sigh.
What better way to impress your betrothed and prove to the entire realm that you were worthy of her hand than by claiming victory at the King’s nameday tourney?
Even you would at least bestow a real smile upon him. That was what Gwayne was after.
Or at least, it was until his gaze drifted to the edge of the battlement grounds where the knights were assembling. There, he saw you.
With Criston Cole.
The sight struck him. You, who usually looked at him with indifference, were attentive, your eyes bright in a way Gwayne had never managed to make them. Cole, in turn, had a reserved smile, his attention entirely locked onto you.
It could have been anyone but Criston—the Dornishman!—Cole. Why him?!
A sharp spike of resentment flared in his chest. He decided right then and there that this cannot stand, and marched towards you both.
“Good day, Ser Criston,” Gwayne greeted with a forced smile, his voice dripping with a courtly cheer that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Cole returned his greeting, and he turned to you then. “My betrothed, fancy to have found you here. You shouldn’t have to sully yourself with the dirt.”
“I was merely wishing Ser Criston luck in the lists.” As always, the corners of your lips curled into that faux smile whenever facing him. “The competition looks fierce today.”
What about him? You hadn’t thought of wishing him, your own groom, luck?
“Fierce for some, mayhaps,” Gwayne nodded, his smile sharpening as he took another step forward, deliberately cutting off Criston Cole’s line of sight to you. He reached out, his gauntleted hand gently but firmly taking yours.
“But I sure do not fear a crowd of knights of modest beginnings and second sons. And I have hoped that I might find you in the stands later, and you would bestow upon me your favor to assure me of my victory.”
He looked down at you, the forced arrogance in his eyes momentarily cracked. He wanted you to look at him the way you had just looked at Cole, really.
But cruel, relentless you never granted it so easily.
“Your romantic sensibilities are commendable, ser.” You let out a soft sigh, as if lamenting, “but victory is still guaranteed by skill and the favor of the Seven, and not merely from a scrap of silk.”
The rejection was subtle, but in the presence of Criston Cole, it felt like a public execution.
“It is said even a scrap of favor from one’s bride can turn the tide of many battles,” Gwayne replied, his voice dropping an octave as the last traces of courtly cheer evaporated. “Unless, of course, your favor has already been promised to someone else?”
His eyes flicked towards Cole, searching for a reason to draw steel before the tourney even began. And that Dornish wretch had the gall to look at him in the eyes and retorted:
“May the best knight win, ser.”
Your betrothed had become terribly displeased and you knew it. Your hollow smile deepened, you stepped forward and smoothly slid your hand into the crook of his arm.
“No, no. You are free to ask me for it later, of course, my dear.”
Gwayne knew better that the honeyed words held no real affection. Yet, like a moth drawn to a flame, he couldn’t help but fall for it each and every time.
You held his leash, and you knew exactly how far you could play with and stretch it. But as he looked at you, a quiet ache settled in his soul.
Is it truly so wrong of him to seek your heart? How much longer would he have to endure this torment, giving everything while his affections remained completely unreturned?
“From today to the day we breathe our last, all that I am is yours.”
That was the first thing he told you when the betrothal was announced. In a den of vipers, Gwayne Hightower was entirely his own man.
He didn’t possess the calculating ambition of his father, who viewed every living soul as a piece in his game of thrones. Nor was he prudent like his sister, Queen Alicent, whose motto in life was duty and sacrifice.
You know that. You really knew that your chosen betrothed was everything but unkind. He was everything the songs promised a knight should be— genuine, posh, with a touch of arrogance that made him charming. He held you in high regard, and his attempts to make an impression on you were sweet.
Despite how you behaved around him, the truth was... it took everything in you not to fall for Ser Gwayne Hightower.
But he is still Otto’s son. You hated the Lord Hand with every fiber of your being—the man’s thirst for power had already forced your childhood companion Alicent into your father’s bed, turned your sister Rhaenyra into a scheming cynic, and your own betrothal to Gwayne was just another piece of his grand design.
However, watching the tourney unfold from the royal box, your thoughts swirled with guilt and anxiety. In the end, he hadn’t asked for your favor at all. Ironically, his sudden silence unsettled you far more than his persistence ever had.
Looking back on your interactions, the weight of your biting marks pressed heavily against your chest. You had rejected him so many times, using your faux smiles and sharp wit as shields. Every time you remembered the look of hurt that crossed his face before he masked it with a patient smile, a fresh wave of guilt washed over you.
Did he deserve to be punished just for pursuing you? Was it fair to make him pay for his father’s sins?
Down in the dirt, Gwayne rode beautifully, unseating two seasoned knights from the Reach and splitting lances with a Lannister to thunderous applause from the crowd. For a moment, watching his silver and green armor gleam in the sunlight, a spark of pride flared in your chest.
Then, Ser Criston Cole rode onto the field.
The tension between the two men was palpable even from the high stands. They charged— one lance shattered, then a second. By the third pass, it was clear it was a matter of pride.
And on the fourth pass, the collision was catastrophic.
With a terrifying crack that echoed across the grounds, Cole’s lance struck dead center. Gwayne was violently unseated, flung from his saddle to hit the earth with a sickening crash.
A collective gasp sucked the air from the stands. Through the rising dust, you saw your betrothed lying completely still. Cole’s lance hadn’t just broken— it had compromised his armor. His steel breastplate was shattered to pieces, the shards visibly lodged into his chest, dark blood already pooling through the fractures.
Your breath hitched, your hand flying to your mouth in horror.
Six years ago, a similar scene had paralyzed your heart the very same way. Blind to the rules of propriety, you bolted from the royal box. Pushing past lords and ladies, you sprinted down into the arena—desperate to reach him.
The maesters and several squires had already swarmed him, unbuckling the undamaged pieces of his armor with hurried hands. Gwayne was propped up against a wooden barrier, half-conscious, his head lolling to the side as his eyes struggled to hold focus.
“Will he be alright?” your voice cracked, almost shrill, the composed facade of a princess shattered as you hovered over the maesters working on him. “Tell me he will be alright.”
“The steel hasn’t pierced the heart, Princess, but we must move him to immediately to extract the shards,” one of them mumbled, wrapping a temporary cloth around the wound to stem the bleeding.
Gwayne let out a low, guttural groan at the pressure, his eyelids fluttering. Through the haze of pain, he recognized your voice. He knew you were there.
Driven by a sudden, overwhelming surge to comfort him, you dropped to your knees beside him. Your hands were trembling as you reached out, using the hem of your sleeve to wipe away the grime and blood that smeared his pale cheek.
But before your fingers could trace his jawline, Gwayne’s gauntleted hand came up. With a sudden burst of remaining strength, he swatted your hand away—
“Do not touch me,” he rasped.
The words were raw and bitter, dripping with an icy venom you had never heard from him before.
. . .
Gwayne refused to meet your gaze. He pressed his eyes shut, his jaw clenched so tightly the bone practically strained against his skin.
It wasn’t just the physical agony tearing him apart. It was the suffocating, absolute humiliation.
He had lost. He had been unseated and laid low in the dirt in front of the entire realm—and worse, in front of Criston Cole. He couldn’t bear to see the pity in your eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at the woman he loved and see confirmation that he was exactly what you always thought of him: unworthy.
“I’m— fine,” he choked out then. “So... go back to the Keep.”
It was funny how this was the same thing that had happened to him six years ago, during the Heir’s Tourney. He had been brutally unseated by Daemon Targaryen then, and just like now, you had come running to him, wiping the blood from his broken nose with your kerchief.
He fell in love with you then... and he has been in love with you ever since.
The girl holding his heart was a princess, and he had never dared to hope for more, never dreaming his conniving father would actually arrange your hand for him. He had thought it a blessing.
But his pursuit of you the past three moons had yielded nothing but a bitter truth— you despised him.
So he preferred to choke on the blinding pain, to let it consume him entirely, rather than suffer the indignity of your comfort.
You are in love with him.
You had spent weeks trying to resent the circumstances that led to your marriage with Otto Hightower’s son, reminding yourself over and over that he had fractured your family, sowing seeds of rebellion that would break once Alicent’s son came to age, and it would spell disaster upon you all—
But the wounded knight with broken nose six years ago had long since owned a part of your heart, and one week without Gwayne Hightower persistent on your heel, you had found yourself... sad.
“Mrawgh...”
“I’m not lonely,” you mumbled petulantly, brushing a hand against Grey Ghost’s silver scales as the dragon curled up, blinking his golden eyes shut to rest.
To occupy yourself, you spent the days with your dragon in the Dragonpit. Tending to Grey Ghost made the long hours pass faster— he was a recluse and not keen on flying often, but his quiet presence matched your somber mood.
Leaving him to his slumber, you walked away lost in your thoughts, entirely failing to notice how slippery the stone ledge had become.
Your foot caught on a heavy iron ring embedded in the floor. The world tilted as you stumbled backwards, losing your footing entirely. You braced for a painful impact against the stone floor, but a pair of strong arms wrapped securely around your waist, arresting your descent.
A sharp, ragged gasp left your savior’s lips. As you stabilized, you realized your hands had instinctively braced against his chest—pressing right over the bandages of the fresh wound.
“Steady there,” the redhead managed, a strained smile tight on his lips as he gently set you back on your feet. His green tunic made you realize who he was—
“Gwayne!” you breathed. Your hands hovered over him, trembling, almost terrified to touch him again. “Why are you—your wound! I didn’t mean to—”
“I am fine, truly,” he assured you, his voice softening as he offered a warm, comforting smile. “It is but a scratch, Princess. It takes more than a clumsy tumble from you to injure me.”
Just like a hundred times before, Gwayne Hightower sought you out. You could see the sheen of sweat on his forehead and how he looked pale still—
From today to the day we breathe our last, all that I am is yours.
“You are supposed to be resting!” Your voice rose despite yourself. “Why are you here?!”
This wasn’t what you wanted to tell him. You wanted to tell him a lot of other things! Like he was a fool, and that you would forbid him to enter the lists once you two were wed, that you couldn’t bear the thought of losing him—
His blue eyes crinkled with that familiar kindness as he reached out, softly tucking a stray strand of your loose hair behind your ear.
“If I wasn’t here, then you would take a fall.” His voice a soothing balm to your frayed nerves. “I can’t very well let my betrothed hurt herself before our big day, can I?”
This was the first time since King Viserys announced your betrothal three moons ago that you looked genuinely worried for him. It made something inside him burst with joy, even if it was tinged with a bitter aftertaste.
Gwayne’s thumb gently brushed across the back of your hand that was still pressed against his chest.
“Tell me... Is this the only way I could truly have your attention? Must I be grievously injured, a step away from Death’s door, for you to look at me like this?”
Your eyes widened by a fraction. Precious, precious girl. He chuckled softly, a teasing glint brightened his eyes.
Just this once, could he be allowed to be just a little bit cruel?
“Even if you keep looking at me with those beautiful eyes...” he whispered, his smile turning a little wistful, “...my heart might just run out, one of these days.”
He gave you one last, kind smile—a look of affection that no longer held expectations, or reeked of the politics that bound your families. Then, he gently gripped your hand, pulling it away from him before turning on his heel to leave you to your own devices.
When your fingers fell limp into the cold air, a stinging realization pierced through you like a dagger:
Is this how he feels? Is this what he endures every time I evade him? How has he survived it over and over?
As his warmth retreated into the shadows of the Dragonpit, something sharp tore deep inside your chest.
You didn’t want him to go. The walls you had spent weeks building to protect your heart against the Hightower name crumbled into dust. Your eyes burned with tears that blurred his retreating figure.
He was nearly out of the pit when you gathered your skirts, abandoning your pride, and ran after him.
“Ser Gwayne!”
Before he could turn back, you lunged, throwing your pride and your fears to the wind. You crashed into his back, your arms wrapping tightly around his waist, burying your face against his spine. He stiffened, almost flinching—
But then he heard you sob.
“Princess...?” he asked softly. His tone shifted, turning from startled confusion to a protective concern as he carefully turned around within your embrace. He reached up, gently tilting your chin up, only to find your cheeks flushed and wet with tears.
Realizing you were truly, genuinely weeping, Gwayne’s breath hitched in his throat.
He didn’t think. He didn’t let past rejections dictate him. He immediately wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close against his uninjured side.
“Shh, please do not weep,” he said in your ear, his own voice suddenly thick with emotion as he rocked you slightly. “Darling... please.”
Darling. Why did the word sound so devastatingly sweet in your ears? As you clung to him, you realized with absolute certainty that you wanted him to call you that for the rest of your days.
As he held you, feeling the warmth of your hands anchoring yourself to him, the pieces finally fell into place:
Has she... returned my feelings?
When your sobs finally quieted and your breathing turned calmer, you gently pulled back just enough to look up at him. Your eyes met his, and an ache settled in your chest.
He was such a beautiful man. Red hair, blue eyes, with ghost of dimples— still the very same wounded knight you had secretly harbored affections for with all those years ago.
Driven by a clear wave of clarity, you didn’t wait for him to speak. Reaching up, you stood on your toes and pulled him down by his collar—
—and pressed your lips to his.
Gwayne went rigid at your sudden boldness. But as your fingers tangled into his soft hair, any lingering shock vanished. With a low groan, he leaned into you, capturing your mouth in a kiss that felt like the bursting of a dam.
He drank in your sighs, his lips moving against yours with a desperate longing, as if he were trying to memorize the taste of you. He pulled you closer, his hands tilting your head back, anchoring you to him.
“You really are—” he growled against your mouth, his breath hot and ragged, “my utter undoing, Princess.”
Before the words could even fully register, you gasped as he gathered you up and hoisted you backwards, setting you down onto the broad stone railing.
Gwayne stepped between your thighs, pinning you to the ledge as his mouth descended on yours once more, even more ravenous than before. The kiss became a blur of lips, tongues, and breathless gasps—
His hands left your face to map the lines of your body, his palm sliding down the column of your throat to the curve of your shoulders. In his mind’s eye, he was already stripping away the heavy, suffocating layers of your gown, picturing the soft, aching swell of your breasts and the intoxicating dip of your waist.
In less than a week... as soon as you swear your oaths before the Seven, he would be graced by that sight.
Gwayne dragged his lips down from your mouth, leaving a trail of scorching kisses along your jawline before burying his face in the crook of your neck.
“Ser Gwayne—” your voice came hitched, and that what brought him back to reality.
He bit softly at the sensitive skin there, swallowing the fire that was about to consume him. When he finally pulled away to breathe, his lips lingered against yours.
“Well, you did kiss me first, Princess,” Gwayne murmured, his eyes twinkling, voice delightfully raspy as his arms settled loosely around your waist. “If I had known a broken rib would finally get you to kiss me, I would have marched up to Grey Ghost and asked him to toss me by the tail weeks ago.”
“Please don’t,” you giggled, circling your arms around his neck.
“Ah, but think of the romance— a dashing knight, battered and bruised, crawling back from the Dragonpit just to collapse into his bride’s arms.”
A breathless laugh escaped your lips, giving way to a very sweet, genuine smile. To Gwayne Hightower, this was the prettiest you had ever been, and his heart throbbed.
Oh, so she does, he realized, a quiet reverence settling into his soul. She does return my affections.
Gwayne leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, finally certain that his heart was safe in your hands.
“You might not know it,” he whispered, “but I have been in love with you for a very long time.”
You looked up at him, your eyes bright with unshed tears, and he met your gaze with a look of such devotion it stole the breath from your lungs.
“So let me say this once again. From before, now and until the day we breathe our last, all that I am... is yours.”
In that moment, you couldn’t have known that the realm would soon be plunged into a senseless civil war, pitting your sister against his in a dance of dragons and blood. You couldn’t have foreseen the ashes, the betrayals, or the heavy price the Hightower green and the Targaryen black would have to pay.
None of that matters right now. All you wanted was to lose yourself in his embrace and savor the fragile perfection of your wedding to the man of your dreams... for as long as it would last.
summary: gwayne finally returns from the war after months away to claim you at last, only to find that you and ormund have grown far closer than he anticipated, and that his cousin has no intention of letting you go so easily. (13k)
contents: targ!reader (no physical descriptions), love triangle, enemies to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, forbidden love, infidelity, canon divergence, cw for emotional manipulation, mentions of ptsd, descriptions of blood and gore, s3ep6 spoilers, smut 18+ (MDNI): gwayne gets a much needed handjob, fem receiving oral
( PART ONE ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
vi. RUIN & RETURN
It had been six days since Gwayne’s letter arrived at camp; five since the Hightower host marched for Tumbleton; and one since you arrived within the ancient walls to wait.
Ormund had not allowed you to read it. He tossed the parchment into the hearth before you could so much as ask and promptly reached for his sword, unsheathing the steel with a strange air of control, right before a shout tore from his throat. He brought the blade down onto the war table hard enough to splinter the old wood. “Useless craven— Coward— Cunt!” he bellowed with every blow, until the ivory pieces sitting atop the map scattered to the floor like knocked-out teeth.
You stood on the far side of the tent, wrapped in your nightgown and still sticky with sex between the thighs, and watched the man lose all of his usual composure in the space of a single breath. Daeron stood just in front of you, not quite broad or tall enough to protect you from his uncle’s rage, but trying to shield you from it nonetheless.
With one final wavering exhale, Ormund sheathed his sword again and left it lying flat on the ruined table before him. His tense shoulders loosened as he raised a hand to swipe a rogue auburn curl from his brow. He turned to face you again with a much more careful, if only slightly unhinged, smile on his mouth.
“There has been no sight of Aemond,” he announced at last. “Nor Vhagar— We’ll have to proceed to Tumbleton on our own. Gwayne will meet us there in time.”
It was not joy alone that heavied your chest at the sound of his name. It was much closer to dread, which burned as it rose into your throat like bile — alongside something that should’ve felt like love but had since grown into something far more complicated in your last few moons as prisoner. You turned from him at once and shoved the tent flap aside just in time to exorcise your sickness onto the dewy grass below.
The dread did not leave with it, and neither did the guilt.
Now you sit at the long table of another manse’s dining hall, far humbler than that of the Red Keep but still a palace compared to the war tents, and watch the last of the orange sunrise die over the hills through the arched windows. Somewhere down that road, your husband rides towards you — alone and hunted and entirely unaware of what awaits him in these walls.
“You’ve hardly touched your supper,” Ormund says beneath the soft scrape of his knife as he cuts himself a slice of honeyed boar. Despite not having properly dined since the war began, he eats with a methodical sort of restraint. He takes small bites, chews each of them thoroughly, and doesn’t talk again until he swallows. “I’m not going to have to feed you myself again, am I?”
You miss the amusement dancing on the edge of his melodic voice with your attention fixed on the window, where the dark edge of the hill meets the violet sky. “I’m not hungry,” you answer distantly.
“Yes. You said as much yesterday as well,” Ormund sighs with all the exasperation of a man grown tired of losing his battles with you. “I’d have thought you might be glad to have a proper kitchen. With proper cooks. With proper food.”
His apathy cuts you like a blade, which has grown sharper and more frequent since the letter arrived at camp. It seemed to sever whatever spell had briefly held the two of you together before now; or otherwise shut something in Ormund that has not opened since he learned of his cousin’s imminent arrival.
“Well, forgive me, my lord,” you say with a voice as thin as Valyrian steel. “If my husband’s sudden return from the dead has rather spoiled my appetite.”
Ormund’s eyes snap up from his plate at once. They’re pale and unreadable and utterly void of the warmth you’d grown so accustomed to. When the blue of his eyes are warm, they’re like swimming in the languid blue of a summer sea. They carry none of that silken familiarity tonight.
“He is not dead yet," Ormund reminds you with his brows raised to his hairline. “So far as either of us knows, anyway.”
Yet. The word alone makes you flinch, though you cannot yet tell if he means it as cruelly as it feels. You find more and more these days that you can no longer tell the difference with him now.
“What am I to say to him?” you wonder suddenly aloud, as if the question had been building in your throat since you learned of Gwayne’s arrival. Your anxious hands twist in the charcoal-silver skirts borrowed from Lady Footly’s closet; a gift, Ormund called it, despite it not belonging to either of you. “When Gwayne arrives— what do I tell him? How am I meant to look at him?”
“You are his wife,” Ormund responds plainly, with one careless roll of his broad shoulders. “I suppose you’ll look at him as you always have.”
Your face screws with a choked-back anger. “That’s not an answer—”
“No. But it’s the only one I have.” He sets his fork and knife on the plate with a heavy clink and leans back in his chair. He tilts his chin upward to stare at you over the top of the glittering candles between you, ringed fingers fidgeting over the pale white cloth.
“I have an army to feed, men to protect, and walls to build before Rhaenyra’s dragonfire can swallow the castle whole,” he continues in a monotone. “Unfortunately, I no longer possess the luxury, or the patience, of coddling your guilt.”
His words burn red-hot through your chest, searing you like a brand. You flinch away from them as if he’d struck you physically, though it might’ve hurt less if he had. Your eyes sting as your throat tightens around all the words you want to fling back at him — perhaps that he had not seemed so burdened by you a week past, when his mouth was on you and his fingers were in you; that he had not been so burdened by your guilt all the weeks before that, when he swore your safety mattered to him above his cousin’s own claim to you.
But you swallow down the accusations now and throw your napkin onto your untouched plate instead. Your chair scrapes hard against the cobbles as you rise from the table in a rush of black and silver silk.
“Where are you going now?” Ormund huffs.
“For a walk,” you answer without looking back at him.
“You haven’t even touched your food,” he calls to your retreating figure, motioning to your uneaten plate with a ringed hand. His even voice begins to fray at the edges, “Sit down and eat—”
“Feed it to the hounds—”
“Sit!” His voice cracks through the room like thunder when your hand curls around the cold brass door handle. The sheer volume of his voice, the raw bite underneath it, roots you in place. Your head turns slowly to find the man glaring at you from his spot at the table, though the scowl on his chiseled features disappears just as quickly as it came on.
His eyes flutter shut as his broad chest inflates behind his emerald coat, with a slow breath in through his nose. You watch the man walk himself down from some invisible ledge — tense shoulders dropping, clenched fists easing, rough breaths coming easier again.
“I’m sorry…” Ormund says when he opens his eyes again. The light in the pale blue of his gaze has returned to him, you find, and so has the softness in his smile when he rises from his chair to meet you. “I am sorry, my love— I forget myself— This war has driven me half-mad, if you could not already tell.”
He exhales a faint laugh that you do not join him in. He crosses the distance between you in a few short strides, wide hands settling along the outsides of your elbows — warm, even through the thin sleeves of your gown. You peer up at him through your lashes, uncertain whether the tenderness he extends to you now is real or simply the version he’s allowing himself to show you.
“If ever I am… cross with you. Or short with you in any way— It is never because of you, understand?” Ormund confesses lowly, eyes darting back and forth between your weary ones. “It takes me a moment to remember myself, is all… You understand that, don’t you?”
You swallow hard and nod wordlessly in response, though what you most desperately want to tell him in that moment is that Gwayne had never been so cross with you. That not once in your moons of marriage had he so much as raised his voice at you or frightened you the way Ormund has in such short time. You want to say it if only to see it hurt him the way his words have hurt you. Instead, you say nothing.
“He does not have to know,” Ormund murmurs to you, thumbs brushing your arm in an absent, reassuring gesture. “Nothing occurred between us that was not asked of me. I gave you only what you wanted— Surely a man cannot be faulted for answering his summons.”
Your brows lower over your narrowed eyes. “Are you saying that… that what we did is my fault alone?”
“Of course not!” Ormund laughs, broad hands rising to cup your burning cheeks between them. His palms are warm and calloused; they feel like velvet as they brush your skin. “I’m saying neither of us is at fault— You said it yourself, did you not? The war broke your vows. Not us.”
Some traitorous part of you, so desperate for absolution, nearly softens into his touch at that. You did not ask to be taken from the Red Keep; you did not ask for Ormund's protection; you did not ask for a husband to ride off at dawn and leave you to wonder all these months whether he was living or dead.
You are desperate and half-convinced in your own madness, but you think that perhaps Gwayne will understand that. That surely a woman who believed herself abandoned and already widowed cannot be faulted for the comfort she found in the meantime. It is a thing far too fragile to build a conscience on, but you cling to the comfort of it anyway.
“My cousin rides to Tumbleton alone— without his own army and with Daemon’s surely hunting him,” Ormund coos gently to you, sweeping his thumb across your skin. “It is entirely possible that he will not survive the journey here at all. And then there would be nothing for you to confess… And you would’ve spent all these days worrying for naught.”
The words settle over you like ice in your veins. Your eyes dart back and forth between his own as you search for something human within him — some acknowledgment of what he’s just comforted you with — and find nothing in return.
“You speak of his death like it would be a mercy to me,” you whisper, voice thick with unshed tears.
“I speak of it only as a possibility," Ormund corrects softly. “I only mean to spare you the fear of it, my love. Is that not a kindness?”
You do not answer him. You could not even if you wanted to; not with the invisible hand curling its way around your throat, as you listen to the man who’s protected you from certain death frame your husband's demise as a kindness done on your behalf.
But when Ormund ducks softly down to press a sickly sweet kiss to your mouth, tasting of the sweet wine and honeyed figs from supper, you cannot seem to pull away from him. Gods forgive you, but you lean into it instead; you ball the collar of his coat into fists and chase the comfort in his mouth the way you’ve chased the safety of his hands since you were brought to his side.
You think of the man who fed you bread from his own fingers when you would not eat; who cut down a hedgeknight before he could harm you; who wrapped you in his blankets and warmed your fingers in his hands on particularly freezing nights.
That man is still in there, somewhere, hidden beneath the throes of war.
You fear what might become of him before it’s done.
vii. MUD & MERCY
You stand before the tallest window of the Tumbleton manse, overlooking the winding ivied streets below. They lead straight to the western gate, where the scouts had seemingly spotted a rider without banners in the distance — a messenger from another camp, they said, or maybe Gwayne. The dying sunlight paints the sky in milky orange hues while you pick at the ragged skin of your thumbnail in an absentminded worry. The delicate nailbed splits and blooms red.
You do not notice until a silken handkerchief is motioned suddenly in the corner of your eye.
Your head whips to find Daeron standing at your elbow, green eyes glimmering and pink mouth fixed into a firm line of boyish solemnity. He stands taller than you now, which hadn’t been the case when you first arrived at camp — now you have to look up to properly meet the young boy’s gaze.
“Oh,” you say within a surprised breath. “Thank you.”
You take the cloth from him with a trembling hand. The pale linen blooms pink when you press it to the raging skin of your bleeding thumb. Daeron grimaces sympathetically in return, though you aren’t looking at him to see it.
“Are you nervous?” he wonders aloud, hands crossed firmly behind his back.
“A bit…” you confess in a sigh, dabbing at the wound and knowing that there is no string of words you could possibly put together to express just how nervous you are.
“Aye,” he nods. “I suppose I am, too… I’ve not seen him since I was a child.”
Your head turns slowly to flash the boy a knowing look. “You are still a child, my prince,” you remind him with a smile.
“A younger child, then,” Daeron mutters sheepishly back, freckled cheeks flaring as he turns back toward the window. His long, auburn tendrils sway softly at his shoulders when he shakes his head. “Long enough that I can no longer recall the last conversation I had with him… Though I’m sure it was about you, no doubt, with his betrothal to you and all…”
“Well, he spoke of you often,” you tell him, and watch the boy’s pale eyes flicker with a newfound life when he turns to you again. “He made it clear he was quite proud of you… And if it’s any consolation, I did not intend to steal him from Oldtown.”
“I’m glad for it,” Daeron blurts, then shakes his head at himself when the words don’t come out right. “Not that he left, of course, but that it was you he was given. There are far worse fates, to be true…”
He trails off and watches your face twist with confusion. His anxious gaze drops to the blood-spotted handkerchief as the tips of his ears glow pink. The words seem to escape him without a single thought in his floundering attempts to explain himself.
“I only mean that— that he is good. My Uncle Gwayne. The best of us, really, and Ormund is…” Daeron forgets why he brings up the older man the second his name spills from his lips, though he cannot seem to stop talking. “Ormund is good, too, I’m sure. Somewhere deep down. But he— He does not lose well, my lady. And I’ve learned that… that it's a dangerous thing, to— to be the prize he’s decided he’s won.”
The words come out of him in a rush; sentences half-formed and stumbling. He glances at you only once in a quick and searching look, before looking away again like he can’t stomach a second more of the contact. Your stomach twists in a sick feeling at each word from his mouth. Your throat runs dry as you choke on whatever response you might have given him — some careful deflection, maybe, or a warm laugh to soothe the boy — but a horn sounds from the tower before you can find any response at all.
Three short, sharp blasts send the keep into motion immediately.
“He’s here!” someone yells, far off in the distance. “Open the gates— it’s Ser Gwayne!”
Your feet seem to move on their own accord. Despite the dread sitting heavy in your belly, your legs carry you instantly towards Gwayne. You hold your dress skirts in your fists as you rush down the winding stone stairs, through the crowded hall, and out the heavy oak doors of the entrance. The humid, evening summer air takes the breath from your lungs as it strikes you across the face; it becomes near-impossible to take another one in, with your heart climbing so suddenly in your throat.
The thundering of hooves against cobblestone finds you before you’ve made it down the steep stone steps of the ancient castle. You’re blinded, briefly, by the setting sun until you hold a hand over your squinted eyes. Armored knights and groomed horses come into view — straddled loosely behind Bold Jon’s mare is Gwayne, though his face and hair are so caked with dirt and blood you scarcely recognize him.
Gwayne tries and fails to dismount on his own. His legs betray him after days of nonstop walking, and the exhaustion makes them buckle almost instantly. “Gwayne!” he hears you shout, right before he feels your hands reach for him before he can fall.
Your arms curl beneath his own to keep him upright. He leans the bulk of his weight against you without ever really meaning to, clinging to your warmth and the scent of floral bathing oils he isn’t quite used to. And, though he smells like dirt and death, you hold him back just the same.
“You’re alive,” you pant, breaths fanning in his muddied hair. “Gods, you’re alive—”
“Well…” He huffs a not-quite laugh that you can feel in his shoulder, pulling just far enough away to meet your wet eyes with a pair of duller, paler ones. “I told you I meant my vows, didn’t I?”
His words come out in rasps, voice dry from days of thirst and weeks of shouting. His chest sears with a foreign feeling at the way you’re looking at him now — like he’s half stranger, half god. “Apologies for my appearance, dear wife,” he pants and swallows down the sudden urge to cry. “But I have had a… rough go of things as of late…”
Your features crumble under the weight of your own tears. You shake your head at the man, and at his sorry attempt at a joke. “Gods, I’ve missed you...”
Gwayne exhales slowly through his nose as his cracked lips curve into a crooked smile, visibly exhausted but his even still. “Not nearly as much as—”
“Ser Gwayne.” The voice cuts through the bustling courtyard at once.
You feel every muscle in your body seize on instinct as your head whips back towards the stone steps, where Ormund stands at the top of them. His eyes scan the scene below — of you and Gwayne and your bodies only just now easing apart as the red-haired man attempts to stand on his own.
The silver chain of Ormund’s pomander clinks faintly in the newfound quiet as he brings the perfumed incense up to his nose, inhaling deeply to rid the scent of sweat and blood and death from his nostrils.
“I see you’ve made it,” is all he says.
Gwayne exhales an exhausted huff, a mixture of a laugh and a scoff. He sways softly on his muddied boots and clutches onto your shoulder with his free hand. “It’s good to see you too, cousin…” he responds in a monotone.
Ormund turns to Daeron, who’s hovering just beside him with his pale hands clenched into fists — it takes every bit of strength in the young boy’s body not to run down to his uncle alongside you, worried about how Ormund might react.
“See that a room is made ready for your uncle. And a hot meal is sent with haste— whatever the kitchens can manage quickly,” Ormund says to the boy, then pauses as his eyes drift back to Gwayne’s. “And perhaps a bath.”
Gwayne’s cracked lips curl into a slow smile. He breathes a laugh through his nose as he watches his cousin spin on his heel to walk away. “You always did have delicate sensibilities…” he attempts to call to the man, though he fails to muster the strength in his voice to be heard.
It is you who insists on escorting Gwayne to the bath. You wave off hovering knights and Tumbleton servants with a firmness that surprises even you — no longer a prisoner of war, but a high lord’s wife.
Gwayne, it seems, is much too spent from the journey to do anything more than lean into your shoulder the whole way up the winding castle. He braces himself on your firm weight as you peel the ruined layers of clothing from his body and coax him gently into the steaming tub.
Your own borrowed gown joins his tattered things in a forgotten heap on the cobbled floor as you sink into the water alongside him. The warmth laps gently at your waist as you shift yourself over his lap, resting the bulk of your weight on his thighs.
The bathwater turns the color of weak tea by the time you’ve worked the worst of the grime from Gwayne’s pale skin. Dark streams of dirt and old blood swirl away beneath the cloth in your hand, brushing a tad too gently over his shoulders and chest and back, as if anything too hard might break him entirely.
Gwayne sits slumped against the tub, eyes half-closed and head lolled back. The war had certainly taken its due upon his pretty features — the new hollows beneath his cheekbones, the fresh scar above his brow, the deep grey exhaustion under his once bright eyes. There’s a leanness to him now that suggests missed meals and weeks of marching; and a sort of heaviness in his gaze that suggests longer weeks of grief.
But still he softens for you, minute by minute, as you drag the cloth over the angle of his dirtied jaw. He exhales slowly through his nose and leans instinctively into your touch.
“You needn’t do this to yourself, you know?” the man murmurs, but makes no further move to stop you. “There are servants more than capable of tending to my bath.”
“I want to do it,” you tell him simply, dabbing at a speck of blood on his cheek. “I’ve missed you too much— I’d rather not share you with a servant just yet.”
He gives you a tired, crooked smile in response. “I missed you, too,” he says with a sigh, fingers clutching you harder by the waist beneath the water’s surface, like he’s still trying to make sure you’re still real. “Gods, you cannot imagine how badly…”
You rinse the cloth in the cooling water and press it gently to his hairline, dabbing at the remnants of dirt clinging stubbornly to him there. His adam’s apple bobs as he swallows through a tightening throat — being touched this gently threatens to undo him entirely, after weeks away and days of nonstop bloodshed.
His tense shoulders finally sink beneath the water as he admits, “I thought only of you… The entire way here… I fear it’s the only way I managed it— knowing that I could not die without seeing you first.”
Your throat tightens as guilt strangles you all over again; the bitter reminder of what you’d done, and all the nights you forgot to miss him back. Your fingers move anxiously to set the cloth on the rim of the tub and dip into the ceramic dish lying there. You scoop a handful of lavender soap onto your fingertips, and work it between your palms until it starts to foam.
“I thought of you, too,” you tell him with an averted gaze, which is true enough even though it feels like a lie when it escapes your mouth. “Every day.”
“And what of Ormund?” Gwayne wonders aloud, cracking one pale eye open to study your face as you rake the suds through his long auburn hair. The dull, muddy strands slowly return to their proper flaming color with each gentle pass of your fingers, as the last of the war’s blood and grim streams down his pale shoulders in dark rivulets. “I trust my cousin treated you well in my absence. He can be insufferable, I know, but he is not unkind… Not truly.”
You falter at the mention of him. Your hands still briefly in his damp tendrils as a sick feeling curls in the pit of your stomach. You swallow hard through the cold hands of guilt strangling your throat and force your fingers to keep moving, praying he does not notice how they tremble faintly against his scalp.
“He was… accommodating,” you answer carefully, eyes trained on his hair rather than on his attentive gaze, lest he read the whole truth of it plainly upon your face. “He kept me fed. Housed. Safe… For the most part— Tilt your head back; let me rinse your hair.”
You lift yourself slightly off the man’s lap to reach for the pitcher resting on the table beside the tub. Glittering rivulets of bath water cascade down your arms, glimmering in thin ribbons over the curves of your breasts in the dancing candlelight. Gwayne tips his head back to oblige you when you settle astride his scruffy thighs once more. His long, pale fingers smooth absently over your hips beneath the water, tracing idle circles along your soft skin.
“You’ve gone rather short with your answers, dear wife…” he observes lowly, peering at you from the bridge of his nose. “That’s not like you…”
“I’m just tired, is all…” you deflect, cupping one hand over his brow to shield his eyes while your other pours the clean water steadily over his hairline. The suds run clear down his temples and trickle back into the bath below. “It’s been a long day… A long several months, if I’m honest…”
“Yes… For us all, I’m sure,” Gwayne sighs and lifts his head once more when you shift to place the pitcher back onto its table. He arches an auburn brow and musters a quiet smile; the simple ease of being with you returns to him by the minute now, as his fingers settle over your ribcage again. “Though I do hope my letters kept you some company… Small comfort as they must have been.”
You go suddenly very still above him, muscle locking despite yourself. The guilt that had been simmering in your chest surges up your throat all at once now, in a red-hot flame that makes you feel halfway sick. For a long moment, you fail to make sense of the words — his letters — after so many months of waiting to hear from your husband, and after so many months of hearing Ormund tell you each day that there had been not a single word from him.
“…Your letters?” you repeat on bated breath.
“Yes,” Gwayne nods, brows pinching at your confusion. “I wrote every time I could manage it— At every stronghold we arrived… Did you not receive them?”
Your mouth opens and closes as you struggle to find the words to respond — words that would placate your own confusion without disclosing what you had been doing in the days awaiting his letters. “Perhaps… Perhaps they got lost. Along the road…”
Gwayne scoffs a humorless laugh at the thought. “Well, I pity the poor hand who got my letters instead of you…” he croons lowly.
“Why?” you press with a wavering grin. “What did they say?”
“Nothing of substance,” he shrugs his bare shoulders. “Just… foolish things.”
“Like…?” you trail off, soothing your palms down the pale canvas of his chest.
A faint uncertain smile tugs at his mouth as he watches your hands dip below the waterline. “I wrote of… what fields I passed. What foolish things Ser Criston said that day. What I’d seen— What I missed of home, what I missed of you…”
He trails off when your fingers find his cock, lying limp along his left thigh. He feels like velvet in your fist as you massage him slowly hard. “Keep going…” you coo to him.
His hips twitch beneath you when you tighten your grip on his stiffening length. “I— I wrote of your hands,” he manages, and swallows hard when your thumb swipes across the sensitive tip of his cock. His eyes grow heavy with desire as he watches you work at him through the haze of cloudy water. “How I missed the— the feel of them on me… Gods…”
“Go on…” you murmur, smearing your lips along his jaw.
“I wrote that… that I missed your smell,” he confesses, fraying with each slow pass of your hand. “Your hair after a bath… The wine on your breath after supper… The sweat between your thighs after a long day— Seven fucking hells.”
His jaw clenches tight when your free hand dips down to cradle his balls, squeezing the sensitive sack between your fingers until his cock jerks in your fist. His heavy head lolls into your kiss; he feels you smiling against his cheek.
“You’re already close, aren’t you?”
He swallows hard. “You have no idea how long it’s been…” he confesses in a blissful sigh.
“I’m sure there were plenty of whores on the road,” you singsong in his ears.
He shakes his head instantly in protest. “None as beautiful as you…”
His denial does little to comfort you. Instead, you feel a white-hot rage searing in your chest. Some distant, ugly part of you wishes he had taken a thousand whores while he was away, if only to take the weight of your own betrayal off your shoulders. At least then you could share it, this guilt, instead of living alone in your sin. You hate yourself most of all for even wishing it, and you feel very suddenly disgusted in your own skin — eager to be free of him and this moment altogether.
“Then cum,” you command against his pulse, jerking his cock faster in your fist. Gwayne’s fingers clutch at the plush skin of your hips hard enough to etch bruises there, and you revel in the hurt as his grumbled moan fills the bathing chambers. “Come on. Cum for me—”
He makes a broken sort of sound in the base of his throat as he seizes just beneath you, tense and trembling as his high hits him full force. The cooling water threatens to slosh off the rim as he twitches through his orgasm, which spurts into the cloudy water in short ropes of pearly-white, until he relaxes finally with a sigh.
“Give me a moment…” he pleads through ragged breaths. “I’ll make you feel good, I just— I need a moment…”
“I’m alright,” you assure him with a shake of your head, and with a sad smile that he doesn’t catch with his eyes still closed. “You rest tonight… I’ll see you in the morning.”
viii. CAGE & CONFESSION
You do not go to find Ormund until long after Gwayne’s breathing has steadied.
He takes up the whole of the bed in his inhuman exhaustion; one leg straight and the other bent beneath the quilts, one pale arm slung over his bare stomach and the other left reaching out for your empty side of the bed as you slip from beneath the silk. You storm for Ormund’s solar in the dimly lit halls in nothing but your thin ivory nightgown; the fabric catching at your ankles with every furious stride in the man’s direction.
You find the room lit by a sea of glittering candles when you throw open the door without ceremony. It strikes the wall a harsh bang, far too loud for the late night; the wind of the blow makes the flames gutter wildly in their sconces.
Ormund’s head snaps up from his dispatches at the sudden intrusion. His quill pauses on the parchment — because the work of war is never truly done, not even at the dead of night. His eyes are cold for a flicker with a soldier’s instinct, then warm again all at once when he finds no threat — only you. The corner of his mouth curls into a slow, knowing smile accordingly.
“Come to warm my bed already, have you?” the man lilts in his usual melodic voice, setting his quill aside as he slouches back into his cushioned seat. “I confess, I hardly expected to see you tonight, what with your husband so newly returned. Bold of you, really—”
“Don’t,” you snap.
The word slices through the solar like a blade, and wipes away the smug curve of his smile in an instant. Your nightgown billows around your ankles with every furious step inside; the shadows of the fabric catch in the candlelight and turn you into something half-spectral as you loom over the desk across from him.
“He wrote to me. For months, he wrote to me,” you agonize. “And when he asked whether I’d received them, I sat there like a fool, knowing I hadn’t gotten a single one.”
Ormund draws a long, even breath through his nose. His ringed fingers settle flat over the desk as he keeps a measured composure about him, even though yours unravels by the minute.
“Ah…” he hums under his breath.
A shocked laugh escapes your mouth. “That’s all you have to say to me?”
“What would you have me say?” he asks, pale eyes locked with yours as he braces himself on the arms of his chair to rise. The wood scrapes harshly along the cobbles when he stands to full height. “That I kept them from you? That I— read them for myself and burned each one in the hearth when I’d finished? Very well… I did.”
The plain admission threatens to knock the breath from your lungs. You had braced yourself for denial, to be true, to spend these late hours coaxing the truth from his lips. You were not prepared for confession; not so soon, and not so easily.
“Why?” you demand, half-breathless with tears. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because I did not wish to hurt you,” Ormund says, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “You wept for that man every night for the better part of a moon’s turn. I thought it might ease you, if you’d believed he didn’t care enough to write to you at all. I thought I was sparing you the grief of it.”
“That was not yours to decide!” you shout, voice shaking beneath the weight of your girlish fury. “Those were my letters, Ormund! My husband's words! You had no right—”
“No right?!” he thunders through an emotionless laugh, ocean eyes flickering with madness in an instant. “You are my prisoner! Or have you so quickly forgotten, given how generously I’ve treated you?”
You flinch back as he rounds the desk, though you cannot seem to leave the spot ahead of him as he inches towards you like a predator to prey.
“You’re lucky you’re standing here at all. Any other Targaryen beast would be in chains, but you…” he continues, prowling another step closer. “I let you share my tent, my table, my bed. And I did it gladly because I came to love you despite the— taint in your blood.”
You peer up at him through teary eyes when he towers finally in front of you — brows raised, eyes hardened, jaw clenched tight.
“But… you are still my prisoner,” he reminds you evenly. “You have been since the day you arrived at my camp. So I have every right to decide which letters enter your hands and which ones do not.”
Each word strikes you like a physical blow — worse, somehow, than the searing one the hedgeknight had dealt you, which has caused an unnatural cracking of your jaw ever since. Maybe because these cruel, cruel words come from the same mouth that has kissed you, pleasured you.
“Prisoner?” you repeat tearily, features screwed in disbelief. “You say you love me and yet you call me beast in the very same breath. Wh… What am I meant to make of that?”
Ormund’s face falters finally at the sight of your tears, clinging to your lower lashes and glimmering gold in the candlelight. A soft crack splits down the unforgiving marble of him as he shakes his head down at you.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says and turns away.
“Like what?” you spit at the back of him.
“Like I've wounded you,” he snaps, long coat fanning slightly at his waist when he turns to face you again, now several paces away. “Where was your Gwayne when you hadn’t eaten in five days, and I fed you bread from mine own hand? Tell me that.”
Your mouth parts, but nothing comes out.
“Where was your dutiful husband when that hedgeknight had you pinned in the dirt with your skirts torn to your thighs?” Ormund continues, palms splayed at his sides for effect. “Because I did not see him riding to your rescue as I had. I did not see him holding you through the nights you woke screaming. That was me— Only me— And yet you still stand here and weep over a handful of mindless letters, as if that erases the whole of what I've done for you.”
Your chin jerks back as you flinch hard at his words, at the weight of them, which you can feel heavying your chest until every new breath feels impossible. Ormunds goes silent for a moment; the shadow of his clenched jaw comes and goes as he grits his teeth. His fists open and close at his sides until they finally relax, when the anger within drains into mourning.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters suddenly, boots padding along the cobbles as he closes the distance between you once more. “Forgive me. You’re right, I— I should not have kept them from you. I only meant to spare you, you understand that, right?”
His wide, gently calloused hands reach for your cheeks with a tenderness that feels maddeningly sincere compared to the vitriol he’d thrown at you moments ago. He lifts your chin and ducks his head into your eyeline when you do not meet his gaze. His blue eyes go round and wet with a boyish grief as hurt sears through his chest.
“I only want to keep you safe,” he whispers. “Whatever else I’ve done wrong— that much has always been true… You know this, don’t you?”
He peers down at you and waits on bated breath for a response. You say nothing just yet. Your trembling hands reach from the gold buttons of his coat. At first, he thinks you mean to push him away — you want nothing more, in fact, than to push him away and wrench yourself from his hands and return to your place in bed next to Gwayne.
You do not.
You just close your eyes, exhausted past the point of arguing any further. The threads of guilt and love and fury and anguish tangle together somewhere deep in your chest, until one is utterly indistinguishable from the others. The only thing you know now for certain is that the whole of your life can be categorized into two groups: those who have stayed and those who have gone.
Your own family had sailed across the Narrow Sea and left you behind without so much as a backwards glance; and Gwayne, gentle as he is, still rode off to serve a cause that mattered more to him than you.
Ormund is, perhaps, the only person in your life who has never once abandoned you. Whatever else he has done to you before now — however cruel or calculating or maddening he has since become — he has never once walked away from you. Not when you intended to starve yourself, not when you were pinned in the mud by your skirts, not when you woke up screaming on particularly brutal nights.
You hate how much it all matters to you, however fickle it may seem. You hate it, and you hate that cannot make yourself stop needing it all the same.
“I don’t know what to do…” you confess in a broken voice, clutching him hard by the collar of his coat. His softened face is bleary behind the tears burning in your eyes. “I feel so guilty, Ormund— I do not know for how long I can bear it. It sets heavy on my chest, all the time, and I cannot set it down—”
“Then let me carry it,” he tells you. His grip goes more solid when you attempt to turn away, thumbs pressing harder into your cheeks. “I can bear it well enough for the two of us, I swear it—”
The breath of his words fans across your chin when he ducks down to kiss you, hard and sudden and searing. He tastes of wine and mint leaves when the velvety pad of his tongue licks into your mouth without warning.
You sigh hard through your nose at the feeling of him and cling to the front of his coat as he walks you backward a few paces towards the desk. The edge of the wood catches hard against the backs of your thighs. Ormund’s hands dip from your face to your hips, balling the fabric of your gown until it rises up your legs.
“Did you take him into your bed tonight?” he pants rough against your mouth, with the tip of his broad nose nudging yours. “Your husband? Did you fuck him? Tell me.”
“No,” you shake your head on an exhaled breath. Your fingers curl into his dark curls as his wet mouth drags along your neck, down to your exposed collarbone. “I only pleasured him with my hand. Nothing more.”
Ormund nods swiftly, as though pleased by the admission. He peers up at you through his lashes as he kisses down your clothed chest. “Always a giver, aren’t you?” he hums lowly, mouth quirking softly at the edges. “Allow me to return the favor, then…”
He sinks to his knees, with your ivory skirt now pushed up to your thighs. You keep one hand splayed along the back of his knuckles and the other tangled in his curls as he kisses your cunt like he would your mouth. He moans when his tongue slots between your sticky folds, a muffled growl you can feel in the very pit of your stomach.
Ormund is not quite as measured with his mouth as Gwayne had been the evening before he left you. He’s fast and sloppy and loud — you can hear his tongue as it flicks against you, his lips as they suckle your clit, his moans as your honey pools on his tongue.
You swallow down a moan before it can swell through the quiet room. It turns into a whimper in your throat instead. “Ormund—” you gasp quietly, tugging him hard by the hair as his tongue laps at your swollen clit.
His bleary eyes open to peer up the length of your body — your heavy head tilted to your chest, your gaze lidded and glassy with pleasure, your chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. “Let me have it,” he slurs against your pussy, and smiles to himself at the pretty sound you make for him in response. “That’s it— Let me have it…”
Your mouth presses into a tight line to choke back a moan when his mouth returns to your cunt, suckling the sensitive button between his lips and flicking his tongue against it simultaneously. You shudder against his mouth when you cum for him, whimpering when he buries his moans and muffled murmurs of praise against your drooling pussy.
You do as you’re told — you give it all to him, you let him bear it — while Gwayne sleeps off the remnants of war across the hall.
ix. GARDENS & GHOSTS
The gardens of Tumbleton are modest things compared to the grandeur of the Red Keep, though you struggle to remember it so vividly now. Here there are only a few neat rows of late-summer roses gone wild for want of a gardener, an overgrown path winding between shaggy hedges, and a slowly weeping fountain gone quiet and still. You spend Gwayne’s second evening at the foreign castle walking beneath a canopy of drooping wisteria, with your hands looped loosely through the crook of his arm and your dress skirts whispering against the stone with every languid step.
“I’d nearly forgotten what this was like…” Gwayne hums, studying the wilting roses with distracted interest. “Walking somewhere without waiting for an arrow to find me first…”
“Don’t worry, Ser Gwayne…” you squint with a teasing lilt. “I’ll keep you safe.”
And though Gwayne hasn’t so much as seen you hold a real sword in your hand, he flashes you a tight-lipped smile anyway. “Of that, dear wife, I have no doubt…”
You fall into an easy quiet thereafter; the ordinary rhythm of marriage, though it still feels a bit foreign to you now. He asks only about small things: if the summer storms had frightened you too badly, if the men at the Hightower camp treated you well, and if you’d truly meant what you said about that farm. You answer each in turn, grateful for the ease of it — or, at least, for the brief illusion that nothing had changed between you at all.
“And the encampment?” Gwayne asks then, flashing you a knowing look from the corner of his eye. “You’d said precious little of it thus far. Surely, it wasn’t so unbearable— Though I’m sure my cousin likely wasn’t making it easy for you.”
“There isn’t much to say,” you shrug with a feigned air of detachment, though the words come out a little quicker than you mean them to. You catch the faint furrow of confusion between his brows, and pretend to be more preoccupied by the wilting wisteria overhead instead. “It was… eventful. I suppose. In its own way.”
“Eventful?” Gwayne repeats with an arched brow. An unsure laugh sputters from his chest a second later. “I can’t tell whether that’s meant as a comfort or a warning…”
“It’s nothing worth troubling over,” you tell him. “Truly.”
Gwayne’s eyes flit down to where your wrists are curled lazily around his bicep. The dull nails of your right thumb and forefinger pick aimlessly at the already marred skin of your left. He stops instantly in place — he had sensed something amiss since you caught him in the yard, to be true, but he sees it more plainly in your being than he had the night before.
“Did something happen?” he blurts.
Your head whips to him, eyes widening in an innocuous look. “I… I don’t know what you mean?”
He swallows once and rephrases. “Something happened…” he repeats, this time as a firmer statement. “At the camp. Something you’re not telling me.”
You exhale a slow and shaking breath, though it does little to loosen the tightness in your chest now. You find that, once cornered and with his pleading eyes searching your face, you cannot quite bring yourself to lie to him again.
“There was a… a man," you start unsteadily, eyes fixed on the overgrown hedge behind his shoulder rather than his face. “A hedgeknight. I was out gathering berries, and he— He asked me about a letter. The one you left me. And when I wouldn't— He tried to—”
“He tried to what?" Gwayne presses when you trail off, ducking his auburn head into your eyeline when you avert your gaze. His voice is low and careful, but you can hear the tension straining beneath it already.
“He grabbed for it… And I struck him, without thinking, and he struck me back…” Your fingers lift absently to your cheek, brushing the ghost of a bruise with your finger, long since healed but not yet forgotten. Your gaze goes glassy and unfocused with the recollection of the memory — the smell of the berries, the taste of the blood, the feeling of the wet earth beneath you. The rest of the words come out in choppy and nonsensical. “And I fell— and my skirts— I think he meant too— I don’t know truly, but I— I could not stop him—”
“Gods…” Gwayne huffs, as if the breath had been punched out of him entirely. His pale, handsome features screw together in horror as his pale eyes glitter with anger at himself. “I should’ve been there… I never should’ve left you.”
“Ormund killed him,” you add quickly and watch a complicated look flicker behind Gwayne’s eyes at the name. “Before he could…”
Gwayne nods when you trail off, signaling that you need not go on any further. “I am glad for that, at least,” he says, though there is a strain in his voice that suggests something other than gladness. His palms reach for your hands then, preventing you from picking at the skin there. “I am glad my cousin was there for you. Truly. I was a fool leaving you behind. I should’ve stayed, I should’ve—”
You shake your head in protest of his apologies. “No—”
“I should’ve been there—”
“Don’t,” you tell him, though the word spills broken from your mouth when you jerk your hands free from his. The sudden loss of his touch leaves your fingers strangely cold. “Don’t apologize. I do not deserve it.”
“Deserve it?” Gwayne echoes with lowered brows. “What do you mean, deserve it?”
“Your kindness,” you sniffle. “I don’t deserve it.”
Gwayne blinks owlishly at you, and feels a strange searing in his chest when you flinch back from him as he tries to step closer. “Why are you saying this?”
“I have— I have sinned.” Your breath catches hard on a sob. Your wet eyes try and fail to meet his gaze. “I have betrayed you.”
Gwayne tenses at once. His face goes still and solemn; the warmth he’d had for you moments ago drains slowly from his features now. “What do you mean?” he wonders lowly.
“With— With Ormund— We— I,” you attempt to speak through hitched breaths, though you cannot seem to get any of the words out. “I cannot express to you— how unspeakably lonely I have been—”
“Lonely?” he repeats, spits back at you like venom. “Do you think I was not lonely?”
“You at least had a war to fight!” you argue tearily. “I was taken prisoner, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“And do you think I would not have rather been home?” Gwayne shouts. “With you, instead of watching my men die in a field over a war I never wanted any part of?”
“You’re the one who left!” you exclaim when he turns away from you, already retreating down the gravel path before he can lose his composure completely. “If you stayed, we could’ve been together! And none of this would’ve happened! You act like someone was dragging you by your boots to go fight a useless war!”
Gwayne stops at that, a few paces ahead. His shoulders are rigid beneath his borrowed doublet when he turns to you again, though not enough to face you fully. Only his profile is visible to you now, with his auburn hair falling over his brow and his emotionless grin hinting at the corner of his mouth.
“I did not… want this marriage…” he confesses in calculated murmurs. “Not at first, anyway. That much I’ll admit, but… From the moment I wed you, it never once crossed my mind to seek comfort elsewhere.”
“Gwayne, I—”
“I meant my vows,” he tells you and turns, finally, to face you fully. You found no trace of fury in his face now, only a pained sort of look that turns his pale eyes a glassier shade of blue. “I have always meant them.”
“I didn't know if you were alive!” you agonize through a sob. “Don’t you understand that? Months, Gwayne — months without a single word! Not knowing whether you were breathing or rotting in some unmarked grave! And I couldn't even write to you to ask, because Ormund told me it wasn't safe. He said the letters might be intercepted, might lead Rhaenyra's army straight to you, and I could not risk that—”
“Ormund told you that?” Gwayne interjects, voice gone dull and cold. “That your letters weren’t— safe to send?”
“Yes,” you nod. “He said that—”
“And mine?” Gwayne presses with a slow step closer. “I presume he kept mine from you as well. That’s why you never got them, isn’t it? Because of him?”
You go quiet, unsure of how to answer — like there’s some joke here somewhere you have not yet been let in on. But, to Gwayne, your silence is answer enough. He exhales a long, shuddering breath through his nose.
“Ormund and I used to play a game,” he tells you suddenly, with a humorless smile ghosting across his mouth. “Run the tower, we called it— a footrace to the top beacon. And I let him win. Every time. Because he could not bear to lose even the smallest thing.”
Your eyes widen slightly, as you remember Daeron’s warning in the castle window — his anxious, hardly intelligible ramble. “It’s a dangerous thing to be the prize he’s decided he’s won,” the boy had told you. You hadn’t understood what he meant by that until now.
Gwayne’s features screw with a withheld fury, one that Ormund would’ve already unleashed on you tenfold by now if the roles were reversed.
“He was a thin-skinned twat even then. I thought it harmless, at the time. I never imagined…” he trails off, clicking his tongue against his teeth when he turns to you again. He shakes his head as his mouth twitches into a sympathetic sort of smile. “If you think Ormund loves you, dear wife, I assure you, he does not. He simply decided that you were another game worth winning.”
He does not wait for your response. He turns on his heel, and when he walks away this time, he does not stop.
His feet carry him down the overgrown path, through the winding unfamiliar castle, and straight towards Ormund’s solar — without him ever fully registering any of it; not until he swings open the heavy oak door, at least, and is met instantly with the humidity of an incensed bath. He nearly chokes on the musky oils sitting heavily in the air.
“Leave us,” Gwayne orders Daeron in lieu of a real greeting. The boy’s eyes widen in shock at the sudden intrusion from where he stands obediently off to the side, robe in hand. His gaze flits to Ormund’s on instinct, who gives him a curt nod of approval without looking up, before scurrying out of the room.
The older man sits submerged to the chest in a steaming copper tub. A wooden tray sits balanced across the rim, with his inkpot and parchment laid before him. His quill scratches against the paper in swift strokes until Gwayne unsheathes his long sword with a sharp hiss. The older man tenses when the steel kisses the soft skin of his throat.
“You will explain yourself,” Gwayne says, peering down at the man from the bridge of his nose. “Or, by the gods, I will open your throat right here in this tub.”
Ormund does not so much as flinch when he sets his quill back into its inkpot. He tilts his chin just slightly to look up at the man and feels the faint pressure of the blade against his adam’s apple. Amusement flickers in his blue eyes.
“She told you, then,” he hums — not quite a question but not entirely a statement either. “I did wonder how long that might take.”
“She told me everything,” Gwayne bites out through clenched teeth. “The letters— mine to hers; hers to me. Months of lies, cousin, you called protection.”
“Yes. I protected her," Ormund nods without reservation. “More than you ever did, seeing as you were hundreds of leagues away and all. I fed her when she attempted to starve herself grieving you. I killed a man who meant to rape her in a berry patch while you were off playing at war like a child—”
Gwayne tenses at the accusation buried in his words. The edge of the blade presses harder to Ormund’s throat, but still, he does not waver.
“I gave her a place to sleep when the storms came, and warmth when the nights grew cold, and company when she felt no one else in the entire realm cared whether she lived or died,” the man lilts evenly. His voice does not rise and his stare does not yield, not even with the cold steel resting steadily against his pulse. “So, please, spare me the outrage, cousin. I only gave her what she asked for— freely, and often, and more enthusiastically than you can imagine.”
Gwayne’s whole body goes rigid. A mixture of fury and humiliation prickles red-hot at his pale skin. His knuckles turn white around the hilt of his sword, but the blade does not move an inch.
“Well, go on, then,” Ormund tilts his head, eyes glimmering with amusement. “Finish it, if you mean to. Open my throat here, in my own bath, and we’ll see who she weeps for. You or me.”
Silence fills the empty solar. Gwayne grits his teeth and wills his hand to move; to either strike the man down or turn away entirely. He cannot seem to do either.
Ormund lifts a lazy hand to swipe the blade away without a word. He rises slowly from the bath a second later. Rivulets of water glisten as they rush down his lean body and trickle audibly when they hit the surface again. He stands before his cousin, unabashedly bare, and reaches for the linen cloth draped over the edge of the tub.
“For what it’s worth, cousin,” he says, swiping the nettle across his toned, golden skin. “I never intended to make an enemy of you. And I rather think, whatever she may tell you now to spare your pride, that she’d choose to stay exactly where she is, if given the choice.”
Gwayne opens his mouth to argue.
“Daeron!” Ormund calls out before he can.
The door creaks slowly open a second later. The younger boy reappears with an obvious hesitance, refusing to meet either of their eyes as he rushes to his uncle’s side. He settles the emerald fabric over the older man’s broad shoulders, and Ormund slides his arms through the long sleeves. He ties the sash with slow hands and with an expression that looks almost sympathetic.
“Best wash up soon, cousin,” he grins. “It’s nearly time for supper.”
x. STEEL & SUPPER
Supper that evening is a small and wretched thing; four places set at a round table dragged in from some lesser hall to make the arrangement feel less tribunal. It’s close enough that you can feel the heat of both men suffocating either side of you, along with the cold, watchful silence of Daeron across the way; young enough to shift awkwardly in his seat at the tense silence, but old enough still to understand exactly what such silence truly means.
No one speaks a word of the hard truth of it out loud. Neither of you needs to — the whole of your sin sits at the table like an uninvited guest, souring the wine in every cup and thickening the air until you can scarcely draw a single breath around it.
“So…” Ormund says first to break the silence. He talks beneath the soft scraping of his knife against the porcelain as he cuts into his meat. “Ser Criston fights on, and yet you alone have returned to us… Why is that, I wonder?”
Gwayne turns slowly to glare at the man with dull, blue eyes, already too annoyed for idle blather. “Because fighting on is madness,” he answers distantly.
Ormund scoffs with a wad of food in his cheek. He smiles as he swallows it down, angling his head in the young prince’s direction. “Do you think me mad, boy?”
Daeron’s eyes shoot up from his plate. His spine straightens instinctively at his uncle’s sudden attention. “No, sire,” he answers quickly.
Ormund nods, pleased, and then turns slowly to you. A fondness flickers in his pale gaze behind the challenge in his eyes. “And you, my—” He catches himself half a breath too late; my love, he’d nearly said, though you cannot tell if it was an intentional attempt to rile his already aggrieved cousin. “My lady… Do you think me mad?”
Your brows bounce in response, though your gaze never lifts from your lap as your nails work relentlessly at the already torn skin of your thumb. “I don’t think you want me to answer that—”
You freeze in place when Ormund’s wide hand reaches suddenly to splay his calloused palm over the back of your knuckles. Your head whips in his direction. You struggle to tell if the action is heedless or entirely uncaring, as Gwayne sits close enough to watch the exchange on the other side of you. The man inhales sharply through his nose and straightens his spine as he reaches for his goblet, trying hard to pretend he hadn’t noticed it at all.
“Why do you insist on ruining yourself this way?” Ormund wonders lowly, as his thumb rubs soothingly over your marred one.
“Seems to be a common affliction as of late,” you answer distantly and draw your hands from beneath his touch. “Messing with things we ought to leave well enough alone…”
“You are aware—” Gwayne says gruffly as he swallows down his bitter wine, setting down his chalice with a bit more force than likely necessary. “—That while you’re all in here playing happy families, there’s a dragon sitting on the hill above us? And five more not thirty leagues away?”
“Why do you think we came here, cousin?” Ormund scoffs and waves his concern away with a lazy flick of his knife. “Rhaenyra will not burn her own subjects. She is a woman, after all. Squeamish, by nature.”
A short laugh spills suddenly from your lips. “Squeamish?” you echo. “Says the man who requires a milk bath twice daily, lest he make it everyone else’s burden to bear?”
The jab earns a proud smile from Gwayne that he tries hopelessly to bite back, and a small grin from Daeron that he conceals behind the rim of his goblet. Ormund swallows hard through the embarrassment strangling his throat, angled jaw clenching as he grits his teeth.
“Well… If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were taking up the usurper’s cause.”
“I’m not taking up anyone’s cause,” you mutter. “I just want to go home.”
“Oh?” Ormund hums with a feigned air of curiosity, though you do not miss the bite in his words as he wonders aloud, “And where is that precisely? King’s Landing? Oldtown?”
“Well, it’s certainly not here—”
“No,” he agrees instantly, warmth freezing over in an instant. “But when the usurper’s host comes here, we will fight on our own terms, on our own ground— turning King’s Landing against that overweening cunt, little by little, bite by bite… And when we expose her as weak and unsuited to rule, the great houses will flock to our side, and then, my lady, we can all go home.”
“Have any yet come?” Gwayne wonders knowingly. “Great houses, I mean.”
Ormund’s gaze snaps in his direction. “The patient hunter gets the kill, cousin,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’d have thought you’d learned that much by now.”
“Only one of us at this table has actually been hunted, if you’ll recall…”
“Yes, you have endured much,” Ormund huffs and returns to his boar. “Though I’m sure you find some solace along the road… with whores, perhaps, or your… brothers in arms…”
The insinuation sits heavily in the quiet, thicker than smoke and choking the three of you accordingly. Gwayne’s jaw tightens hard enough to make the muscle flex. Whatever retort had been rising in his throat at that moment is killed instantly by the sudden creaking of the heavy door across the room. Bold Jon enters, flanked by a couple of punier squires.
“My lord,” the older knight announces. “House Baratheon has sent an envoy. They mean to bend the knee to House Hightower.”
Ormund is aglow in an instant. The sourness of the previous moment rolls off of his broad shoulders as a newfound satisfaction kindles behind his blue eyes. “Let the Stormlands lead the way…” he mutters to himself, mouth curling into a grin. “Highgarden will have no choice but to follow…”
He flashes you a proud and knowing look as he rises from his seat. “Alright. Stand up,” he says and begins to round the small table. When no one follows him quick enough, he snaps, “Stand up! All of you.”
You rise at once, abandoning your plates as you follow him to the front of the dining table. The three of you fall into line beside the high lord, who stands just ahead to greet the incoming knights Ser Jon ushers in. The knights are caked in dirt from the long road; their yellow cloaks are crusted thick with mud, and their boots track dark prints across the fine pale stone beneath them. They smell like earth and sweat, hardly noticeable to you, though you spot Ormund’s shoulders tensing instantly when the stench hits him.
“Lord Ormund Hightower,” Roxton announces formally. “Beacon of the South, Defender of the Citadel, and Voice of Oldtown.”
“Well met, Ser Ormund," the head of the envoy greets with a polite nod, arms propped along the pommel of his longsword. “I come on behalf of Lord Borros Baratheon, Lord Paramount of the Stormlands.”
“Mm…” Ormund hums, ringed fingers fidgeting at his sides as he attempts to swallow through the invisible hand strangling him. “You are quite welcome, Ser…?”
“Ser Arrion Baratheon. Cousin to Lord Borros.”
You freeze at once. A newfound fear settles ice-cold in your veins. Your eyes squint as you study the stranger’s bearded face more closely — his curls, his eyes, his nose, his mouth. You find that he looks nothing like the Ser Arrion you had once met, at a tourney some several moons back; the one where you first laid eyes on Ser Gwayne Hightower.
The man himself tenses at your elbow. His jaw clenches tight with knowing as he turns slowly to flash you a single, silent glance. You communicate without words. His folded hands fall casually beside the sheathed sword at his hip; yours cross behind your back, as you reach blindly for the fruit knife idling somewhere beside the plates of supper.
“I most regret presenting ourselves to you in this state,” the stranger continues.
Your jaw clenches tight in frustration as your fingers miss the handle in several agonizing attempts. You slide it closer with the very tip of your middle finger, slowly so as not to draw attention, before your fingers close finally around the hilt. You grip the blade to your back, palm going clammy around the grip.
“The road was long and filthy, but I thought it best to speak to you immediately.”
“We are honored to receive you,” Ormund assures him, entirely unaware. “And what word does Lord Borros send?”
“House Baratheon offers its banners in alliance with House Hightower,” the envoy says. “I have been charged to swear fealty on Lord Borros' behalf.”
“Well,” Ormund grins. “Your lord has made a wise choice—”
“Ser Arrion?” you call at once, stepping forward and drifting instinctively in front of Daeron with your arm still tight around your back. The boy’s eyes widen when he catches sight of the blade behind you. Your smile remains as artificially sweet as ever, despite the way your heart hammers hard against your ribs. “You do remember me, don’t you?”
The man’s heavy brows furrow as confusion flickers across his bearded face. He musters a similarly fake grin. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, my lady—”
The hesitant answer is confirmation enough. Gwayne unsheaths his sword in a blink and slices the imposter across the neck before he can finish his sentence. His throat splits wide open, bright crimson blood gushing out instantly. You feel it splattering across your cheek as the man falls limp to the ground in front of you.
The dining hall erupts into chaos in a blink. The shouting of Baratheon imposters and Hightower knights fills the room at once. One lunges towards you, trying to get to Daeron, you figure, though he’s met with the small blade clutched in your trembling grip before he can.
You drive the knife into the first soft place you can find — his eye, you think, and then the side of his neck, before he crumples to the floor screaming.
“No!” Ormund’s voice shouts over the ringing of colliding blades, flashing a fiery look at Ser Jon. “Stop them, you fool!”
Daeron steps quickly in front of the older knight. “No!” he says to the man, small as he is, but standing his ground regardless.
“These are assassins!” Gwayne shouts over the clash of steel, kicking one knight down before striking him across the skull. “Sent for Daeron— and probably you!”
A pair of thick hands close hard around your wrist, cold and calloused and unforgiving. It yanks a memory from some buried place in your mind — spilled berries, wet earth, pooled blood in the mouth. You do not know whether or not he intends to strike you, or if he truly does, or if he only means to stop you. You only feel a girlish fury clawing its way from your throat as a buzzing adrenaline prickles at your burning skin.
The bloody knife in your fist cuts him clean across the face — his throat, his jaw, his cheek, his eye, his temple. He stumbles back against the wall, bloodied and unrecognizable, but still you do not stop. Your blade follows him as he sinks to the ground in a gurgling, limp ball. His blood splashes warm across your face, clinging sticky to your fingers, but you still do not stop.
“Enough, enough…” you hear a voice say from behind you, muffled through the ringing in your ears. You feel a warmth press against your side and a gentle hand curl around your wrist. Gwayne’s voice follows more clearly in your ear, “He’s dead… It’s over now...”
The adrenaline seems to ebb from your veins at once, with a raw sob sputtered from your mouth. The knife slips from your limp fingers, clattering audibly to the bloodied cobbles below. You feel something warm trickling across your forehead and reach to wipe it with the back of your hand; blood smears wet across your brow in its place.
Across the wrecked hall, Ormund hunches over the back of his chair on the other side of the table. His face has gone pale-white; made more ashen, perhaps, behind the drops of vivid crimson splattered across his face. The thick copper stench of it settles in the back of his throat, along with the sweat and mud and death and shit hanging in the air.
“How—” he chokes hoarsely out. “How did you know— These men were false?”
“I was nearly betrothed to Lord Borros’ son once,” you hear yourself answer, though the words sound a bit distant, like they’re coming from someone else’s mouth. “I met his cousin… Lord Arrion… at a tourney in King’s Landing years ago… I gave him my favor that day—”
“Right before I cut him down,” Gwayne adds through panted breaths, with a distant satisfaction in his voice at the memory. “The real Ser Arrion Baratheon has hair of light chestnut, stands near a foot taller and is, as it happens, far more comely."
Ormund makes a low, strangled sound in the back of his throat. “I will cleave the bitch— From crown to cunt—” he manages between heaving breaths “—She will die wishing she never dared to... dared to…”
His body seizes as he retches — once, then twice — before doubling over the table and vomiting his supper along the plates ahead of him.
Gwayne watches on with a grim sort of amusement. “Best wash up now, cousin,” he hums in jest, as drily as Ormund had to him earlier that day.
His amused smile fades when he catches you swaying in the corner of his eye.
The room seems to tilt on its axis under your feet. The cobbles sway softly beneath you, as if you were standing on water instead of stone. You reach blindly for the back of the nearest chair to steady yourself; you watch your fingers curl around the embellished wood, though you cannot feel it under your palms. Daeron’s quick hand catches you beneath the elbow in a small attempt to steady you.
“My lady?” he mutters softly, beneath Gwayne’s firmer, “Are you hurt?”
Your mouth parts, but it takes a moment for the words to come out. They fall from your tongue in strange slurs that sound nothing like your voice. “My back…” You trail off before choking on a whimper. It is not pain you feel, not completely, but rather a cold numbness blossoming wide along the left side of your spine.
Ormund perks instantly, swiping a hand along his chin and fighting off his own dizziness when he watches Gwayne close the distance between you. His long, pale fingers skim carefully along your shoulders as he examines the back of you. They settle finally just above the thin tear in your bodice, where the fabric of your borrowed dress starts to bloom a darker crimson from the blood spreading from underneath it — from where a soldier’s blade must’ve kissed you in the chaos.
“Gods…” you hear Gwayne breathe just behind you. “You’re bleeding— Someone call the maester!”
Your knees buckle underneath you as the strength spills from your body like sand through your fingers. Two sets of hands keep you upright; one smaller and trembling, the other wider and far more steady. They guide you into the seat before you can collapse. You watch Gwayne kneel into your vision with his palms resting firmly on your knees. The world continues swaying all around you.
“Let me see it,” Ormund says through panted breaths, gripping the table’s edge as he attempts to walk to you despite his own weakening state. He’s still pale and sheening with sweat from the blood clinging to his skin and nostrils.
“You can barely stand yourself,” Gwayne scolds drily. “She is my wife— I am more than capable of tending to her.”
Ormund attempts to laugh, though the chuckle comes out wearier than he means to. “Are you?” the older man manages to choke out. “Because you surely haven’t cared about tending to her while you were off playing at war—”
“Enough…” The word comes out slurred and hoarse from your mouth. The men fall silent at once. Their heads whip in your direction with matching expressions of concern that would’ve felt almost comical in any other moment.
The pain has started to sharpen now beneath the somewhat pleasant numbness. A hot, insistent throb begins to settle in its wake, searing through you like fire.
Your first instinct is to reach for Gwayne, but the guilt of what you’d done to him weighs on your hands like cement — what right do you have, you think, to reach for him now with bloodied hands, after months of reaching for another?
And then you think inevitably of Ormund and the particular safety you’ve always found in his hands, after he’s already seen you blood-soaked and broken and ugly from war, and never once flinched away at any of it. And then you think of the burned letters and the lies, and then of Gwayne’s departure with only a sliver of parchment left in his wake.
You reach, in the end, for neither of them.
“Daeron,” you call instead to the boy hovering beside you. You turn your swimmy gaze to his wide and frightened ones. Your voice is unnaturally thick in your throat as you ask him, “Can— Can you help me up to my chambers, please?”
The boy blinks and forgets to look to his uncle for approval first as he nods. “O-Of course, my lady,” he stammers and loops your arm carefully over his shoulder. “Lean on me…”
You do not look back at either man behind you as Daeron eases you from the chair and guides you slowly towards the door; but you do feel both of their eyes following you like twin points of heat searing through your dress, just like the soldier’s blade had. Neither Gwayne nor Ormund says a single word; the hollow sound of your fading footsteps fills the silence as you go.
The two of them are left standing alone together, amid the bloody wreckage of the unfamiliar hall, staring at the space where you’d once been.
to those of you who made it this far, thank you, i love you, and i'm sorry lol more to come soon!
summary: you're wed to ser gwayne hightower in one last desperate attempt to unite the realm; but when the war tears the two of you apart, you're taken prisoner by his cousin, lord ormund hightower, where the line between duty and desire begins to blur. (12k)
contents: targ!reader (no physical descriptions), love triangle, enemies to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, forbidden love, infidelity, canon divergence, cw for brief mentions of attempted assault and smut 18+ (MDNI): fem receiving oral, unprotected sex, ormund has a scent kink
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
i. DUTY & HONOR
Your last name was, perhaps, your greatest burden. It was the very walls of your prison; the unseen chain cinched perpetually around your throat. You had inherited the dragon’s blood, it seems, but not the dragon’s freedom — and when Rhaenyra’s fleet sailed across the Narrow Sea to wage war over a throne of swords, it forgot to take you with it. The only home you’d ever known was soon filled with ghosts donned in Hightower green and whispers of your leaving.
You were going to die here. That is a truth you learned long ago. Your only wish was that they’d hurry up and get it over with.
They gave you a husband instead.
Your marriage to Ser Gwayne Hightower was heralded as an act of wisdom, the proof that wounds carved by old grievances could yet be stitched together, with silk ribbons tied around the wrists and a few spoken vows declared before the Sept. It was to be the very bridge that united the green and black. But the bridge burned anyway, and left the two of you behind.
“They wed us to prevent a war that had already begun,” you’d scoffed, already deep into your cups at the feasting table, when Maester Orwyle called the fight to come inevitable.
“No…” Gwayne hummed from beside you, still perfectly temperate, though his blue eyes were heavy with a burden too old for a man of his years. “They wed us so that, when the histories of this moment are written, someone might say that they tried.”
You’d laughed then, loud enough to gain the attention of the rest of the courtiers at the long table — because Ser Gwayne was not entirely wrong, to be sure, but he was far too generous for his own good; generous enough to believe that the effort of your marriage actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.
Gwayne Hightower was a sensible man. He was not outwardly affectionate, maybe, but he was no less kind. There was no great love in your union — not like all the songs and fairytales insist, at least — but there was safety. Security. Stability. His presence often found you like the thick walls of an ancient keep, steadfast against the howling winds of a summer storm. You would find no certainty of your future in war, but being Gwayne’s wife meant, at the very least, that you were still alive today.
That unsaid assurance is perhaps a greater gift than any truly loving marriage could’ve been for you. And, perhaps, it was with that unsaid assurance that you came to admire him, without ever realizing you were doing so — always searching for his face in crowds, waiting every night for the familiar sound of his footsteps to walk outside your chamber doors, constantly watching him from a distance (which has become a most embarrassing habit of yours).
You find him now on the western balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay, where the moon climbs high over shimmering midnight waters. The salty breeze mixes with the scent of damp stone and dying fires from the lantern light glittering in the city below. Gwayne stands alone with his forearms propped on the pale stone balustrade, having exchanged his armor for a forest-green doublet embroidered with winding gold vines. The fading torchlights gild his silken auburn hair, stirred loose by the sea breeze.
You linger just beneath the archway, hidden in the place where the torchlight turns to shadow, studying the slope of his strong shoulders and how they rise and fall with each breath. He looks lonely; lonely enough for your chest to tighten with the want to close the distance between you and slip in beside him. But your feet refuse to move. And whatever affection was warming in your chest before pierces through you like a sword.
“You’re staring.” The suddenness of his voice startles you.
“…You’re supposed to be watching the sea,” you respond, half-shy. He doesn’t look back at you when you emerge finally from the shadows; slippers scuffing the cobblestones, black skirts fluttering at your feet.
“I was,” Gwayne nods.
“Then how could you possibly notice I was standing there?”
He turns to face you then, as you settle on the balcony just beside him, keeping a few feet of careful distance between you like you always did — as if, in your union, an invisible line had been wedged between you and could not be crossed.
The corner of his mouth lifts slowly into a crooked smile. “Because I notice everything about you,” he answers like it’s simple, like he hadn’t just stolen the breath from your lungs.
Heat crawls up the low neckline of your dress, speckling across your cheeks and the very tip of your ears. You turn away, face screwed in a feigned disgust, and busy your hands with an imaginary wrinkle on your sleeve.
“That,” you murmur. “Is a terrifying thought.”
“Well, it ought to terrify you,” Gwayne quips knowingly, bending softly at the waist to fold his arms along the stone railing. “I’ve seen the way you steal the candied slices off of all your lemon cakes just to leave the sponge untouched, you know? Like an utter madwoman.”
“Well…” you huff, face flaring hot at the acknowledgment of being so openly seen by another. “It seems I made the dreadful mistake of marrying the observant man in the Seven Kingdoms.”
“And here I thought that distinction belonged to my cousin,” Gwayne jokes lowly, brows raised to his hairline. “I shall write to Lord Ormund at once and relieve him of the title.”
You laugh quietly through your nose and turn away again. Silence settles comfortably over you once more, filled only by the distant clanging of metal as guards change their shift and the far-off crowing of a caged raven. The night feels impossibly dark, emptier than usual. It feels like an omen of sorts.
“It grows worse, does it not?” you wonder aloud through the breath that catches in your chest, as if you were half scared to even ask.
Gwayne’s thin smile slowly fades. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Aye,” he nods. “I fear it does.”
“I keep… hoping that…” You swallow around the invisible hand tightening around your throat. “That they’ll remember I am your wife before they remember whose blood I carry. I feel it’s the only reason they’ve yet to take my head.”
“Of course, they remember,” he assures you.
“It feels less and less so these days.”
“They’re only frightened—”
“I’m frightened,” you remind him.
The admission lingers between you like the salt water scent hanging in the air. Gwayne studies you for a long moment — he sees the flicker of sincerity flashing across your face right before you turn away from him again, and the way your jaw clenches a second later in regret of saying the words aloud.
He leans an elbow along the parapet to face you fully. And, as if to soothe you, he asks, “If there were no war… No thrones, no dragons—”
“No Hightowers?” you add.
“—If the Stranger himself appeared before you now and offered you another life,” the auburn-haired man continues with a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “What would you do?”
You ponder the question for a moment, eyes zeroed on the navy black horizon ahead as your fingers fidget on the stony barricade. “I should like a farm,” you answer, mouth twitching into an absentminded grin. “Somewhere far away from here. So I could raise chickens—”
“Chickens?” he scoffs a dry laugh, then softens a second later at the sincere look you give him. He swallows hard and nods supportively. “Most ladies would’ve said children, is all…”
“Well, I am not most ladies…” you tell him. “I would have a field of apple trees, and a hundred dogs to protect all my chickens and horses and fluffy cows— you know, the ones that live down in the Reach?”
“Well…” Gwayne croons. “You’ve certainly thought about this, haven’t you?”
“Every day,” you confess. The honesty in your answer strikes him down like a blade; the sorrowful look that heavies your face even more so. The reality of your situation returns to you then, settling over you like gravity’s inevitable weight. You swallow hard before you confess, “I fear they’ll kill me if matters grow worse at Dragonstone.”
“They won’t.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I do,” Gwayne assures you and takes a slow step closer, until the inherent warmth of his skin dulls the bite of the bitter sea wind. He ducks his chin to his chest to chase your gaze, peering down at you with glittering blue eyes. “I swore a vow before gods and men, did I not?”
“So do most men—”
“Well, I am not most men,” he lilts with an air of amusement hanging on the edge of his words. “I actually meant my vows.”
Your eyes soften as they search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt in his handsome features. You find no uncertainty there; just the maddening, immovable confidence that seems to be stitched into the very fiber of his making.
“If this castle should fall tomorrow…” you whisper to him, eyes narrowing in skepticism. “Or if your family decides that I have become too great a burden to keep here… What happens then?”
“Then I shall stand in the doorway,” he shrugs.
A shocked laugh sputters from your mouth at his boyish conviction. “And if they mean to come through it?”
“Then…” His lips jut softly. “They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”
“You are a valiant knight, Ser Gwayne, but you cannot fight an entire army.”
“Perhaps not,” he replies with a sad sort of smile. “But armies are made of men. And every man who wishes to reach you will first have to face me... As I said… I meant my vows.”
Something in his words strikes a deep sadness within you. No one had ever spoken of your being like it possessed any value worth defending, and now the words come from the very family you were meant to despise.
But even still, for the first time since the ravens brought the tidings of war and the dragons took wing against dragon, you believed him. You believed that, should the whole realm come crashing down around you, Ser Gwayne would likely be the only one left standing at your side when the last stone fell.
And, gods, how stupid you were to do so.
ii. OATHS & ASHES
The news of your husband’s leaving came not from your husband himself.
It came, rather, in whispers at court, slithering through the Red Keep like snakes beneath rushes — passing from Gold Cloak to stable boy to serving girl to scullion. “They say Ser Criston and his knights are marching for Harrenhal on the morrow,” says a thick-accented handmaiden. “Lord Hand means to smoke Daemon from the castle. It’ll be Prince Aemond’s before the next moon, no doubt.”
Your stomach dropped so harshly at the whispers that you nearly retched upon the marble. It was not Gwayne’s leaving that frightened you so, but rather what his absence would represent — he might as well throw you to the hounds himself before he goes, because you were as good as dead with him gone.
Your slippers strike the ancient stone in a frantic rhythm as you turn on your heel to storm back the way you came. The harsh echo of the soles catches the attention of surrounding servants, who flatten themselves against the walls as you hurry suddenly past. Your heartbeat pounds like thunder in your ears, far louder than the bells of the Great Sept that toll the evening hour — the combination of both feels like an ominous funeral knell.
You rush up the winding stone staircase with your crimson skirts gathering in your fists. Gwayne’s chambers sit directly opposite yours, and you find the heavy wooden door is cracked ajar. The hinges screechbeneath your palm when you shove it the rest of the way open without warning. The sight you find on the other side hollows you from the inside out — a travel satchel, laid open along the emerald sheets. Inside, a whetstone, riding gloves, a leather-bound prayer book, a sword belt, a flask.
The careful order of it all feels almost cruel. Chaos, at the very least, would suggest some air of hesitation from the man; a faint pause at leaving you behind. This, however, feels far too final.
Gwayne stands at the head of the bed with his back facing you. His pale hands work with a quiet precision to roll a Hightower-green cloak into his bag. He did not need to turn at the sudden intrusion. He learned the sound of your footsteps long ago.
“I wondered how long it might take,” the man croons distantly. The calmness of his voice, the indifference, sets you entirely aflame.
“Why would you not tell me?” you bite in response.
Gwayne glances over his shoulder at you then. The flickering candlelight turns his hair a more golden shade of Hightower-red, and carves the soft edges of his face out in shadow. He was still every inch the striking knight that the whispers purported him to be — broad as an oak tree, handsome as a saint carved into an altar — but there’s a foreign weariness etched into his features now. It darkens the skin beneath his eyes, turns his gaze a duller shade of icy blue.
“Well, I was going to, of course.”
“When?” The sharpness in your voice could draw blood.
“…Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Your laugh splinters the otherwise silent room, sharper than broken glass. You shut the door behind you with an aggressive hand and close the distance between you, dress skirts billowing wildly at your ankles. “When you ride at dawn? And you meant to tell me when your horses were already saddled?”
“Yes,” Gwayne sighs, lowering the folded doublet into its place. “I thought I might spare you one night’s grief—”
“You’re abandoning me,” you tell him then, as if to translate the man’s words back to himself. You linger at his side, eyes darting wildly over his profile when he fails to meet your gaze. “Just like all the rest of them. You do realize that, right?”
“The king has given orders—”
“Well, it wasn’t the king who stood beside me at Blackwater Bay not even a week ago, was it?” Your voice lowers into a faux-masculine tone, trying and failing to mock him. “If anyone comes for you, I shall stand in the doorway—”
Gwayne scoffs. “Surely, I do not sound like that.”
“—They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”
“Yes… I remember,” he answers through a slow huff of annoyance, stepping back from his travel bag to drag a pair of weary hands down his face. “I was— well into my cups by then, as you well know—”
“Oh, do not cheapen those words now,” you spit, shoving hard at his shoulder. Gwayne’s features twist in offense as his wide eyes glance down at the hand you’d pushed him with, though he doesn’t move an inch. “Don’t dishonor yourself with a coward’s excuse just to make up for the fact that you lied.”
Gwayne’s composure fractures at that. He had spent too much of his life trying to be a good knight, a good man — one that maybe his callous father could be proud of — so he refuses to stomach accusations of otherwise from you.
His icy blue eyes harden into a glacial sort of look, more hurt than truly angry. He lays his cloak into place to face you fully.
“Do you not see that I am leaving to keep the fight from coming here?”
“Do not you see that by leaving me here that I’m as good as dead?” you retort through a jaw clenched tight. “If you do not take me with you, then—”
“Of course I’m not taking you with me!” he scoffs with a crooked smile, like it’s funny to him. “You’d be dead before we made it to the God’s Eye—”
“And I will be dead before this war is won if you leave!” you shout, voice wet and fragile with the unshed tears burning the backs of your eyes. “The fight is already here! The people who wish me dead are in these walls! They pour my wine, they wash my hair, they cook my food, they bow when I walk by and whisper when my back is turned! And if you aren’t here, then…”
You trail off with a ragged breath. Your corset feels suddenly tight against your ribs. You choke back the sob that strangles your throat and blink rapidly to clear the haze of tears blurring at your waterline. You peer up at the man with the sternest gaze you can muster.
“I am… frightened,” you tell him, though your voice cracks into a fragile whisper halfway through.
The anger disappears from Gwayne’s face as quickly as it arrived. His shoulders deflate with a slow huff through his nose as he takes a slow step towards you. His hands release their clenched fists to reach hesitantly for your face. His palms are warm and softly calloused when they cup your cheeks, caressing you with a tenderness he hasn’t shown since your bedding ceremony six or more moons ago.
The quiet half-smile he gives you, then, is weighed down by a palpable sadness.
“To tell you the truth… I have never been more afraid than I am right now,” he confesses in a low murmur, swiping his thumb over the warm apple of your cheek. The softness in his voice threatens to undo you entirely.
“So then don’t go,” you plead in a small voice, grasping at the front of his emerald doublet until the golden vines wrinkle under your grip. “Please.”
“If Harrenhal remains in Rhaenyra’s hold, and if Daemon rallies the Riverland armies, then the war will come here,” Gwayne continues in a painfully steady voice. “I fear I don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“Everyone has a choice,” you tell him, filled with a girlish sort of rage once more. “But, I suppose you’ve already made yours.”
The man meets your scowl with a tired, slightly heartbroken smile. “Please do not make me spend my last night with my wife quarreling with her,” Gwayne jokes quietly, swiping an eyelash from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “At least leave me with something to hold onto until my return.”
Your tight chest deflates with a slow sigh from your nose. The rage ebbs evenly into grief. “And what shall I have, hm? Considering tonight is very likely my last one alive and all…”
Gwayne laughs. “You are being… catastrophically dramatic.”
Your chest burns with a mixture of rage and desire. He could never possibly understand you, but somehow, he is the only one with the walls of the Keep who ever has. The contrast is dizzying.
“I hate you,” you hear yourself say.
“Perhaps...” Gwayne hums, warm breath fanning across your cheek. “But not nearly as much as you love me.”
Your first instinct is to strike him for the sarcasm in his words; your second is to weep at the truth of them. He kisses you before you can do either.
He ducks down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss, a mere brushing of your lips. The last time he had done so was beneath the glowing candles of the Sept, following the declaration of your wedding vows. But that was an obligation, a political victory of sorts.
This kiss is far sweeter in comparison. You feel the man heavying against you as he falls deeper into your touch. He opens your mouth with his and flicks the pad of his tongue against yours, like velvet brushing velvet. Your hands tremble as they leave the chest of his doublet to rake through his auburn locks, like silk between your fingers. You sigh against his open mouth at the taste of him — like wine and mint and oranges — sweet enough to get drunk on.
It takes you a long moment to realize his hands have snaked around your waist accordingly. You don’t realize his deft fingers are loosening the tie in your corset until the discomfort in your ribs disappears entirely. Your body acts before your mind, and your arms slither from their sleeves to curl once more around Gwayne’s broad shoulders.
The man folds the top of your dress down until your bare chest is revealed to him. A grumbled moan sounds in the back of his throat as he pulls you back into him with two wide palms along your bare back, pressing your breasts flush against his chest. He thinks, if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the steady thundering of your heart like this.
“Gwayne—” you whisper against his mouth when you feel something hardening against your hip. Your hands drop from his hair to slide between your bodies, headed for the tie in his trousers to release the stiffness growing there.
He twists you round in the meanwhile, shoes scuffing the cobbles, until the bend of your knees meets the edge of the mattress behind you. He lays you down without once taking his mouth off of yours, with one wide palm splayed along your ribcage and his other cradling the back of your neck.
He pulls off of you with a quiet smack to catch his breath. A small whimper sounds in the back of your throat when his warm body leaves yours, rising to reach down for your skirts. Your bare chest heaves as you sit up on your elbows to watch him fumble with your dress. “Gods above, how many skirts are you wearing?” you hear him complain under his breath. “I’ve faced hedge knights with fewer defenses than this.”
You giggle when he finally pushes the layers of your dress up to your hips. Your thighs spread on instinct, exposing yourself to him. Gwayne’s mouth waters at the sight of your silken folds, already glittering in anticipation. Your chest tightens when he falls to his knees before you.
“What are you doing?” you ask on bated breath.
Gwayne flashes you a love-drunk grin and a pair of glassy blue eyes. His warm palms smooth along the velvety skin of your inner thighs to spread them further. “Call it a knight’s act of service, shall we?” he quips.
His auburn head disappears beneath your bunched-up skirts a second later. Your face twists momentarily in confusion before you feel his tongue slotting in the silk folds of your cunt. He licks a fat stripe up the length of it, until his tongue finds something that makes your hips twitch despite yourself. His mouth closes around the sensitive button, suckling at it with a grumbled moan in the back of his throat.
Your head tips back at the feeling. Your lips part as if to moan, but the electric shock in the pit of your stomach knocks all the available air from your lungs. You feel him laughing against you when your thighs clench suddenly around his head, tighter than you realize.
Gwayne pulls off of you with a quick smacking sound. He wears your slick down to his chin as he flashes you a teasing, glassy-eyed look. “I’d quite like to keep my head, dear wife—”
You say nothing in response to his quip. You just dart a head to the crown of his skull and shove his face back between your thighs.
Gwayne complies without complaint, lapping at the honey you leak for him, until the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet chambers. You rock your hips against his face, bracing yourself with the auburn locks you clench in your fist.
His nose nudges the swollen bud that makes you keen, right before he takes it in his mouth again. Your skin buzzes at the foreign feeling.
“Gwayne—” you gasp. A tight feeling settles deep in your stomach, like a fraying knot about to snap. Your back arches off the mattress. Your hand tightens in his hair. Your features screw in a pain look, half-scared at the pleasure welling within you. “I can’t—”
“Mm…” he just keeps moaning against you, letting the vibrations deepen your pleasure. His wide hands smooth up and down your outer thighs when they tremble on either side of his head, clenching around him as your orgasm hits you with a pleasured whine. He laps up every ounce of honey you leak for him, and sighs hard through his nose at the salty-sweet taste of you.
Only when your legs grow finally lax around his jaw does he pull back from your thighs. A smile curls lazily at his rosier, more swollen mouth. The bottom half of his face glitters in the candlelight with a mixture of saliva and cum — you lift your head in time to watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
“If this truly is my final night alive…” you say through panted breaths, eyes still wide from the shock of your simmering pleasure. “I feel I could finally die a happy woman.”
“I’m glad I could be of service, princess…” Gwayne smiles lazily, grimacing slightly at the ache in his knees as he rises from the unforgiving cobbles. He leans down to lay his warmth back over you. You stop him with a firm hand on his chest.
“I want to be on top this time,” you confess in a breathless whisper, eyes darting back and forth between his.
Gwayne’s brows raise slowly in shock at your sudden display of dominance. The corner of his lip twitches into a smile the same way his cock twitches in his boxers. He nods until the words catch up to him. “As you wish…”
iii. CROWNS & CAGES
You did not weep when they came for you, scarcely a fortnight after your lord husband’s leaving.
Gwayne was gone by first light, perhaps already a league or more away before you stirred awake that morning to the chill of an empty bed. He parted with nothing but a folded scrap of parchment resting where his head had been the night before. In his scrawled handwriting, half-smudged from where his wrist had dragged the ink in haste, he wrote: “Write to me. Don’t die. I’ll build the form for you myself.”
You keep the note tucked safely inside the chest of your corset now, folded so many times that the edges have already begun to soften. You keep it close to your heart like a holy relic, or perhaps, a threat to whatever unlucky son of a bitch kills you first — something to discover on your corpse after they slit your throat, so they’ll know who to answer to upon your husband’s return.
Eventually, the servants ceased asking whether you needed anything, and all your meals came cold. Conversations ceased the moment you entered a room, and doors slammed shut before you could reach them. And then, when word spread that a wild dragon had taken wing not far from here, all eyes of suspicion turned to you — to whom a dragon had never belonged, though the blood in your veins wearied the courtiers all the same. Rhaenyra had already added three new riders to her fleet; she certainly did not need another.
You were no longer a bride, but a prisoner in pretty gowns — it was the Queen Dowager, and your sister by law, who confirmed as much to you.
“I had hoped…” Alicent started slowly, bathed half in sunshine and half in shadow from where she stood before the window in your quarters, watching the distant storm clouds blow in over Blackwater. “That I might never have to ask this of you.”
Her auburn curls swept over her pale shoulder when she turned to face you. Something heavy sat in her round green eyes, as if she wanted you to finish the rest of it for her. But you remained as stoic and silent as ever from where you sat at the small dining table just across from her. Your hands wrung into knots over your skirts, hidden beneath the surface, as you waited for the words of your fate to fall from her lips.
“The council believes that— Should the opportunity present itself, you would attempt to reach the wild beast. The Cannibal, I believe it’s called,” Alicent said. “And through him, Rhaenyra.”
“So…” You sighed, making no attempt to argue the subject. It did not matter whether or not it was true; the possibility was enough to make you a criminal. “The Black Cells, then?”
“No,” Alicent shook her head, half-offended by the suggestion. “Of course not. My cousin, Lord Ormund, he commands the Hightower host. He has agreed to keep you under his… protection for the time being.”
“Protection?” you echoed through a scoff. The word tasted foreign and bitter in your mouth. “What a pleasant name for captivity.”
Alicent’s face flickered with a mother’s sort of sympathy. Her hands wrang together beneath the draping sleeves of her emerald dress.“You will be treated with every courtesy your station deserves, I assure you.”
“If your council means to bargain with me, Your Grace…” you started with a sad smile. “They mistake me for something worth bartering for. Rhaenyra already abandoned e— keeping me hostage will not make her respond to your offered terms.”
“Even still… You would be far safer there than you would be here, whether or not you believe that’s true,” Alicent said. “I know what my brother would wish of me. And Gwayne would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to keep you safe.”
The long journey south smells of wet earth and horse dung. By the time you reach the Hightower encampment — which sprawls across the rolling fields like a second city — your fine silk gown has long surrendered to the dust of the road, and your hands now bear the tenderness of a week spent in the saddle.
Your broad-shouldered escort guides you through the avenue of canvas tents billowing wildly beneath snapping green banners. The air smells of woodsmoke, cooked venison, and salty sweat — the soft breeze carries with it the sound of laughter, barking hounds, clanking chainmail, and shouted commands.
A pair of guards draw back the heavy canvas of the biggest pavilion in the camp. “My lord,” one says to announce your arrival inside, right before the entrance flap closes heavily behind you.
Inside, candles burn despite the lingering daylight, filling the enclosed tent with the smell of beeswax and parchment from the large map covering the long oak table. Pieces carved from ivory and oak mark castles and armies across the whole of Westeros, waiting to be won or maybe burned.
A strange man stands over them with his broad hands planted along the edge, visibly built beneath his ornately decorated armor, and standing several inches taller than the rest of the knights in the room.
Lord Ormund was not pretty like Gwayne, but he was his own kind of handsome, made of sharp edges and strong features. His Hightower-auburn curls are less vivid in color and sheared short. He has his family’s pair of striking blue eyes, too, which feel a little like they’re piercing you when he glances up from his map.
“Leave us,” he commands his guards in a low, melodic voice, keeping his eyes on you as his knights filter out of the tent. Their armor clatters faintly as they go. The man doesn’t say another word until they’re gone.
“So…” he hums, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards. “The infamous dragon bride.”
Your brows bounce at the title. It feels like another chain around your neck. “I suppose I’ve been called worse…” you sigh, studying him with the same curiosity. “You must be Lord Ormund.”
“I must,” the man nods as he rounds the war table at an unhurried pace.
His boots sink into the woven rungs laid across the hard earth with each step. He towers several inches over your head when he plants himself in front of you. He smells of steel and sweat and strongly of incense.
“I expected someone… older.”
His brows raise in amusement. “And here I expected someone taller.”
“Well,” you deadpan, eyes narrowing up at him as your hands clasp behind your back. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ser.”
“Oh, I’ve endured far worse disappointments, my lady, I assure you.” A ghost of a smile graces his pink lips as his eyes soften slightly around the edges. “I give you my word. While you remain beneath my banners, no harm will come to you.”
You sigh hard through your nose. “Yes… People keep promising me that.”
“I’m sure they have… But I intend to honor it.” The certainty of the man’s words unsettles you. It’s strange, you find, to be looked at like you were something worth protecting. “And if you require anything— anything at all. You need only ask.”
You nod slowly with a deep exhale, considering the offer. “A quill,” you conclude firmly.
Ormund blinks. “A… A quill?”
“Yes,” you say. “And parchment.”
“For… What purpose?” he laughs.
You glance over your shoulder towards the tent’s fluttering entrance, where the last light of the early evening burns gold against a sea of green banners. You wonder, briefly, how many soldiers outside this pavilion would celebrate if they found you dead on the morrow — how many would mourn, how many would care enough to do anything at all.
You think, perhaps, that in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one person who would weep for you. And he was a hundred leagues away.
“So that I may write to my lord husband,” you answer finally. “And tell him that I was right… And that he still owes me a farm.”
Lord Ormund allows you to write to Gwayne that night, and every seventh day after. It was the only thing you could look forward to, since there was little else to do at camp. He had been gracious enough to give you your own pavilion at the edge of the command encampment, close enough for the sentries to watch but far enough away to force you into solitude.
It was clean and moderately comfortable — with a narrow cot draped in a single wool blanket, a traveling chest for the few dresses you were allowed to bring, a wash basin, and a small writing table tucked beneath the only slit in the canvas that permitted daylight. Inside smelled of candle wax, pressed linen, and lavender soap.
Outside smelled of war — of pressed metal from the blacksmiths, of men cursing over burnt porridge, of stableboys tending to horses who fouled the earth faster than they could shovel it. It was cruel, how the world went on while you could go scarcely a step without an escort. Eventually, you became accustomed to feeling a hundred eyes upon your back — most curious, others suspicious, some outright hateful.
The letters you wrote to Gwayne, at least, gave you the illusion of escape. You tended to each with careful precision — melting the wax, stamping it shut, then tying it off with a ribbon — and watched from afar as one of Ormund’s knights carried them toward the rookery. It was not until the twentieth day at camp, when you wandered further than you were typically allowed, that you noticed that none of your messages had been sent. You watched the knight toss the letter into the fire, flinching slightly when the flames sparked beneath the fresh kindling.
It had been four days since then.
And you haven’t eaten once in protest.
It took roughly half that time for Lord Ormund’s patience to run thin. He’s suffered the endless whispers of your attempts to starve to death with an increasing displeasure. He commands thousands of knights beneath his banners, serves as the leader of his house with grace, and yet — he still cannot seem to manage to command one lady to supper. It was absurd. Humiliating. And worse, it invited doubt. What army will follow a man whom they believe incapable of governing his own household?
On the fifth evening, after your breakfast tray went untouched that morning, Ormund opts to bring you your supper himself. He marches through the crowded camp with his jaw clenched tight like a soldier headed into battle. His chainmail clanks with every step. Avoiding the stares he gets from surrounding knights feels borderline impossible.
He throws open the entrance of your tent without ceremony. The canvas snaps sharply beneath his aggressive hand as he ducks suddenly underneath it. The light of the golden evening pours suddenly inside around his towering silhouette before the flap falls shut behind him once more, trapping the two of you inside.
There, he finds you lying on your cot, staring upward at the slit in the pavilion where one lonely shaft of sunlight spills through. Your fingers drift lazily through the rays, as if you were trying to catch it somehow.
Your head snaps suddenly to the side at the sudden intrusion — your hair is loose and unkempt, because no one ever taught you how to do it yourself, and all of your dresses are now wrinkled and stained with dirt. The thin white nightgown you wear makes you look more sunken, more lifeless.
Ormund grasps your tray with one hand and reaches for your small writing desk with the other. He lectures you through the distant pang of sympathy in his chest.
“I have commanded men twice your size—” His boots are heavy on the thin rug as he carries the desk over to you. “I have started sieges, I have broken sieges. And yet—” He slams the table in front of you with a dull thump. You try not to cower under the icy blue glare he gives you. “I cannot seem to persuade one prisoner— a lady, no less— to eat her supper. And I confess, it does very little for confidence in my command. So eat.”
Ormund slams the tray onto the desk. The broth steaming in a small wooden bowl sloshes over. Next to it, strips of leftover venison and a broken loaf of stale bread. Your empty stomach twists painfully with a mixture of nausea and hunger.
“So…” you start lowly, clearing your throat when your voice comes gravelly. You rise from your supine position on weak limbs. The fabric of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you turn to place your bare feet on the ground — eyes dull when you peer up at the man from beneath your lashes. “You admit it, then? That I am your prisoner here?”
His jaw clenches tight. His nostrils flare through a sharp breath. He no longer finds amusement in your banter. “Your status here depends entirely on your pliancy,” he spits, ripping off a piece of the stale loaf. “Now eat.”
You flinch when his fist rears suddenly towards your face, holding the broken bread just in front of your mouth. You blink wildly up at him, features screwed in offense. “…Excuse me?”
“Eat.”
You swat his hand away; it moves scarcely an inch. “I’m not a child—”
“Well, at present, you are behaving remarkably like one,” Ormund argues through a tight jaw. “Now open your mouth.”
You respond with only a glare.
Fury rages through the man’s chest. He wishes wordlessly for the strength of the Mother and the Warrior engraved upon his armor as he offers bitterly, “Or shall I make you?”
You spend a long moment staring up at him with eyes cold enough to freeze wine. You hold his gaze as your mouth parts slowly to accept the chunk of bread he pinches between his thumb and forefinger. He places it upon your tongue with a surprising gentleness, considering the wrath he’d had moments ago.
“Chew,” he commands, glaring down the bridge of his nose at you. Your jaw moves slowly. Ormund nods in approval. “Swallow.”
Your heart lurches into your throat at his order. But you do as you’re told, throat bobbing as the piece of bread goes down. Another piece follows soon after; this time, your lips part before he asks you to do so. Relief crosses over his strong features as he places the food onto your tongue. His shoulders sag with the exhaled breath that it feels like he’s been holding for days.
He looks almost worried for you; relieved, almost, to have fed you. A warm, foreign feeling settles in your chest accordingly.
“I am trying… Very hard to be kind to you,” Ormund confesses, scarred hands twitching at his sides. “So I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you insist on making this so difficult.”
“My letters,” you tell him. “Why aren’t they being sent?”
“The rookery master feared they could be intercepted,” he answers plainly. “I could not risk one falling into enemy hands. I… meant to tell you.”
“When?” you spit.
“When I found a safer way to deliver them.”
A bitter laugh sputters from your mouth. “What curious men you Hightowers are,” you quip with narrowed eyes. “So fond of deciding what sorrows I ought to be spared.”
His brows lower in confusion. “Is that not a kindness?”
His answer lingers between you for several long moments. There was no cleverness in his words, only an honesty that strikes you like a fist to the stomach.
“Aye. I suppose it is,” you answer, clearing your throat when your voice catches.
A strange emotion strangles you, and burns at the back of your eyes as you look down at your dress. Your dull nails pick at a smudge of mud on the fabric that will likely never come off. An embarrassed sort of laugh tumbles from your mouth.
“Perhaps I… I spent so long waiting for someone to hurt me that I no longer remember what kindness is supposed to feel like.”
Ormund nods through a slow exhale from his nose. He glances to the side and walks the short distance to the stool that the table had knocked over in his rage. Your wet eyes follow his form as he walks away and then back to you, setting the chair on the other side of the table. You can feel the warmth radiating from his body, even in the scarce distance between you.
“I’ll admit— A man spends enough time at war, they start to forget that mornings are not meant to begin with fear,” he says, reaching again for the loaf of bread, but this time breaking it in half. “I forget myself, at times, but… if you’ll allow me… I’d very much like to prove to you that I can be kind.”
Your weary features soften around the edges. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” you tell him, with a more sincere smile hinting at the corners of your lips. “I am your prisoner, after all.”
“So you keep insisting,” Ormund quips with his own quiet grin. “But I should rather you thought of yourself as my… responsibility.”
Your heart stumbles a beat. Responsibility felt much safer than hostage, or bargaining piece, or burden. It felt, you’ll admit, like a kindness.
iv. SILK & SWORDS
You fall into a steady routine at the Hightower encampment by the fifth moon of your captivity.
Each morning arrives with the same mournful groan of a warhorn that rolls across the grass green hills before the sun has even broken the horizon. You wake to the distant ringing of hammers against anvils, hounds barking for gristles off the cookfires, and knights shouting for their squires. The first hours were reserved for armorers; the afternoons for drilling knights whose swords cracked together until you could feel them ringing in your skull; and the evenings for songs, laughter, and ale.
Your days, however, remained painfully empty.
Lord Ormund had been kind enough to provide you with greater comforts as the weeks went by — cushioned pillows and heavier woolen blankets for when the nights got colder; sprigs of lavender for your bedside to keep out the stench of man; more parchment and colored ink to busy your hands when the days were especially long. And all of them were especially long. He’d given you his leather-bound prayer book, too, and even though you were not an entirely pious woman, you’d read through it enough times to recite each passage from memory.
The camp has since grown accustomed to your being there, ever since Ormund slackened his metaphorical leash on you — “You’ve had more than ample opportunity to run,” he’d said beneath the scratching of his quill. “Besides, where exactly would you go? No one else would take you.” No one bats an eye when you leave your tent, after three days of relentless rain had finally broken, to pick fresh berries from the brushes along the treeline.
Your crimson silk dress scrubs the dewy evening grass as you collect wild raspberries into a small wooden bowl. The juices stain your fingertips the color of red wine. The sweet scent mixes with the smell of wet earth and mint leaves crushed beneath your slippers. You bend at the waist to parse through tangled brambles, searching for the ripest berries. For the first time in months — years, maybe — you feel almost peaceful.
“Is that a love letter—?”
The voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. Your heart lurches into your throat as you jerk to full height again. The small bowl of berries slips from your grasp and rolls through the wet clover like so many drops of scattered blood. Behind you, you find a vaguely familiar hedgeknight, scarcely ten paces away — made of broad shoulders, broken teeth, and greasy hair that falls to his shoulders.
It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to catch your breath.
“I’m sorry,” you say through a tightening chest. “You… You startled me.”
“Did I?” he hums gruffly, in a voice that borders on amusement.
You cower into the hedgerow behind you as he approaches you, reaching you quickly on much longer limbs. He looms close enough for you to smell the sweat and ale and horse piss on his chainmail, close enough for you to lift your chin to meet his gaze.
His eyes never quite reach yours. They linger, instead, on your chest. “Letter from your lord husband, is it?” he asks, motioning with his head.
Your chin ducks to follow his eyes, where the rough edges of parchment nestled against your chest peek out from your corset. Your hands lift to cover it instinctively. “Yes. It’s a… a letter. From home.”
“Mind if I take a look at it?” he asks, taking another daring step closer. You wince at the sour smell of him. “What does Ser Gwayne write his pretty wife, hm?”
“Please, don’t—”
His hand shoots out. Thick, filthy fingers hook beneath the neckline of your gown, hard enough to stretch the fine silk with an audible crack. You react on pure instinct accordingly, lifting your own hand to strike him before your mind could forbid it.
The sound of your palm colliding with his bearded jaw cracks through the hedgerow like a whip.
His head turns slightly under the blow.
Your breath catches in surprise at yourself.
The back of his hand catches you across the cheek before you can blink. A red-hot pain explodes from your ear to your jaw as your world lurches suddenly sideways. You hit the unforgiving earth below with a huff when the air rushes from your lungs. Coppery blood pools thick on your tongue from where your teeth had cut the inside of your cheek.
“You little cunt—” you hear the man say, right before he catches a fistful of your skirts to pull you back towards him. The fabric screams beneath his hand. The cool evening air strikes your legs all at once when the silk rips up to your thighs.
You kick wildly at the man. Your slipper strikes uselessly against his shoulder. Your fingernails claw muddy furrows through the soaked earth.
“I am— Gwayne Hightower’s wife—” You tell him through panted, fearful breaths. He flips you onto your back by your ankle. Your foot burns beneath his grip. Your head strikes the soaked earth. Through the lack of air in your lungs, you heave, “He will have your head for this—”
“Oh, will he?” the hedge knight laughs with a brown-tooth grin. “‘Cause he ain’t here—”
The hand not holding your squirming ankle reaches for the tie in his trousers.
Then, in a blink, steel sings with a clean rasping sound. Warm blood splashes from your right jaw up to your left temple. For a flicker of a moment, you can’t quite comprehend why — not until the hedge knight kneels suddenly before you, with open eyes that have gone strangely distant. He topples suddenly sideways with his neck bent at an awkward angle, head half cut off and spouting bright red blood.
You blink wildly through the haze of death until you find Ormund standing just behind the corpse, chest rising and falling beneath his heavy armor. His longsword drips crimson onto the grass where your raspberries lie.
Sweat from the long day clings to his dark curls, wetting them against his temples and forehead. Flecks of blood dot his jaw like crimson stars. His blue eyes burn with something fierce, but his voice remains remarkably soft.
“My lady…”
You open your mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.
Only then do you notice how violently your body is shaking, buzzing with a white-hot fear, as you scan the scene surrounding you — your torn skirts, the blood staining your chest, the dead body at your feet. You stare at the hedge knight’s gushing throat without fully understanding the sight of it.
Ormund reaches you in three long strides. He sheaths his sword without a word before dropping carefully to one knee. He slides one arm under your leg and his other behind your back, hoisting you upward with a pair of strong arms. The scent of blood and earth gives way to the smell of leather, incense, and bathing oils as he cradles you to the broad wall of his chest.
Your trembling hands clench a fistful of the green velvet cape draped along his shoulder.
“You’re safe, my lady,” Ormund murmurs as he carries you back to camp. “You’re safe.”
Your face finds the hollow space between his jaw and collarbone. You’re not entirely sure if you believe the words he speaks, but you know now that you do believe in the man who speaks them.
v. SANCTUARY & SIN
The weeks that followed could be divided into two — the days before the attack and all the days after.
For a time, you startled far too easily. A dropped shield sent you into a panic. A knight laughing too loudly made your pulse skyrocket. And if a pair of bootsteps walked too closely behind you, you lost all your breath before your mind had time to remind your body that no one meant you any harm.
Nights proved harder still. You dreamt of nothing but rough hands and torn silk and crushed berries that smelled so sweet the thought alone made you sick. One moment you were suffocating beneath the sweaty body of a hedge knight, and the next, your canvas door was thrown open while you were choking on a scream.
Ormund stood silhouetted before you, barefoot, with a sword in his naked hand. He’d reached you with haste, after having your pavilion packed up and pitched again not quite twenty paces from his following the attack — “It’ll be easier that way,” he assured you. “If another fool decides to trouble you, I’d rather not have to cross half of Westeros to remove his head.”
His curls were flattened from slumber, his linen shirt unlaced to reveal his broad chest heaving with panic. His sleep-swollen eyes swept every corner of the empty pavilion before they settled finally on you. His steel lowered as he crossed the tent to settle beside you, smoothing a hand up and down your back despite the way your nightgown clung uncomfortably to your sweaty skin.
“We’ll move your bed into my tent,” he’d said. “You’ll sleep there for the time being.”
It was concern disguised as a command. One you could not refuse if you wanted to.
Ormund’s tent was large enough to pass for a modest hall — maps and banners occupied one half, while the other had become something half-resembling living quarters. Your smaller cot was placed opposite his beneath the same sloping canvas roof, separated by little more than a table crowded with candles and books. You would wake occasionally to find Ormund already seated beside the brazier in nothing but a linen shirt, reading dispatches by firelight while occasionally glancing over to see whether you were sleeping soundly.
You pretended that you were, if only to keep on watching him.
But then the late summer storms arrived; and the unforgiving deluge washed over the camp with enough violence to shake the pavilion you slept beneath. Thunder cracked like an explosion closely overhead, and you woke with another frightened gasp before remembering where you were.
Ormund was already awake, as if stirred in knowing that you were scared.
“If you’re frightened…” he murmured from across the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed his blanketed body, and his face half-smushed into his pillow. “I imagine my bed could accommodate two people without either touching the other."
You crossed the space between your cots and climbed beneath his blankets without another word.
You haven’t left his bed since.
The days soon settle into something almost resembling normalcy. Ormund, you find, possesses an absurd fondness for taking care of you — always making sure that you’ve eaten breakfast before he’s started his mornings; delivering his wool blankets to you before you can complain that you’re cold, warming your hands between his calloused palms when he does so; and escorting you through camp with a protective hand splayed along the small of your back.
No one ever cared for you with such deliberate attention before — even Gwayne, as gentle as he was, could only love you from a respectful distance before the war had sent him off. Your husband washed away into memory, into the note left abandoned somewhere on the forest floor.
You did not know whether he still rode beneath banners or if his corpse had been picked clean by crows. You did know, at the very least, that Ormund was here — he was there in the mornings when you woke and each night when old fears crept back into your skin. It was a dangerous thing, you soon realized, to mistake safety for love. Or more dangerous still, to suspect that the two were any different at all.
You watch from Ormund’s bed — freshly bathed beneath your thin ivory slip, with your legs kicking lazily from where you lie on your stomach — as his squire removes pieces of his armor. A sketchbook lies open before you, alongside a collection of colored inks.
“This is what you get for tightening the straps so much,” Ormund hums as Daeron struggles with the final buckle across the man’s broad shoulders.
“Well, you’d like them to remain attached, wouldn’t you?” the boy quips back.
The man smiles despite himself. “You complain more than any squire I've ever met, do you know that?”
“I learned everything from you, did I not?”
When the final piece of armor comes finally free, Ormund dismisses the boy back to his tent. The entrance cover opens and shuts behind the boy, letting in a rush of cool evening air before it closes again. Silence returns to the expansive pavilion, filled only by the crackling of burning candles.
Ormund, left only in his loose dark breeches and a linen undertunic, walks to the round table to pour himself a goblet of wine. “What is occupying you so completely over there?”
“I’m hard at work,” you answer vaguely.
“So I see.” He eyes you carefully over the glugging of the flagon. A faint, unreadable flicker crosses his face. “Writing to Gwayne, are you?”
“No,” you sigh. “I’m drawing you.”
You set the quill into the inkpot and lift the sketchbook to face the man with a girlish grin, which seems to be becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. Ormund’s light eyes squint to study the page. It was unmistakably him drawn in the ink, though perhaps only if one was exceedingly charitable. The proportions are all wrong: his nose is too large, his mouth is too small, one eye sits higher than the other, and he’s missing his left brow.
His eyes flick to meet yours again. “…Is that intended to be me?” he asks, motioning with the goblet in his fist.
“Of course,” you shrug like it’s obvious.
“Well,” he sighs, raising the cup to his mouth. “I had no idea that I resembled that of a rotting turnip.”
You gasp in faux-offense that’s soon overcome by a fit of laughter. “It is not that bad!”
“My lady…” Ormund huffs sympathetically, abandoning his ale to saunter slowly towards the bed. “This could be considered treason— I should confiscate this immediately."
“You shall do no such thing,” you tease.
“Oh really?” he croons, brows raised in amusement.
He lunges for you in an instant. You jerk back onto your haunches with a squeal, cradling the sketchbook to your chest. You dodge each of his attempts to take it with a girlish gracelessness, laughing harder with each of his failed attempts. Ormund smiles at the sound without realizing it, dropping the table of ink to the rug below before clambering onto the bed to follow you.
One final tug sends the book flying across the bed, and the two of you go to reach for it at the same time. The momentum carries you forward until you land clumsily against his chest, knocking the breath out of him as his back hits the mattress, with you squarely on top of him.
It takes you a long moment to realize your precarious position — your chest brushing his beneath your thin slip, noses nearly touching, breaths nearly entwining. Your laughter fades first, but you still do not move. Ormund’s smile flickers, but his hands lift to rest lightly along the arms you use to prop up your weight on top of him.
You can feel each of his warm breaths fan against your chin. You could get drunk on the ale stained on his mouth from the proximity between you alone. Closer by an inch or two and you would taste it on his lips.
“We ought not,” Ormund murmurs lowly, as if he can read your mind.
“Ought what?”
“This,” he answers. His blue eyes flick briefly in the space separating your mouths. “You are another man’s wife. My cousin’s wife.”
You swallow hard at the mention of Gwayne. It had been far easier to forget him, in truth. “I have not seen my husband in nearly a year,” you reply in a small voice. “I do not even know whether he yet lives…”
Pain etches in Ormund's strong features before disappearing behind his usual practiced restraint. His hands tremble with the urge to smooth away the frown between your brows, but he does not allow himself the satisfaction.
“I swore on oath to protect you,” he says. “To serve you in my cousin’s absence.”
You, without possessing a similar self-control, lift a hand to brush a wild curl from his temple. “And do you intend to keep that promise, Lord Ormund?”
He nods against the mattress. “Of course I do.”
“Okay then…” you hum as a smile tugs slowly at one corner of your mouth. “Then serve me.”
You duck down to close the distance between you without a second thought. The tip of your nose grazes the strong bridge of his as you press your lips to his chapped ones, nothing more than an experimental brushing of your mouths. You go to pull away just as quickly as you came, and whatever restraint Ormund had had before vanishes in an instant.
He lifts his head from the tousled blankets to chase your mouth, cradling your neck with a wide hide to draw you back into him again. The second kiss lands with none of the careful uncertainty of the first. This one is slower, deeper, and far more languid. His tongue licks into your mouth, tasting of wine and the mint leaves he always chews after supper. You sigh through your nose to savor it, melting further into his chest.
Your mouths move together with an awkward sort of tenderness, learning one another by the second. Ormund kisses you far rougher than Gwayne ever did — it’s all tongue and teeth and spit, as if he were committing the taste of you to memory: the meat from your supper, the berry from your tea; the guilt from your broken vows, the relief of being found after believing yourself long abandoned.
Your breath catches in your throat when Ormund suddenly takes charge, urging you onto your back with his mouth still on yours. He pulls off you with a quiet smack, wearing your spit on his rosy mouth like gloss.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks with heavy eyes that dart back and forth between your glassy ones.
You shake your head against the cushions beneath you, features twisting with a pained look at the thought of stopping now.
“Do you understand what will follow? What… vows both of us will be breaking?”
Your eyes glisten as they dance between his blue ones. “The war broke those vows,” you tell him, half-breathless. “Not us.”
Ormund nods wordlessly for a moment, pleased with your answer. “Then open,” he says.
Your mouth parts for him on instinct. He lifts his middle and pointer finger to your lips, wetting them on your tongue, before sliding them in between your bodies. His hand disappears beneath the skirt of your slip. Your head tips back when you feel his fingertips sliding between your velvety folds, brushing your clit before sinking into your waiting cunt.
Your sigh fills the quiet tent, accompanied by the low groan in the back of Ormund’s throat.
“You’re softer than I imagined…” he confesses, almost to himself.
“Imagining me a lot, are you?” you tease on bated breath.
“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “I dreamt of how your cunt would wrap around me… of how you’d soak the sheets… of what noise you’d make when I moved my fingers like this—”
A whine catches in your throat when he crooks his fingers just so, nestling the fatty part of his palm flat against your clit. Your hips buck into his hand despite yourself. Your exhaled whine is half-drowned beneath his breathy chuckle.
“There it is…” he praises.
“Fuck me,” you plead, face crumpling under the weight of your need. One hand twists in his hair, while your other fists in his thin white tunic to keep him close. You only vaguely realize how little you sound like yourself as you plead: “I need it so bad, Ormund, please, fuck me—”
The man goes dizzy at the sound of your begging, as if he brought you into his camp, his tent, his bed, to do anything other than serve you.
His fingers glitter with your slick when he drags them out of your cunt. He brings them to his nose, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales the scent of your musk upon them. You whine at the sight of it — half-disgusted, half-intrigued. You watch with heavy eyes when he brings the same hand into his trousers to fist his half-hard cock fully stiff for you.
It’s a mess of tangled limbs for a moment, as you drag his shirt gracefully from his torso while he attempts to free himself from his breeches. He’s made of tanned skin, toned muscles, and a dusting of auburn hair from his sternum to his stomach. It grows more dense at the root of his cock — which is not quite as long as Gwayne’s, but thicker still and adorned with more prominent veins.
Ormund works himself hard with his fist; the reddened head of his cock leaks pearly drops every time his hand moves upwards. Your mouth waters for a taste. You let him smear it along the folds of your cunt instead.
You curl your arms under his broad arms to splay your hands along his shoulder blades. They flex slightly under your touch as he leans down over you. You tense on instinct when he pierces you with the tip of his cock. “Shh, shh, shh,” he soothes lowly, fighting back his own grunt as you spread so perfectly around him.
He sinks slowly into you, slow enough for you to feel every vein and ridge of his cock as he mounts you until his hips are flush with yours. Your mouth parts. He ducks down to kiss you before a moan tumbles out, swallowing the pretty sound with his mouth.
He stays still against you for several long, agonizing moments. Your hips buck against his in anticipation. “Please move,” you whine, digging crescent shapes into his shoulders with your nails. “I need you so much, please—”
Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been inside another woman?”
Your face screws. “I’d rather not hear about your previous exploits at the moment—”
“Don’t,” Ormund spits, shuddering on top of you when you roll your hips into his once more. He grasps your thigh hard enough to dig bruises into the plush skin with the hand not holding himself up beside your head. His light eyes turn glacial in an instant, darting wildly between both of yours. “I won’t… I won’t last…” he confesses.
Your eyes soften around the edges with a faux innocence. “This isn’t going to be the last time you fuck me, is it?”
The crude word falls so effortlessly from your pristine mouth that it makes his cock jerk within your drooling confines. “I don’t want it to be. No,” he answers, half-shy.
“Then I don’t care how long you last,” you assure him with a lazy grin. “You have kept me hostage for nearly a year— Surely, I’m entitled to make some use of my captor while the realm delays the war, am I not?”
Ormund’s resolve crumbles under your permission. He rolls his hips forward and back again, never quite pulling all the way out of you. He groans quietly when you clench around the sensitive head of his cock; and you swallow down a whimper when the coarse hair below his stomach rubs mercilessly along your sensitive clit.
Your head tips back. He falls to the hollow space between your neck and shoulder.
Ormund’s open-mouthed breaths fan warm along your burning skin as he stumbles into a graceless rhythm, thrusting hard enough to make the wooden frame of his bed squeak quietly beneath you.
The pressure on your clit is relentless. You squirm underneath his sweat-slick body, chasing and running from the pleasure all at once. “I know. I know. It’s okay,” you hear him slur against your skin. “Just take it. Just fuckin’ take it— Fuck—” His voice breaks like splintered glass.
He tenses suddenly above you, taut muscles trembling. You hear his breath catch for a moment, right before a foreign warmth pools in the very pit of your stomach. He groans in time with his release, heavying his weight further against you.
You aren’t far behind.
He grinds his hips lazily to ride out his high, smothering your sensitive clit as the warm, wet, sticky feeling continues to bloom inside of you. “Ormund—” you gasp, tensing beneath him.
“There it is…”the man praises as you tremble underneath him, smearing his lips against your jaw until they reach your parted mouth. “There it is— Fuck, that’s it,look at me.”
Your eyes snap open at his command, bleary and heavy-lidded. You ride out the rest of your orgasm with your gaze locked with his glassy one.
The honeyed moment doesn’t last nearly as long as either of you would’ve liked.
“My lord?”
The two of you sober in a flash as the spell between you shatters. Ormund stills suddenly above you, as if pierced by steel. The warmth flees from his features at once, replaced by the hard composure of the commander of House Hightower. You, too, freeze where you lay beneath him — pulse thrumming hard in your throat as the muffled voice drifts once more through the pavilion.
“My lord—”
“Yes, Daeron,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as he breathes through the rage searing in his chest. “What is it?”
The squire hesitates at his uncle’s harsh tone. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord…” the boy says carefully, hidden behind the covered entrance. “But a messenger arrived from the river road. He bears urgent word from Ser Criston’s camp.”
You feel your stomach sink — or, perhaps, it’s only the mixture of cum seeping out of your still fluttering confines, soaking the sheets beneath you. You feel unspeakably dirty now, and the lack of regret only deepens the feeling.
Ormund remains motionless above you for a moment before sitting back on his haunches. You shiver at the absence of his warmth, and wince slightly when his softening cock slips out of you. “A letter?” he calls to the entrance, brows lowered. “What news?”
“It is sealed, my lord,” Daeron says. “The messenger said it was to be opened by our hand alone.”
Ormund’s confusion deepens. “And who sends it?”
After another brief hesitation, the voice answers solemnly: “Ser Gwayne, my lord.”
ormund was worried that his grooming victims might unionize so he used a time-honored union busting tactic that the citadel employs against TAs: call one of them gay
Summary: Despite being a prisoner and the war still raging, a small light breaks through the darkness. Gwayne has arrived at Tumbelton, ready to join Ormund's forces. After months apart, you have the chance to see him again.
Warnings: Smut, barely any plot, porn with feelings, p in v, infidelity (not as you think… or maybe yes?)
An: Guys, I wrote this before episode 6 came out and before I saw all the rumors all over TikTok. I don't know, I just felt like a grieving widow or something.
Wc: 6.3K
Masterlist
Your hands were cold. That was the first thing you registered, before the news even had time to settle, before your heart had finished its frantic climb up your throat. And when it did settle? Nothing could have held you back. Not the guards, not the restrictions placed upon you, not the sharp calls of your name fading behind you as you ran.
You didn't stop until you saw his back.
"Gwayne?"
The name came out barely a breath, swallowed by the castle noise. He didn't hear you. But the second time, that time your voice found its nerve, you watched his shoulders go rigid, watched him turn like a man who already knew who he'd find.
Gods be good. He hadn't even had time to wash. Dust clung to his hair, his cloak still bore the road's grime, and the shadows beneath his eyes told you everything about how long he had kept riding. No rest. No pause. Just duty, shoved down his throat like stale bread.
Then he said your name.
And that was all you needed.
You were in his arms before you knew you'd moved, burying your face against his chest, your own arms locking around him like he might vanish if you let go. His came around you a heartbeat later—tight, desperate. He was really there.
He pulled you in harder, tucked his face into the curve of your neck, and you didn't care about the dirt or the sweat or how long it had been since either of you had felt anything but dread.
"What are you doing here?" His voice was muffled, thick. He pulled back just enough to look at you, hands finding your face. "Why are you here?"
The questions came too fast, worry bleeding through every syllable.
"Ormund knows," you said, and even you could hear how thin your voice sounded. "He knows Rhaenyra won't dare touch Tumbleton if she knows I'm here. If she knows my children are here too.”
His head dropped. You felt the tension ripple through him, saw his jaw work against whatever he wanted to say. He hated this. Of course he hated this. But he also knew, better than anyone, that when Ormund set his mind to something, not even the Seven themselves could pry it loose. The man was stubborn as a mule, and twice as loud about it.
"I'll speak with him," Gwayne said finally.
You couldn't help the small, tender smile that pulled at your mouth. There he was. Your Gwayne. The one who'd move heaven and earth if he thought it might spare you a single ache.
"Don't anger him," you murmured, reaching up to brush a smudge from his cheek. "You won't convince him of anything if you go in swinging."
He caught your hand before it fell, but instead of holding it, his fingers drifted lower. To your wrist. His eyes dropped, following the path of your sleeve, and you watched his expression shift when he spotted what you'd tried to hide.
"You're all right?" His voice was quieter now. Careful.
You pulled your hand back gently, tucking it against your chest. Away from his gaze.
"That question," you said softly, "should be mine to ask." You let your eyes travel over him, the exhaustion carved into his features, the grime settled into every crease of his clothing. You didn't know how far he'd ridden. How long he'd been awake. Or what happened after he left.
"Go. Speak with him." You stepped back, smoothed your hands down your dress. "I'll have a bath prepared for you."
Because if he couldn't rest yet, at least he could be clean. At least he could have that much.
You sank to your knees on the cold stone floor, your dress pooling around you like a whisper of silk against the flags. The fabric dragged softly as you settled, a gentle hush that seemed quiet as the room itself. Just this dim candlelight, this man with his eyes closed and his head tipped back against the edge of the tub.
His face was relaxed. Peaceful, even. And it struck you, watching him like this, how young he still looked when the weight of the world wasn't pressing down on his shoulders. Made you remember Oldtown in those early days, when everything had felt foreign and frightening and you'd wondered if you'd ever find your footing. Strange, how different that time feels now. Stranger still, how much has changed since.
You hadn't received a single word from him since the war began. Not one. Ormund had made certain of that—forbade you from sending or receiving any message that didn't pass through him first. Every raven that flew into Tumbleton, every rider that arrived with news, you'd watched with a hunger that bordered on desperate, hoping for something. A scrap. A whisper. Anything.
Nothing.
You dipped the cloth into the water, worked the soap into a soft lather, and began to trace it across his bare shoulders. The muscles there tensed for just a moment, then eased.
His eyes opened. Like he'd known it was you all along.
You smiled softly.
It had been months since he'd left. Months that had stretched themselves into years, each day longer than the last, each night emptier. You'd told yourself you were used to it. You'd been lying.
He smiled back at you, gentle and tired, but the worry hadn't left his eyes. It was still there, lurking beneath the surface, a shadow that no amount of warm water could wash away.
"Ormund is with Daeron," you continued, answering the question you knew was coming. "They'll be late. You have time."
Gwayne shifted, turning toward you, bringing his face closer to yours until you could feel the steam rising between you.
"How long have you been here?" he asked.
"Not long after Ormund pretended to surrender to my sister's forces." You paused, watching his brow furrow. "He tried to trick Daemon, sent a different boy in Daeron's place, hoping the ruse would hold."
Gwayne frowned, confusion pulling at his features. He didn't understand. How could he? Since Aemond's disappearance, since Rhaenyra and Daemon took King's Landing, Ormund had kept his plans close. Trusted no one. Spoke nothing aloud that he didn't have to. Gwayne had been riding blind this entire time.
"He told me none of this," he said slowly.
You kept moving the cloth across him—over his arms, across his chest, letting the motion steady you both. "He knew my sister wouldn't recognize Daeron by sight. He sent a decoy, bought himself time. And when the truth came out, he made sure Tumbleton was protected." You met his eyes. "By using me as a hostage."
Gwayne exhaled—a long, weary sound that seemed to carry every mile he'd ridden, every battle he'd fought, every sleepless night. His hands fell still in the water, and for a moment, he just sat there, letting the weight of it settle.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I should have done something. Kept you and the children away from all of this."
You smiled, though it didn't quite reach your eyes. You both knew that was a dream. A pretty one, but a dream nonetheless.
"It would have happened one way or another," you rested your arms along the rim of the tub. "You and I both knew that."
After all these months, his eyes on you felt like warm water on a winter's night. Like coming home.
You brushed a damp strand of hair from his forehead, your fingers trailing across his brow, tracing the lines of his face like you needed to memorize them all over again. Like touching him might quiet the anxious beat of your heart.
"I missed you," you breathed, no louder than a whisper against the wind.
His blue eyes found yours, those eyes that had more than once brought you comfort and company in the loneliness of a strange castle. He breathed your words in the same way you'd spoken them, slow and reverent, and reached for your hand. He guided your fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss there, soft and full of devotion.
"I missed you too," he murmured.
The water had grown tepid around him, but neither of you seemed to notice. Your fingers lingered at his temple, tracing the line of his jaw, and you watched his eyes flutter half-closed at the touch. Like a man starved for warmth. Like a man who'd forgotten what it felt like to be touched with anything other than violence.
"You're still wearing too many clothes," he murmured, and there was something different in his voice now. Lower. Rougher.
You laughed softly, the sound barely a breath. "And you're still covered in road dust. The bath was meant to fix that."
"I'm not talking about the bath."
His hand found your wrist again, but this time he didn't stop at your sleeve. He pulled gently, guiding you forward until your arms rested on the rim of the tub, until your face was close enough to feel the heat still rising from his skin. The candlelight flickered, casting shadows across his cheekbones, and you couldn't look away from his mouth.
"Let me finish washing you," you asked, your voice soft but steady.
Gwayne didn't stop you. He simply watched, those blue eyes tracking your every movement as you dipped the cloth back into the water. The soap had long since dissolved, but you worked it anyway, dragging the damp linen across his shoulders, down his chest, over the planes of his stomach. Each pass of the cloth made his breath hitch just slightly. Each touch of your fingers made his muscles tense beneath your palm.
You could feel the heat of him even through the cooling water. Could feel the way his gaze burned into the side of your face, patient and hungry all at once. Your own skin prickled under that attention, flushed and warm despite the chill in the air.
You kept washing him, down his arms, over his hands, between his fingers. You traced the lines of his palms, the calluses earned from years of swordplay.
And all the while, the space between you seemed to shrink, the air growing thick with something unspoken.
Finally, your hands stilled. The cloth dropped into the water with a soft plop.
You reached up and found the first lace of your dress.
Your fingers fumbled with it, nervous, clumsy, but you'd barely loosened one cord before Gwayne's hand caught yours.
"Let me," he husked.
His fingers replaced yours, working the laces with a deliberateness that made your stomach flip. One by one, he pulled them free, each tug loosening the fabric until you could feel it begin to slip. The bodice went slack. The weight of the dress shifted.
Then his hands found the edges of the fabric at your shoulders, and he pushed.
The silk slid down your arms in a slow, whispering cascade. Cool air kissed your bare skin, raising goosebumps along your arms, but you barely noticed. All you could feel was the heat of his gaze, the way his eyes traced the newly exposed curve of your shoulder, the line of your collarbone.
You shivered.
And then his lips were there, pressing soft and warm against the hollow where your neck met your shoulder. A sigh escaped you, breathily, almost helplessly, and you felt his mouth curve into a smile against your skin.
"Beautiful," he murmured, the word vibrating against you. "Gods, you're beautiful."
He kissed along your shoulder, slow and languid, his lips trailing a path that made your knees weak. Your hands found his shoulders for support, fingers digging into his damp skin as he worked his way across your collarbone. Each kiss was deliberate. Worshipful. Like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.
"Gwayne…" His name came out shakily, barely a whisper.
He pulled back just enough to look at you, and something in his expression shifted. Darkened. His hands found the loosened fabric of your dress and pushed it further down, letting it fall past your waist, past your hips, until it pooled on the cold stone floor in a heap of silk.
You stood before him, bare and trembling, and he looked at you like you were the answer to every prayer he'd ever whispered.
"Come here," he breathed. "Come here, please."
You didn't need to be asked twice.
He helped you into the tub, his hands firm on your waist, guiding you slowly, carefully, until you were standing between his thighs, the water lapping at your calves. The warmth of it seeped into your skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat radiating from him.
You lowered yourself onto his lap, facing him, and the feel of his skin against yours made you gasp. His chest pressed against your breasts. His thighs caged yours. And his hands, those steady, calloused hands, found your hips and held you like you were the most precious thing in the world.
His hands began their slow exploration.
The curve of your waist, the dip of your spine, the soft give of your hips beneath his palms. He traced you like a man learning a map by heart, each touch a line drawn in ink that would never fade.
You leaned into him, your body softening against his touch. Your eyes drifted closed, and you let yourself feel
The warmth of his hands, the steadiness of his breath, the way his thumbs swept in lazy circles against your skin. The water had gone cold around you both, but neither of you cared. His heat was enough. It was always enough.
He shifted beneath you, drawing closer, and you felt the brush of his chest against yours. The slight roughness of his skin, the way his heartbeat thrummed against your palm where your hand had come to rest over his heart.
His lips were so close you could feel the warmth of his breath.
"Don't get my hair wet," you whispered, the words slipping out before you could stop them.
A low chuckle rumbled through his chest. "I know."
And then he kissed you.
Was slow, unhurried, a kiss that tasted of longing and patience and the ache of months spent apart. His lips brushed against yours like a question, soft and tender, and you answered by tilting your head, by parting your lips just enough to let him in. He has always asked.
He deepened the kiss slowly, his tongue tracing the seam of your mouth before slipping inside. The taste of him was familiar and foreign all at once—home and discovery tangled together. You sighed against him, your fingers curling into the damp hair at the nape of his neck.
His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer until there was no space left between you. Your chest pressed against his, your thighs tightening around his hips, and you felt every inch of him against you. The water sloshed gently around you, a soft rhythm that matched the beat of your heart.
You draped your arms over his shoulders, fingers threading through his hair, and kissed him back with equal tenderness. Your tongues met in a lazy, rolling dance, slow and sensual. His hands wandered down your back, tracing the valley of your spine, the curve of your bottom, the backs of your thighs.
" I'd forgotten how good you feel." he breathed against your lips.
"Don't forget again," you murmured back.
He smiled against your mouth. "Never."
His hands found your breasts, cupping them gently, his thumbs brushing across your nipples in slow, teasing circles. You gasped into his mouth, your hips rolling against him instinctively. He groaned at the contact, low and throaty, and his hands tightened on you.
"I know," he husked. "I know. Just let me—let me touch you. I need to touch you."
And he did. His hands roamed your body like he was relearning every curve, every dip, every secret place that made you shiver. He traced the line of your throat, the hollow between your breasts, the soft skin of your inner thighs. Each touch was worship. Each caress, a prayer.
You let him. You gave yourself over to his hands, to the slow, languid exploration that left you breathless and aching. Your own hands mirrored his movements—trailing down his chest, over the ridges of his stomach, lower still until your fingers brushed against him.
He hissed through his teeth, his hips bucking into your touch.
"You're going to undo me," he rasped, his voice catching on the last word.
You smiled against his shoulder, your fingers still wrapped around him, stroking slowly, deliberately. The sound he made, low and guttural, torn from somewhere deep in his chest, sent a thrill through you.
"That's the idea," you whispered.
His hand found your chin, tilting your face up toward his. Those blue eyes, dark now, hooded with want, searched yours for a heartbeat. Then he kissed you again.
Your fingers were still wrapped around him, stroking lazily, and he groaned into your mouth. The vibration of it traveled through you, warm and electric. His hips rolled against your hand, seeking more friction, and you gave it to him, slow, torturous circles that made him break the kiss with a gasp.
His hands slid down your back, gripping your hips, and you felt the shift in his body. The tension coiling, the intent building.
Then he stood.
Water cascaded from his body in sheets, streaming down his chest, his thighs, splashing back into the tub with a sound that seemed too loud in the quiet of the room. He lifted you with him, your legs wrapping around his waist, your arms locked around his neck. You clung to him, startled and breathless, as he stepped out of the tub.
"Gwayne…"
"Shh." He pressed a kiss to your temple, then your cheek, then the corner of your mouth. "I've got you."
Water dripped from both of you, pooling on the stone floor as he carried you across the room. His skin was warm against yours, slick and damp, and you could feel every shift of muscle as he moved. The strength in his arms, the steadiness of his stride.
He laid you down on the bed, gently, so gently, like you were something fragile. The sheets were cool against your back, a stark contrast to the heat of his body as he followed you down, covering you with his weight.
His forearms braced on either side of your head, caging you in. Water dripped from his hair onto your face, your chest, and you blinked up at him through the droplets. He looked like a god like this, all sharp angles and soft shadows, his chest still heaving, his eyes burning with an intensity that made your heart stutter.
His tongue met yours in a slow, sensual dance, and you felt his hips settle between your thighs. The weight of him pressed against you, the heat of him seeping into your skin.
"Are you all right?" he breathed against your lips. His hand came up to brush a damp strand of hair from your face. "Tell me you're all right."
"I'm perfect," you whispered. "I'm perfect right now."
He smiled, and it was like watching the sun break through clouds. He kissed your forehead, your nose, each corner of your mouth.
Then he reached down between you, guiding himself to your entrance, and you felt the blunt pressure of him against you.
"Look at me," he husked. "I want to see your eyes."
You did. You looked into those blue depths as he pushed inside you, slowly, so slowly, inch by agonizing inch. The stretch of him, the fullness, the way he filled you completely, it stole your breath. Your fingers dug into his shoulders, and a sound escaped you, low and breathy.
He stilled once he was fully seated, his forehead pressed to yours. His breath was ragged, his chest heaving against yours.
"Move," you pleaded. "Please, Gwayne. Move."
He did.
His hips began to move, slow and deep, each thrust a deliberate, languid stroke that made you see stars. Your legs tightened around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he groaned against your neck.
"Like that?" he murmured, his voice rough. "Is that what you want?"
"Yes—yes, like that—"
He kissed you, swallowing your words, and you felt his rhythm quicken. Still deep, still deliberate, but faster now, more urgent. The bed creaked beneath you, a soft counterpoint to the wet sounds of your bodies moving together.
His name came out in a broken gasp of your mouth.
“I can feel you squeezing me."
You were. You could feel the tension building low in your belly, coiling tighter with each thrust. Your nails raked down his back, and he hissed at the sensation, his pace growing rougher.
"Come for me," he rasped. "Please. I need to feel you come around me."
That was all it took.
Your climax crashed through you like a wave, splintering you apart, and you cried out his name—loudly, wantonly, without shame. Your body clenched around him, pulsing, and he followed a heartbeat later, burying himself deep as he spilled inside you with a groan that seemed to come from somewhere primal.
Your humming filled the quiet room, soft and lilting, a melody you'd half-forgotten from your own childhood. Your fingers moved through your children's hair—slow, soothing strokes that made them sigh in their sleep. They looked so peaceful like this. So small. So untouched by the war raging beyond these walls.
Two hours. That was all Ormund allowed you. Two hours a day to sit with them, to hold them, to pretend for just a little while that you were still their mother and not just another piece on the board.
The door opened.
Your smile faltered. Just slightly. Just enough for someone who knew you to notice. You dropped your gaze to your eldest, tracing the curve of his cheek with your thumb, buying yourself a moment to compose your features.
"Today you're late," came the voice from the doorway.
You looked up.
Ormund stood there, silhouetted against the torchlight in the corridor. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his expression was unreadable—that careful mask he wore when he was measuring his next move. You'd learned to read him over the years, but some days he was still a closed book.
"I wasn't feeling well," you answered.
He said nothing. Just watched you with those dark eyes that missed nothing. The silence stretched between you, heavy and expectant. You knew that silence. It was the one that came before a question you didn't want to answer, or an accusation you hadn't seen coming.
"How is Daeron?" you asked, desperate to fill the space with something neutral. Something safe.
Ormund's head tilted, just slightly. "I heard you received Gwayne."
Your body went still. The kind of stillness that came too fast to hide, too obvious to deny. You felt the flicker of panic in your chest and forced it down, forced your expression to remain calm.
"He's your cousin. Of course I received him." You offered a smile, careful and measured. "It would be strange if I didn't."
The corner of his mouth twitched. A smile, or the ghost of one. You couldn't tell if he was mocking you or if he'd taken your answer at face value. With Ormund, it was always impossible to know.
He walked toward you until he stood directly in front of you. You had to lift your chin to meet his eyes, the difference in height making you feel smaller than you wanted to.
"You took a bath."
It was a question, or maybe not.
"I did."
Lying would have been pointless. He could probably smell the soap on your skin from here. You'd been careless.
"The servants didn't notify me," Ormund said, and there was something new in his voice now. Something that made your stomach clench.
"Do they need to notify you every time I take a bath?" You tried for incredulity, for indignation.
Ormund shrugged, a casual roll of his shoulders that did nothing to ease the tension in the room. "You're my wife. And you're quite important at the moment. Of course I should know everything you do."
You held his gaze for a long moment. Five seconds. Ten. You didn't move, didn't blink, didn't give him anything to work with.
Then you rose to your feet.
Now you stood at his height, your chin level with his, your eyes meeting his without flinching. You were a prisoner, yes. But you were still a lady of a great house, and you would not cower.
"You can ask the servants," you said evenly. "I ordered the bath prepared. There's nothing to hide."
Ormund's lips curved into a smile.
"I know," he said.
He reached out and took a strand of your hair between his fingers, rolling it absently, watching the way it caught the firelight.
"Did he tell you why he arrived alone?”
You kept your face neutral. "He told me nothing. He barely had time to accept my regards before you summoned him."
Ormund's fingers released your hair, and he stepped back. His smile had faded.
"He's been away a long time. I'm sure he'd appreciate the distraction."
There was something in the way he said it. A hint of amusement, or suspicion, or both. You couldn't tell, and that was the worst part.
"I'll do that," you replied, keeping your voice even.
Ormund turned toward the door, but paused at the threshold. He looked back at you over his shoulder, and for a moment, the mask slipped. You saw something flicker in his eyes—something that might have been jealousy, or might have been warning.
"Don't forget who you belong to," he said quietly. "You're my wife. My hostage. Keep that in mind.”
Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him, and you were left alone in the quiet room with your sleeping children and the echo of his words.
For someone who used to express his repudiation of your blood and name, sometimes he made you think that, at times, he didn't.
Aerion Targaryen x f!reader x Valarr Targaryen (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5)
Summary: Based on the request "A fic where you tried to give Valarr a love potion but Aerion drinks it instead (like what one of Egg's sisters did)". Reader is a Baratheon (but no physical descriptions are given), who is a childhood friend of Valarr's. Chapter summary: The wedding.
The wedding was held in the Red Keep on a morning so bright and clear it seemed the very sky had bent itself to the occasion.
You had not slept the night before. From the nerves, from the strange, suspended awareness that everything was about to change, that the life you had known within these walls was ending and something entirely new was about to begin. You had lain awake in your chambers, watching the moonlight creep across the ceiling, listening to the distant sounds of servants making final preparations, and waiting for the dawn.
The wedding dress was beautiful. You had known it would be: you had sat through enough fittings, stood still for enough pinpricks, nodded along to enough seamstresses' questions, but seeing it laid out across your bed in the morning light was something else entirely. Cream silk, heavy and lustrous, embroidered with gold thread that caught the light in shifting patterns. Stags and dragons intertwined along the hem. The bodice was fitted, the sleeves long and flowing, the train modest but elegant.
You were laced you into it, your handmaidens settled the fabric over your shoulders and smoothed the skirts, you looked at yourself in the mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back. You looked like a princess.
Lyonel had commissioned a circlet.
That had been a battle in itself, your uncle and Maekar going back and forth for days over whether a crown of antlers, however delicate, constituted a political statement. Lyonel had argued that it was merely an ornament, a nod to your house, a gift from an uncle to his beloved niece on her wedding day. Maekar had argued that it looked too much like a crown, that placing it on your head at a royal wedding would be seen as a challenge, a subtle declaration of Baratheon independence.
"Subtle?" Lyonel had roared, genuinely affronted. "If I wanted to make a statement, I would make a statement!"
In the end, a compromise had been reached. The circlet was fashioned to hold your veil. Worn with the veil cascading from it, it looked less like a crown and more like an adornment.
You loved it. You loved it because it was yours, because it was Baratheon, because your uncle had argued for days to give you something that spoke of home on a day when you were binding yourself to a house of dragons.
"Let them see it," Aerion had said when you told him about the argument. "Let them see you are not ashamed of where you come from."
He did not care about subtlety. He never had.
He was waiting for you at the altar in crimson and gold.
The colors of his house, but also the colors of himself, the Brightflame, they called him, and he looked it. His doublet was crimson silk embroidered with gold thread in patterns of fire, his cloak the deep red of dragon's blood, his eyes vivid violet against the warm tones of his dress.
The ceremony passed in a blur of words, lights and the weight of a hundred eyes upon you. You remembered speaking your vows, your voice steady even when your hands trembled. You remembered the brush of Aerion's fingers against yours, the way his eyes never left your face. You remembered the septon's voice, sonorous and slow, and the moment of silence that followed the final blessing, as though the whole sept was holding its breath.
Then Aerion kissed you, a deep, long kiss instead of the chaste, ceremonial kiss that protocol demanded, enough to make the assembled lords and ladies murmur and chuckle and, in your uncle's case, let out a bark of approving laughter.
When he pulled back, his mouth curved into that familiar, insufferable smile, and he murmured against your lips, "Wife."
"Husband," you replied, and the word felt strange and new but not unwelcome.
The feast came after.
But first, there was the gift.
He presented it outside, in full view overlooking the Blackwater, in front of the assembled guests, with theatrical flourish that was entirely characteristic of him. A ship, he announced, newly built and newly blessed, waiting in the harbor to carry you wherever you wished to go.
"Her name is the Storm's Eye," he said, and his voice was quieter now, meant only for you despite the crowd. "Do you know why?"
You shook your head.
"Because it is always calm in the eye of the storm." He reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear with a gentleness that still surprised you. "You carry the storm in your blood. I have seen it. But you deserve a place of calm as well. A place where the winds do not touch you."
You swallowed against the sudden tightness in your throat. "You named a ship after a metaphor."
"I named a ship after my wife." He said it simply, as though it were obvious. "The metaphor was incidental."
The ship was beautiful, from what you could see of her in the harbor below, sleek and well-made, with a crew already aboard and sails the deep gold of a sunset. The Storm's Eye. Your ship. Yours and his, to take you across the Narrow Sea and beyond, to the Summer Isles and wherever else you wished to go.
You did not know what to say. So you kissed him instead, right there in the courtyard, and the crowd cheered.
The feast began at dusk.
The great hall of the Red Keep had been transformed, the long tables draped in cloth of gold, the torches burning bright in their sconces, the air thick with the smell of roasted meats, spiced wine and fresh flowers. Musicians played, their melodies weaving through the noise of conversation and laughter. You sat at the high table between Aerion and your uncle, and for the first hour you barely had a moment to catch your breath: toast after toast, well-wisher after well-wisher, lords and ladies approaching to offer their congratulations and their carefully worded flatteries.
Aerion drank with them all. He was in high spirits, his laughter coming easily, his hand finding yours beneath the table and squeezing whenever a particular lord droned on too long. You ate what you could, smiled until your cheeks ached, and tried to memorize the feeling of it all: the warmth, the noise, the strange suspended joy of the day.
Then the dancing began.
Aerion claimed the first dance, as was his right. Then the second. Then the third.
"You will wear yourself out," you told him, half-laughing as he spun you through the steps of a lively reel.
"I am inexhaustible," he replied, entirely serious. "And I intend to dance with my wife as much as I please."
He was a good dancer, which should not have surprised you. He moved with the same careless grace he brought to everything else, leading you through the steps with a confidence that made it easy to follow. When the music slowed, he pulled you closer than was strictly proper, his hand resting low on your back, his breath warm against your temple.
"You are staring at me," you murmured.
"I am admiring you. There is a difference."
"Is there?"
"Staring is vulgar. Admiration is a husband's duty." He tilted his head, his eyes tracing over your face with an attention that made your skin heat. "I am merely fulfilling my obligations."
You laughed, he grinned, and for a moment you forgot the crowd, the noise, the weight of the day. There was only the music and his hand in yours and the strange, unfolding realization that this was your life now: this man, this dance, this improbable, inexplicable joy.
The toasts and shouts mellowed as the evening wore on. The older lords retreated to their wine, the younger ones to their flirtations, and the dancing continued in a more subdued fashion. The musicians shifted to slower tunes, melodies that spoke of love, longing and the bittersweet passage of time.
You were standing at the edge of the hall, catching your breath after a particularly energetic dance with your uncle, when Valarr approached.
He was dressed simply, in the red and black of his house, his dark hair neatly combed, his expression composed. He looked tired, you thought. Or perhaps that was only your imagination, projecting onto him the weariness you yourself had been carrying beneath the joy of the day.
"May I have this dance?" he asked gently.
You glanced at Aerion, who was deep in conversation with Daella and Rhae at the high table. He did not see you. Or if he did, he gave no sign.
"Yes," you said. "You may."
Valarr led you to the floor just as the musicians began a new song. It was achingly slow. His hand settled at your waist with the lightest of touches. Your hand rested on his shoulder. You began to move.
Neither of you spoke. This was familiar. This was a thing you had done a hundred times before, in this very hall, to songs not so different from this one. Valarr had always danced with you at feasts, even when you were young and clumsy and likely to step on his feet. He had never complained. He had only smiled, that quiet smile that was meant just for you, and guided you through the steps with a patience that had made you feel safe.
You remembered the first time.
You had been twelve years old, awkward in your first proper gown, terrified of making a fool of yourself in front of the court. He had found you hiding behind a pillar, trying to make yourself small, and he had taken your hand without a word and led you onto the floor.
"Follow me," he had said. "I will not let you fall."
You had followed, and he had not let you fall.
You remembered the time he had taught you the steps. You had practiced together in the library after lessons, moving between the bookshelves, counting the beats under your breath while he hummed the melody. When you had finally mastered it, he had bowed to you with exaggerated formality and declared you the finest dancer in the Seven Kingdoms.
"The finest dancer in the library, at least," you had corrected.
"The finest dancer anywhere," he had insisted, and his eyes had been bright with laughter.
You remembered the feast to celebrate his sixteenth nameday, when he had been expected to dance with every noble daughter in attendance and had instead spent half the evening dancing with you. The lords had grumbled. The ladies had whispered. He had not seemed to notice, or care.
"You are neglecting your duties," you had said, glancing at the line of disappointed partners waiting at the edge of the floor.
"I am dancing with my friend," he had replied. "That is not neglect."
That had been the last gesture of rebellion against his duties. The last floundering against the weight of the Crown.
You remembered the winter feast, the one where the fires had burned low and the hall had grown cold, and he had given you his cloak without a second thought and insisted he was not cold at all, even though his hands had been shaking when he took yours for the next dance.
"You are a terrible liar," you had told him.
"I am an excellent liar," he had corrected. "You are simply too perceptive."
You remembered a thousand small moments, a thousand kindnesses, a thousand times when his presence had been the only thing that made the Red Keep feel like home. The books he had shared with you. The speeches he had rehearsed in front of you. The way he had leaned into you when his mother died, silent, shaking, trusting you to hold him steady.
You remembered the kiss. The only one. The one he had given you to satisfy your curiosity and soothe your fears. You remembered the bracelet on his wrist, the one you had woven with your own hands and he still wore even now, even as he danced with you on your wedding day.
The music swelled, something mournful and sweet, and Valarr's hand tightened on yours.
"You dance well," he said quietly. "You always have."
"You taught me well," you replied.
He shook his head. "You never needed teaching. You only needed someone to remind you that you already knew."
You moved together through the steps, and it was effortless. You did not stumble. You did not miss a beat. You had learned this dance long ago, the two of you, and your bodies remembered it even now, even after everything.
"I am glad," he said after a moment, and his voice was very soft, very careful. "That you will see the world. The Summer Isles. Essos. All the places you used to read about in those books I brought you."
"You brought me far too many books," you said, and your voice nearly broke on the words.
"There is no such thing as too many books." He smiled, but it was fragile, easily shattered. "I want you to see it all. The markets of Lys. The temples of Volantis. The beaches of the Summer Isles, where the sand is white and the water is clear as glass. You used to talk about it, do you remember? You would sit by the window and point at the ships in the harbor and say, 'One day I will sail away on one of those.'"
"And you would say, 'Then I will wave to you from the shore.'"
"Yes." He swallowed. "That is what I would say."
The music was winding down. You could feel it in the slowing rhythm, the way the melody curled in on itself like a flower closing its petals at dusk. You did not want it to end. You wanted to stay here, in this moment, suspended between past and future, between what could have been and what was.
"You will be happy," Valarr decided.
"I will try," you promised.
"No." He stopped moving. The music continued around you, the other dancers swirled past in a blur of color and light. His hand was still at your waist. His eyes were dark. "You will be happy. You will be happy because you are strong, because you are brave, and because you have a heart that does not know how to give less than everything. And he..." He glanced toward the high table, where Aerion was watching you now with an unreadable expression. "He will give you the world. I know he will. He would be a fool not to."
"Valarr…"
"I am saying farewell," he murmured to you. "For now. Not forever. I could not bear forever. But for now." He lifted your hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to your knuckles, so brief and light you almost did not feel it. "Go. Live. See the world. And when you return, I will be here. As I have always been. As your friend."
Your eyes burned. You blinked rapidly, refusing to let the tears fall, not here, not now, not in front of the whole court.
"Thank you," you whispered. "For all of it. For looking out for me. For being the best friend I could've asked for. I would not have survived this place without you."
"You would have," he said. "You are a Baratheon. Surviving is what you do." He released your hand, stepping back. "But I am glad I was there."
The music ended. The other dancers began to drift back toward the tables, their laughter and conversation filling the silence that the melody had left behind. Valarr bowed to you, a formal bow, the bow of a prince to a princess, correct and proper and utterly, devastatingly wrong.
"Until we meet again," he said.
"Until then," you replied.
He walked away.
You stood alone on the dance floor for a moment, the echoes of the music still ringing in your ears. Your chest ached with a grief that felt both old and new, a wound that had been healing and reopening in cycles for as long as you could remember. You had loved him. You would always love him, in some small way. But that love was no longer the center of your world. It was a memory now. A beautiful, painful, precious memory.
You turned.
Aerion was watching you from the high table. His expression was curious, awaiting.
You walked back to him. You climbed the steps to the high table and took your seat beside your husband. His hand found yours beneath the table. You held on tight.
"You danced with him," Aerion said.
"Yes."
"Are you all right?"
You considered the question. Were you all right? You had married a man you had not expected to marry. You had said farewell to the man you had once thought you would spend your life with. You were leaving behind everything you had known and stepping into a future that was vast and uncertain and full of possibilities you could not yet imagine.
"I think," you said slowly, "that I will be."
Aerion nodded, as though that were exactly the answer he had expected.
"Good," he said. "Because I did not buy you a ship only for you to spend the voyage weeping into your pillow."
You laughed. A startled, genuine laugh that surprised you both. "That is remarkably unsympathetic."
"I am a remarkably unsympathetic man." He leaned closer, his mouth brushing your ear. "But I am also a patient one. And I will be here. When you are ready. When the grief has faded and the memories have softened and you are able to look at me without seeing him."
You pulled back, studying his face. He was serious now, the playfulness gone, his violet eyes steady on yours.
"I do not see him," you shook your head. "When I look at you. I only see you."
Surprise flickered on his face, or perhaps relief, or something deeper that he would never put into words. Then he smiled, that slow, insufferable smile that you had come to know so well.
"In that case," he said, rising and offering you his hand, "I believe we have a wedding night to attend to. And I have been very patient."
You took his hand. You let him lead you from the hall, past the cheering guests and the raised goblets and your uncle's booming laughter, past the musicians who struck up a final, triumphant chord, past the doors that closed behind you and shut out the noise of the celebration.
a/n: Liked the fic? You can donate on Ko-fi, your support helps me write more: https://ko-fi.com/catbayunthestoryteller <3
Thinking about Gwayne being the most devoted husband..
He seeks you out everywhere, and in every thing. Knighthood may have taught him to be vigilant and steadfast, always looking over one shoulder to the other, but it doesn’t come close to how quickly he finds you.
His eyes search. Across court, through corridors, from the other side of the courtyard, even mid conversation, his gaze remains on you. Studying, computing, making sure you are alright, for no other reason than because he can.
No matter how many years together, he still treats you as he did when you were his betrothed. But in the sense that his chivalry knows no bounds. Only now, knowing you more. Always walking a step behind you, but with his hand raised to your lower back. Bringing flowers by hand to your solar or chambers when he returns home. Unclasping his cloak from himself to drape it around your shoulders on colder nights. It’s become second nature now.
And he secretly loves when you steal them from him, letting it fall into your hands even when his men eye him from behind. He could care less, so long as you’re the one doing it.
You’re the last person he sees before battles, if the time will allow him. It’s a ritual he has, already in his armour, tucking his helm under his arm before standing in front of you.
“Do you have to go?” You blink up at him, still fussing with the steel placed on his arm.
“You know that I must. I only want to make sure your face is the last I see.” His voice is a delicate rasp, not once tearing his eyes from you as his fingers raise you strike your cheek.
Your hand plants into the metal under your hand, nudging him as he tempts a smile, the action barely knocking him back at all. And then he leans, placing a kiss to your cheek, one longing and lasting, nudging his nose to yours as he breaths. Another one captures your lips, this time more fervent, both palms smoothing to the sides of your face as he draws you near. So that should it be the last, it’s the only thing to remember him by.
Speaking of battle and being taken from you, he brings souvenirs and gifts back with him as often as he can. Pressed flowers in his handkerchief at his breastplate, ones far from what you’re used to, summer flowers, wildflowers, and herbs in vibrant colours. Trinkets and delicate pieces of jewellery that are dainty enough to fit into his pockets. Or simply just the small letters he sends more frequently than he should by Raven.
Always signed with the signature of his name and beneath it:
Forever Yours.
The most protective in the quiet way. Because even if he can’t be beside you, his eye always is. Though jealousy isn’t something strong with him, he is weary of those around him, with full trust and care of you. He had seen how depraved men can be, how ruthless they become with a quick turn. At feasts he pulls out your chair, sliding an arm around you, or settling lowly on your knee, at ceremonies or in large crowds he’s at your side. And when others raise their voice or get too close, he’s slipping impossibly close just to put himself between you and the danger.
Gwayne doesn’t do titles, at least only for the times when duty doesn’t require it, and he introduces you as such. To him you are not just lady.. he speaks your name first, and that alone, before he continues.
“My wife..” A proud smile appearing on his face as he draws you closer to him. Though for whatever reason, he still uses ‘My Lady’ to tease in the softer moments, wrapping his arms behind you as you stand in front of your vanity, lips pursing at your neck. Because the titles and endearments are for you, no one else.
His favourite pastime is just being in the quiet with you, existing together, more so reading. Sometimes he will read with you in his lap, one hand combing gently through your hair as you listen, drifting slowly. Other times he’s the one laid behind you, your back pressed into his chest, his arms curling around you as you hold the book. Those are the rare times he truly feels like he relaxes, eyes closing, breath warm at your neck, listening to the soothing tone of your voice.
He reserves the more lighthearted sides of himself in private. Most people would describe him as plain, a chivalrous, good man, but perhaps in some people’s eyes boring. He doesn’t stand and shout amongst the other men, or become raucous in crowds, but he isn’t without humour. It’s dry, and sarcastic like he is. Like the looks he gives you from the side when a lord drones on too long, or the sly comments he makes behind someone else’s back that make you both laugh when you’re attempting to stay serious. There is more to him than most know, and he’s often mocking them at their own expense, just to see you smile.
When the weight of the realm feels impossibly heavy, he simply rests his forehead against your own, in company or without it. It’s your shared way of grounding one another, and how he vows to you silently, over and over, that he is yours. He’s here to protect, and be by your side more than any other responsibility that befalls him.
“Yours, before all else.”
He says it plainly, a whisper against your lips or into your hair, meant only for you, because by the Seven and his oath, that’s the truest thing he’ll ever believe in.
Aerion Targaryen x f!reader x Valarr Targaryen (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.)
Summary: Based on the request "A fic where you tried to give Valarr a love potion but Aerion drinks it instead (like what one of Egg's sisters did)". Reader is a Baratheon (but no physical descriptions are given), who is a childhood friend of Valarr's.
Chapter summary: Wedding preparations, Valarr is getting booed in the comments but let him speak for a bit that's his best friend.
a/n: The last chapter of Growing Strong series is out, btw, for those not yet aware! <3
You did not see Aerion again until the preparations began in earnest.
The wedding was to be held at the Red Keep, Maekar had insisted, and Lyonel had conceded the point with only a moderate amount of grumbling, but from there, the celebrations would sprawl. Storm's End first, at your uncle's insistence, and then onward to Summerhall, and from there, if the winds were favorable, perhaps farther still.
"Half the Seven Kingdoms," Lyonel had declared, slamming his goblet down with the enthusiasm of a man who had never met a celebration he did not wish to prolong. "My niece will not be married in a single morning and packed off like cargo. There will be feasts. There will be tourneys. There will be..."
"There will be considerable expense," Maekar had interjected, though without real heat.
"Then it is fortunate I am a generous man."
The negotiations had stretched for hours, but the outcome was settled. The wedding would take place within the fortnight, and then the journey would begin.
You found yourself caught in a whirlwind of fittings and fabric, of seating arrangements and guest lists, of decisions that seemed to multiply the moment one was resolved. Your maids were run ragged. The seamstresses worked by candlelight. Through it all, Aerion hovered, appearing at odd moments to make observations no one had asked for and suggestions that ranged from the impractical to the absurd.
"You should have live doves released during the ceremony," he said one afternoon, leaning against the doorframe of the solar where you were reviewing the menu with the head cook.
"Doves," you repeated flatly.
"White ones. A hundred of them."
"And who would clean the droppings from the guests' finery?"
He had grinned at that, as though your practicality were endearing rather than obstructive. "We could train them."
"We are not releasing doves."
You had not meant it to sound like a shared decision, but something in the phrasing made him pause. A flicker of surprise, perhaps, or satisfaction, crossed his face before he pushed himself away from the doorframe and strolled off, presumably to conceive of other nuisances.
He found you one afternoon, slipping into the solar where you had retreated to escape the chaos of preparations. He did not announce himself, he never did, but you had grown accustomed to the way the air seemed to shift just before he appeared at your elbow.
"Summerhall first," he said, dropping into the chair across from yours without invitation, "then Storm's End, if my father and your uncle can agree on the order of precedence without coming to blows. But after that…" He leaned forward, his violet eyes alight with mischief. "What would you say to the Summer Isles?"
You blinked. "The Summer Isles?"
"As a wedding gift. Or part of one, at least. I am given to understand the beaches are remarkable. The women there paint their faces with crushed flowers and walk about half-naked, or so the sailors claim." His mouth curved. "I thought you might like to see them. The beaches, that is. Not the half-naked women. Though I would not object if you were so endeared by the tradition that you chose to follow..."
"You are incorrigible."
"I am generous," he corrected. "Incorrigible would be booking passage without asking. I am asking."
You studied him for a long moment. There was a restlessness in him that you had come to recognize, a hunger for movement, for novelty, for anything that was not the staid repetition of court life. He wanted to show you things. He wanted to be the one who opened the world to you.
"I have never been on a ship," you said.
His mouth curved. "Then you are long overdue."
"And the expense..."
"Is my concern. Yours is only whether you wish to go."
The word left you before you could weigh it. "Yes."
His smile widened, and for just a moment he looked almost boyish, stripped of the careless arrogance. Then he rose, pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head before you could protest, and strode from the room with the satisfied air of a man who had accomplished precisely what he intended.
Daella and Rhae were beside themselves with excitement, and they attached themselves to you with a fervor that was both endearing and exhausting. Daella chattered endlessly about the wedding, about the gowns and the flowers and the music, about how wonderful it would be to have you as a goodsister at last. Rhae, for her part, had abandoned her potions, at least temporarily, in favor of demanding every detail of your courtship, her eyes bright with the satisfaction of a creator surveying her work.
"I told you it would work," she said, for what must have been the hundredth time.
"You told us many things," Daella replied dryly. "Most of them did not work."
"This one did."
"It made him vomit, Rhae."
"After it made him love her. The vomiting was merely an unexpected refinement."
You laughed despite yourself. It was difficult not to, with the two of them bickering around you like a pair of brightly plumed birds. Their affection was genuine, and you found yourself returning it more easily than you had expected. They would be your family soon.
Valarr, you saw little of.
He had not sought you out since that night in the corridor, when Aerion had intercepted his offer to undo the betrothal. You caught glimpses of him at meals, across the hall during audiences, walking with his brother Matarys in the gardens. He always inclined his head politely when your eyes met. He always looked away first.
You told yourself it was for the best.
Sleep had become elusive.
It was not the wedding preparations that kept you awake, though they were certainly demanding enough. It was not the prospect of marriage itself, or not only that. It was the accumulation of everything, the weight of decisions made and unmade, the sense that your life had been wrenched from its expected course and set upon a path you had never charted.
The night was cool when you slipped from your chambers, pulling a shawl around your shoulders against the damp. The Red Keep was never truly silent, but in the small hours it grew still enough that you could hear your own footsteps, the soft scuff of slippers on stone, the distant murmur of guards changing watch.
You did not intend to go to the gardens. Your feet carried you there anyway. To the old oak bench beneath the flowering arbor. The place where you and Valarr had sat together a hundred times before.
He was already there.
You stopped when you saw him, your breath catching in your throat. He was seated on the bench, a small clay teapot and two cups arranged on the stone beside him, a plate of honey cakes balanced on his knee. He looked up at the sound of your footsteps, and his expression was not surprised. Only weary, sad.
"I had a feeling you would be restless," he said, and his voice was the same as it had always been: gentle, measured, careful. "With all this commotion."
You did not move. "Valarr…"
"Sit." He gestured to the space beside him. "Please. I brought your favorite tea. The herbal blend, the one cook used to make for you when you could not sleep as a girl. And honey cakes. You've always liked them."
You sat.
The bench was cold beneath you, the wood rough against your palms. He poured the tea into one of the cups and handed it to you, and the warmth of it seeped through the clay into your fingers. The scent was familiar, achingly so, chamomile and mint and something faintly sweet that you could never quite identify. You wrapped your hands around the cup and breathed it in.
For a long moment, neither of you spoke.
Then, quietly, "I am sorry."
Valarr turned to look at you.
"For ignoring you," you continued, your voice steadier than you felt. "These past days. I have not been…I did not know how to…"
"You had every right." He shook his head, cutting off your fumbling apology with a gentleness that only made it worse. "I should not have intervened the way I did. It was not my place. I was only…"
"Worried," you finished.
"Yes." He exhaled, a long slow breath that seemed to carry the weight of weeks. "This whole business with Aerion: the potion, the sudden betrothal, all of it...it happened so quickly. I was afraid he was playing some cruel jest. I could not bear the thought of you being made a fool of, not after everything. Not by him."
"He is not," you said. "Playing a jest, I mean. Not anymore."
"No," Valarr agreed, and there was something in his voice that you could not quite parse. "I see that now. He seems to genuinely like you. And I think…" He paused, his gaze drifting to the moonlit flowers beyond the arbor. "I think it will be good for you. To have fun. To go out and see the world. You have always wanted to be a respected lady, worthy of your name. I know that. I have always known that. But perhaps…" He turned back to you, and his eyes were dark in the moonlight. "Perhaps living on your own terms is where happiness truly lies. Instead of seeking approval from others."
You swallowed. "That is very philosophical for this hour of the night."
He laughed, a soft huff of breath that barely disturbed the stillness. "I have had a great deal of time to think."
"You will have that freedom with Aerion," he continued, quieter now. "More than I have. More than I could ever give to you, if you stayed here with me at the Red Keep. He is not bound the way I am. He can take you to the Summer Isles, to Essos, to anywhere you wish. He can let you be yourself, not just a lady of the court but…" He trailed off, searching for the word. "Just you."
You set the teacup down on the stone beside you, your fingers trembling slightly. "Valarr…"
"The bracelet," he said suddenly, and you saw him touch his wrist, where a thin woven band of thread sat against his skin. It was old now, the colors faded, the weave fraying at the edges. You had made it for him when you were ten years old, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the nursery while he read aloud from a book of Old Valyrian tales. "I still wear it. I will always wear it. As a sign of friendship."
You stared at the bracelet. You had not realized he still had it, let alone that he wore it.
"Is it appropriate?" you asked, your voice coming out rougher than you intended. "To wear jewelry another woman made for you, when you are to be married?"
"It is a memory of childhood," he said simply. "It contains good wishes and luck. That is all there is for anyone to know."
You nodded. You could not speak.
Another silence stretched between you, but it was different now. Thicker. Weighted with things that had not yet been said.
"I know," Valarr said at last, and his voice was very quiet, very careful, as though he were stepping through a room filled with glass. "I know the cup was meant for me."
Your heart stopped.
"Rhae said something to Egg, and Egg…" He shook his head. "It does not matter how I know. I know. The love potion. You were handing it to me."
You closed your eyes.
"It was meant as a joke," you said. "Daella and Rhae and I, we were drunk, and Rhae insisted her potions worked, and we did not believe her. We did not think it would actually do anything. It was only meant to be…"
"A joke," Valarr finished. "Yes. I understand."
"Do you?"
"I understand that it was born out of something," he said gently. "Jokes do not come from nowhere. You were upset. You had reason to be."
Your jaw tightened. "You were the safest to play a joke on. That was all. A joke we thought was harmless, because we did not believe it would work."
Valarr did not argue. He simply looked at you, and his expression was so impossibly sad, so impossibly tender, that you had to look away or risk shattering entirely.
"In case there is anything," he said slowly, "anything at all, that your Baratheon pride will not let you admit…you should know something."
You did not turn back to him. He continued anyway.
"You have always been my dearest friend. My favorite companion. In all the years I have been at court, there has been no one whose company I have valued more than yours. No one I have trusted more. No one I have…" He stopped, and when he spoke again his voice was fraying at the edges. "If things had played out differently, I would have been more than happy with you. I would have done my best to keep you happy as well."
Your hands were clenched in your lap, twisting against the dark fabric of your night robe.
"But I have been attending meetings and councils my whole life," he went on, and there was a weariness in him now that went beyond the hour, beyond the night, beyond anything that could be cured by sleep. "I could see how events were playing out. I could see what moves were made, and where things were heading. A closer alliance with House Baratheon was not of importance as of now. That is not a reflection on you. It is not a statement of your worth. It is simply…the way of things. The arithmetic of rule."
"You chose your duty," you said quietly.
"I chose what my duty asked of me." His voice cracked, just slightly. "The crown prince cannot, should not, must not be selfish. I could not choose familiarity and comfort over the future security of the state. All I could do was make sure you secured a good match. A better man for you, one who would not care about other matters at play. One who could give you what I could not."
You turned to him at last. His face was composed, unlike his voice.
"I could not be that better man for you because I also needed to be a better son," he said. "A better grandson. A better brother, prince, heir. I could not give you false hope or entertain any affections. I could not clutch at you and ignore all else. Even if…" He stopped, his throat working. "Even if it would have been the easiest thing for me to do."
"Valarr…"
He tried to smile. It did not reach his eyes. "You will be happy with Aerion. He is not bound as I am. He can give you the world, or at least as much of it as you wish to see. That is more than I could ever..."
He stopped. His composure, held together by will and long practice, finally faltered. His shoulders dropped. His head bowed. And in the moonlight, you saw the first glimmer of tears in his eyes.
You cracked.
"It is not your fault," you said, the words tumbling out before you could stop them. "I understand. I have always understood, even when I did not want to. I could never blame you for doing what you were born to do."
He looked up at you, and the relief in his face was almost unbearable to witness.
"I could never blame you," you repeated, and your voice broke on the last word.
He reached for you then, and you let him. His arms wrapped around you: careful, gentle, the embrace of a man who had always been too cautious to take what he wanted, and you pressed your face into his shoulder and breathed in the familiar scent of him, parchment and clean linen and the faint herbal trace of the tea he had brewed for you a hundred times before.
He kissed your forehead. It was soft, chaste. The kiss of a friend, of a brother, of a man who was saying goodbye to something he had never quite allowed himself to name.
"You should go," he murmured against your hair. "Before someone comes looking. It would not do for the bride to be found in the gardens at midnight with another man, even if that man is me."
You pulled back. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he was smiling now, a small true smile that reminded you of the boy he had been before duty had carved him into something harder.
"Thank you," you said. "For the tea. For the honey cakes. For…"
"I know," he said. "Go. Be happy. That is all I have ever wanted for you."
You went.
At the edge of the garden, you turned back. He was still sitting on the bench, his hand resting over the woven bracelet on his wrist, his silhouette silver-edged in the moonlight. He raised his hand in a small wave, and you raised yours in return.
Then you walked back through the dark gardens, through the sleeping Keep, through the corridors. You did not cry until you reached your chambers. When you did, you were not sure if the tears were for what you had lost, or for what you had found, or simply for the unbearable, unavoidable fact that you could not have both.
part 6: pending...
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Aerion Targaryen x f!reader x Valarr Targaryen (part 1, part 2, part 3. But can also be read as a oneshot.)
Summary: Based on the request "A fic where you tried to give Valarr a love potion but Aerion drinks it instead (like what one of Egg's sisters did)". Reader is a Baratheon (but no physical descriptions are given), who is a childhood friend of Valarr's.
Chapter summary: Aerion's "Why don't you love me?" moment, Targaryen style secret first date in the streets of King's Landing. And the girlies are fighting (Aerion and Valarr.)
a/n: The last chapter of Growing Strong series is out, btw, for those not yet aware! <3
You had not expected the kiss to continue. When Aerion first pressed his mouth to yours, you had thought it would be brief, a moment of impulse caused by the dress, easily broken, easily dismissed. But his arm had locked around your waist before you could step back, pulling you flush against him with a firmness that left no room for retreat, and when you instinctively shifted against his hold, his murmur vibrated against your lips.
"Stop wriggling."
The command was soft, almost distracted, as though his mind were elsewhere entirely. His mouth did not leave yours. It moved with a slow pressure that made your thoughts scatter before you could gather them into something useful.
You bit his lip.
It was not hard enough to draw blood, but it was enough to make your point, or so you intended. Aerion groaned, a low sound that rumbled from his chest into yours, and instead of pulling away as any sensible man might have done, he kissed you harder. His free hand came up to grasp your neck, his palm warm against the side of your throat, fingers curving along the line of your jaw to guide your mouth more firmly against his.
You let him.
That was the worst of it. You let him. Your hands, which had risen to push against his chest, remained where they were, neither shoving nor gripping, simply resting against the fine fabric of his doublet as though your body had not yet decided whether to resist or surrender.
Only when he pulled away, just enough to draw breath, just enough to let the air cool the space between your mouths, did you try to step back.
He followed.
One step, then another, matching your retreat until your spine met the edge of the table. He did not cage you there, precisely. He simply did not allow the distance you sought.
"You have loved Valarr for years, have you not?"
The question came from nowhere, searching, and it struck you harder than any blow could have.
You stared at him. Aerion's violet eyes were fixed on your face, but there was no mockery in them. He looked, bewilderingly, almost like a child. His brows were drawn together in contemplation, his mouth set in a line of mild frustration, as though he were working through a problem that refused to resolve itself.
"Could you not love me too?"
You could not speak. The words lodged in your throat like stones.
He did not seem to require an answer. His gaze grew distant for a moment, reflective, and when he spoke again his voice was lower, rougher, as though he were recounting something he had never intended to share.
"I could see you, you know. When my father would make us come visit the Red Keep. You were always following him around. Valarr." He said the name with a particular weight, not quite disdain, not quite resignation. "A pretty little girl, but not remarkable enough to torment. I saw you only in passing."
Your jaw tightened. He did not seem to register it.
"Then we came again, years later, and you were…" He paused, his eyes dragging over your face, as though reconstructing a memory in real time. "A woman grown. Flowered. Filling out your dresses in ways that made it impossible not to look. And still beside him. Still following."
His hand had not left your neck. His thumb traced a slow line along the edge of your jaw.
"I assumed he had deflowered you by then," he said, and the bluntness of it made your breath catch. "Taken you to his bed. Broken you in a bit. How could he not? Having you next to him every day, looking at him the way you did." His eyes darkened, something flickering behind the violet that you could not name. "I could not imagine the restraint. Or the stupidity."
Your heart was beating too fast. You could feel it in your throat, in your wrists, in the places where his body nearly touched yours.
"Only for him to get betrothed to someone else." Aerion's mouth curved, but there was no humor in it. "A merchant's daughter from Tyrosh. And I wondered then if I had misjudged him. If my courteous, perfect cousin Valarr had it in him to use a woman and abandon her once he tired of her. That would have been a surprising discovery of cruelty. Almost impressive, in its own way."
He leaned closer, nosing along your cheek, pressing his lips in a way that were not quite kisses to the corner of your mouth, your jaw, the tender skin beneath your ear.
"But then you told me the truth. That the potion was meant for him. And you had the expression of a maiden grasping for attention, not a woman scorned." He paused, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. "He had simply never noticed the doe offering herself up willingly. Without so much as a chase."
You remained silent. What could you say? It was all true. Every word of it.
You remembered those years with a clarity that still ached. The hours spent at Valarr's side. The way your heart had leapt when he sought you out, when he smiled at you, when he trusted you with his fears and his uncertainties. You had thought, foolishly, desperately, that proximity would breed something more. That devotion would be rewarded. That he would look at you one day and see what had always been there, waiting.
He had not.
Aerion was wrong about one thing, at least. Valarr had not deflowered you. He had not even come close. There had been only one kiss, years ago, when you had wondered aloud what it felt like and he had offered to show you.
"To satisfy your curiosity," he had said. "And soothe your fears. That is all."
That was all. A single kiss, chaste and brief, and you had spent years afterwards lying awake at night wondering if he had ever wanted to kiss you again. If he had ever thought about it. If it had meant anything at all.
"What a dreadful waste."
Aerion's voice cut through your thoughts, and you realized he had been watching your face.
"All those years," he continued, shaking his head slowly. His tone sharpened with something that might have been disgust, though it was not directed at you. "Wouldn't you rather have fun with me?"
Before you could answer, he dragged his tongue along your parted mouth, an obscene gesture, and then pulled back entirely. The loss of warmth was jarring.
You heard the click of the lock.
He had crossed the room while you were still in a daze, and now he stood by the door with his hand still on the bolt, surveying the chamber with a new expression. Thoughtful. Calculating. The look of a man who had just conceived of something and was already deciding how to execute it.
"Change," he said.
You blinked. "…what?"
He was already moving toward your trunks and flipping them open. He rummaged through the folded gowns with the carelessness of a man who had never had to pack his own belongings in his life, tossing aside silks and velvets until he found what he was looking for.
"Put this on." He straightened, holding up a dress. It was the plainest thing you owned, wool, not silk, a muted grey-brown. Serviceable. Unremarkable. He found a cloak as well, dark and heavy, and thrust it toward you. "Quickly."
"Aerion..."
"I have decided," he said, as though that explained everything, "to show you something you have not seen before."
"What would that be?"
His mouth curved. "A life outside these walls."
You stared at him. "You are mad."
"Possibly." He did not seem troubled by the assessment. "But you are going to put on that dress and that cloak, and you are going to come with me, and for one night you are going to see what it is like to not be a lady in a cage."
"A cage I am only still in because of you," you pointed out.
"Yes," he agreed, entirely unrepentant. "So you may consider this my penance. Now change. Unless you would prefer I stay and watch?"
You snatched the dress from his hands and pointed toward the door. "Turn around."
He turned, though not before you caught the flicker of amusement in his eyes.
You changed quickly, pulled the cloak around your shoulders and drew the hood over your hair. The woman who looked back at you from the mirror was not a Baratheon lady. She was not a prince's betrothed. She was simply a woman in a plain dress, indistinguishable from a hundred others in the city below.
Aerion turned back at the sound of your movement, and his eyes swept over you with an approval that made something in your stomach tighten.
"Passable," he said. "Come."
He did not take your hand. He simply opened the door and waited, and after a moment's hesitation, you followed.
The passages he led you through were not the ones you knew. They were narrower, darker, clearly meant for servants or for those who did not wish to be seen. Aerion moved through them with the ease of long familiarity, and you wondered, not for the first time, what sort of prince spent so much time in hidden corridors.
The city beyond the Red Keep was another world entirely.
You had seen it before, of course: from windows, from carriages, from the high walls that separated royalty from rabble, but you had never walked through it. Not like this. Not on foot, with the press of bodies around you and the smell of cooking meat and unwashed skin and something sour that might have been spilled ale.
The market was still alive even at this hour, torches flickering in iron sconces, vendors calling out prices in voices hoarse from use. Aerion guided you through the crowd with a hand at the small of your back, a light pressure that steered you away from the worst of the press without ever seeming to direct you.
"Keep your hood up," he murmured against your hair. "Your face is too memorable."
You did not know whether that was a compliment or a warning.
He bought you food from a stall, fried and greasy dough, wrapped in paper that grew translucent with oil, and laughed when you hesitated to eat it.
"It will not kill you," he said. "Probably."
You ate it. It was, against all expectation, delicious.
He showed you the stall where a woman sold ribbons dyed in colors so vivid they seemed to glow in the torchlight. You saw the corner where a man with no teeth told fortunes for a copper penny, and the alley where a boy no older than ten was teaching a dog to dance on its hind legs. The blacksmith's forge, dark now but still radiating heat, the weaver's shop with its shuttered windows, and the fountain in the small square where the water ran clean and cold.
You stopped when you saw the play.
It was being performed on a makeshift stage at the edge of the market, boards laid across barrels, a painted curtain fluttering behind the players. The actors were not skilled, their voices too loud, their gestures too broad, but there was an energy to the performance that drew you in. You grabbed Aerion's sleeve without thinking and pulled him toward the crowd that had gathered.
He came willingly, standing close behind you as you watched.
The play, as it turned out, was not the sort of thing performed in the Red Keep.
It was vulgar. Obscenely, unapologetically vulgar. The plot, such as it was, seemed to revolve around a milkmaid, a travelling merchant, and a donkey, and the jokes grew progressively filthier with each passing minute. The crowd around you roared with laughter. You scrunched up your face.
You turned sharply, intending to leave, and found Aerion already watching you. He had not been watching the play at all. His grin was half-hidden against your hair, his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, and when he saw your expression he only laughed harder.
"Not to your taste?" he murmured.
"You knew what this was."
"I had my suspicions." He tugged on your hand, drawing you away from the crowd. "Come. Before the donkey returns for the second act. It does not improve."
You were laughing by the time you reached the Red Keep.
You could not remember when the laughter had started, somewhere between the market and the gates, somewhere between the grease-stained paper crumpled in your hand and the way Aerion had nearly slipped on a pile of something unspeakable in the alley, but it had not stopped. Your sides ached with it. Your cheeks hurt. Aerion was no better, his composure utterly shattered, his hair disheveled from where you had shoved him in retaliation for a joke you refused to repeat.
The laughter died the moment you stepped through the doors.
Maekar Targaryen was waiting.
Beside him stood Baelor Breakspear, his expression troubled but composed, and beside Baelor...Valarr.
Your stomach dropped.
"Where," Maekar said, his voice carrying the particular calm of a man who was restraining himself only with great effort, "have you been?"
Aerion straightened, the last traces of mirth fading from his face. "Sightseeing."
"Sightseeing."
"The city is quite lovely at night, father. You should try it sometime."
"Do not play games with me, boy." Maekar's gaze moved to you, taking in the plain dress, the cloak. "You took your betrothed out into the streets. Alone. At night. Unchaperoned. Without guards. Without so much as a word to anyone."
"We did nothing inappropriate," Aerion said, and there was an edge creeping into his voice now. "We merely walked. I only wished to show her the city, she obliged me."
"She wished..." Maekar cut himself off, visibly struggling for control. "You are a prince. She is a lady of a great house, newly betrothed, and you thought it appropriate to drag her through the filth of the city like a common..."
"Like a what?" Aerion's voice sharpened dangerously.
Baelor raised a hand, stepping between them with the practiced ease of a man who had spent years mediating Targaryen tempers. "Enough. The question is not what was done, but what will be perceived. Aerion, you must understand how this looks. An unchaperoned outing, in secret, at night...it invites speculation. It invites scandal."
"There is no scandal," Aerion said flatly. "There is only a man showing his betrothed the city she will one day help rule."
"And there will be time enough for that after the wedding," Maekar snapped. "When she is your wife, not your..."
He stopped. The word hung unspoken in the air, and you felt your face heat for an entirely different reason.
"She is my betrothed," Aerion said, very quietly. "And I will thank you not to imply otherwise."
Valarr spoke for the first time.
"This is reckless, even for you." His voice was controlled, but there was something simmering beneath it, something that made Aerion's head turn slowly toward him. "She deserves better than to be dragged into your whims."
"Who asked your opinion?" Aerion's hostility flared so suddenly that even Baelor looked taken aback. "Who asked you to weigh in on this, cousin? You, who could not be bothered to notice her when she was right in front of you? You, who..."
"Aerion." Baelor's voice was sharp now. "That is enough."
"Is it? Because I find myself quite interested in why Valarr has suddenly developed such a concern for my betrothed's welfare. A year ago he could not see her beside himself. Now he cannot stop looking."
Valarr's jaw tightened. "I have always cared for her."
"Have you?" Aerion tilted his head, and his smile was not pleasant. "How convenient that you discovered this only after she was no longer available."
"Enough!"
This time it was Lyonel Baratheon who spoke, his voice cutting through the tension like a war horn. He had been standing near the back of the hall, silent until now, his arms crossed over his chest. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes moved between Aerion and Valarr with a calculation that made you nervous.
"You," he said, pointing at Aerion, "will learn to control your tongue and your impulses, or I will teach you myself. I have no objection to a man showing his betrothed the city. I have done worse in my youth, and I will not play the hypocrite. But I do object to a man whose every action threatens to dishonor my niece and my house through sheer carelessness."
Aerion opened his mouth, saw the look in Lyonel's eyes, and closed it again.
"You will not be alone with her without a witness until the wedding," Maekar said, seizing the opening. "That is not a request. It is a command. I will not have this alliance jeopardised by your inability to exercise restraint."
"Father..."
"You are dismissed."
Aerion stood motionless for a long moment. Then he turned, and his eyes met yours. There was frustration, defiance, and something else that you could not quite name, and then he bowed, stiffly, and strode from the hall.
You did not watch him go. You did not look at Valarr, though you could feel his gaze on you like a weight. You simply inclined your head to Maekar, to Baelor, to your uncle, and retreated to your chambers with as much dignity as you could muster.
You barely slept.
The morning came gray and cold, and you rose with the first light, your head aching from too little rest and too much wine the night before. Your maids had not yet arrived. The castle was quiet.
You did not hear him enter.
One moment you were alone, standing before the mirror in your shift, and the next his arms were around you from behind, his mouth pressing hot against the curve of your neck.
"Aerion..." you gasped, trying to twist away. "The command...there must be a witness..."
"There is no one here to witness the lack of witness," he murmured against your skin, "and I will be gone before anyone knows I was here. Turn around."
You turned.
He kissed you.
This time, you kissed him back.
Your hands rose to grip the front of his tunic, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. Your mouth moved against his with an enthusiasm that surprised you both. The taste of him was familiar now, and you chased it, rising onto your toes to press closer, closer, until there was no space left between your bodies.
When he finally pulled back, his eyes were dark, his breathing uneven. He looked at you for a long moment.
"Well," he murmured, his thumb tracing the line of your swollen lower lip. "That is more like it."
Then he was gone, slipping through the door as silently as he had come, leaving you standing alone in the morning light with your heart pounding and your lips still tingling.
part 5: see here
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Aerion Targaryen x f!reader x Valarr Targaryen (part 1, part 2)
Summary: Based on the request "A fic where you tried to give Valarr a love potion but Aerion drinks it instead (like what one of Egg's sisters did)". Reader is a Baratheon (but no physical descriptions are given), who is a childhood friend of Valarr's.
The night was chaos. Maids were summoned. Whispers spread quickly: of sickness, of spoiled wine, of something ill in the prince’s constitution.
He was kept to his chambers, pale and shaking, his body rejecting whatever had been forced upon it by Rhae's witchery.
You did not sleep. You did not dare.
By morning, it was over. The love was gone. You saw it immediately in the way he looked at you. He was back to himself. Weakened, but no longer consumed.
“And now,” he said hoarsely, reclining against his pillows as Maekar stood nearby, his expression darkening with every passing moment, “I will not marry her.”
Maekar stared at him. “You begged for this match.”
“I was not myself.”
“You were very much yourself,” Maekar snapped. “You declared it before the court.”
“I was under some…influence,” Aerion said, his gaze flicking briefly, very briefly, to you. “It has passed.”
Maekar’s jaw tightened. This had not been the love match he had hoped for. This was pure embarrassment.
Lyonel arrived that same day. Storm itself incarnate. And when he learned that the match he had ridden hard to secure was now dismissed, that his niece had been all but tossed aside, his temper broke.
“You think this is a jest?” he thundered, his voice carrying through the hall like a war drum. “You send for me, speak of betrothal, and then...what? Change your minds like children at play?”
Maekar stood firm, unyielding. “My son has reconsidered.”
“Your son has insulted my blood,” Lyonel shot back. “And you expect me to simply swallow it?”
“You will accept that no vows were made,” Maekar replied coldly.
Lyonel laughed. It was a threatening, mad, unpleasant sound.
“No vows?” he echoed. “You think that matters? You think word means nothing now? Is that what your dragons have come to?”
The tension in the hall tightened.
“You will be compensated,” Maekar said, as though that settled it. “Another match will be arranged. One of my kin...”
“I do not want another match,” Lyonel snarled. “I want the one that was offered. Or I will take my own crown and be done with this mummer's farce.”
The threat hung in the air. Open rebellion.And still it was not enough.
Tyrosh, apparently, mattered more. Trade. Alliances. Politics.
You did not.
You did not attend dinner. You dismissed your maids. You stood in your chamber, packing your things, jaw clenched so tightly it ached.
“Ours is the fury.” Your house words rang in your mind.
You had been humiliated. Overlooked. Used as a convenience, then discarded. And there was nothing you could do. Nothing but leave.
“Have the carriage be ready by morning,” you had ordered. “I shall return to Storm’s End.”
Alone. You would not stay here another moment, you had already decided. That was the only thing holding you upright. Not dignity, not after being bartered and dismissed like some ill-fitting arrangement, but sheer, stubborn resolve. The kind that had been carved into you long before you knew what court politics even were. The kind your uncle had raised you on between laughter and blood and storm-winds.
“Ours is the fury.” It rang through you now like a war drum.
You would not give them the satisfaction.
Your uncle would rage, of course. He already had, if the echoes of his voice earlier in the hall were anything to go by. But at least there, his fury would be yours. Not something you were forced to stand still beneath while others decided your worth in measured, political tones.
The door opened behind you. You did not turn at once.
“Get out,” you said, assuming it was one of the maids returning despite your dismissal. “I said I would finish...”
The door shut firmly. You turned.
Aerion stood there. He did not look like the lovesick creature who had followed you through corridors and gardens only days before.
“What did you do to me?” he asked.
You stared at him for a moment, then folded your arms slowly across your chest. “I might ask you the same. You caused quite enough trouble without needing help from me.”
He took a step further into the room, gaze fixed on you in a way that made it clear he was not here to be dismissed.
“I remember pieces,” he said, measured. “Not everything. But enough to know I was not in my right mind. I was...” He exhaled sharply, almost disgusted with himself. “Clinging. Begging. Speaking nonsense.”
You said nothing.
His eyes narrowed. “You will explain.”
You considered lying. You did not.
Perhaps because it no longer mattered. Perhaps because you were too tired to construct something neat and palatable. Or perhaps because, for all his faults, Aerion had already suffered enough humiliation without being left in ignorance of it.
“You drank a love potion,” you said plainly.
Silence followed.
“…what?” he asked incredulously, after a moment.
“One Rhae made,” you continued, your tone steady even as your fingers curled slightly against your arms. “She meant it for someone else. It was never intended for you. You took the goblet before I could stop you.”
“The goblet,” he repeated slowly. “The one I took from your hand.”
“Yes.”
“And that was...what?” His gaze lifted back to yours, something keen and probing behind it now. “Meant for whom?”
You hesitated. Only for a second. But he noticed.
“…Valarr,” you said.
That did it.
It was subtle, but unmistakable, the shift in him. Not anger, not outright, but something far more cutting. Something almost…offended. A short, disbelieving breath left him.
“So,” he said, pacing once across the room before turning back to you, “I was not even the intended fool. I merely…stumbled into the role.”
“You took it from my hand,” you snapped, irritation flaring. “Uninvited, I might add.”
He gave a short laugh, though there was little humor in it.
“And you paid for it,” you added. “You were sick enough to rid yourself of it.”
He studied you for a long moment after that.
Then he glanced around, taking in the half-packed trunks, the folded gowns, the disarray that spoke not of leisure but departure.
“You are leaving,” he said.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“In the morn.”
His eyes flicked back to yours.
“And you intend to go quietly?” he asked. “After all this?”
“What would you have me do?” you shot back, the fury you had been holding in your chest surging up at last. “Stay? Smile? Pretend I was not offered and dismissed like a passing inconvenience? They have made their priorities quite clear. I will not remain here to be pitied.”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “You would not.”
Silence stretched again. Then: “I will make you a proposal.”
You stiffened. “I am not interested in...”
“You should hear it first,” he cut in, not unkindly, but firmly enough to stop you.
You pressed your lips together. “Speak, then.”
“We restore the betrothal,” he said.
You stared at him. “…what?”
“We renew it,” he continued, as though discussing something simple, something practical. “Publicly. Before your uncle leaves. Before the court has time to settle on a version of events that does not favour you.”
“You refused it,” you said flatly.
“I did,” he agreed. “Under the impression that my previous…condition had made the decision for me.”
“And now?”
“Now I am making it consciously.”
You threw your hands up in exasperation. “This is absurd.”
“No,” he said calmly. “This is useful.”
You turned away from him, running a hand over your hair in frustration. “You expect me to simply agree? After everything? After your father dismissed my uncle’s anger as though it were nothing?”
“My father dismissed the threat of rebellion because he believes it will not come to pass,” Aerion replied. “You and I both know your uncle would burn half the realm before bending easily, but he will not start a war without cause that he can justify to others.”
“He has cause,” you snapped. “His niece was insulted.”
“His niece was inconvenienced,” Aerion corrected, though there was no mockery in it, only blunt truth. “And inconvenience is not enough to rally banners, no matter how loudly he roars.”
That stung. Because it was true. You hated that it was true.
He watched your reaction carefully before continuing.
“But a renewed betrothal changes that,” he said. “It removes the insult. It restores your standing. It gives him what he came for.”
“What of you?” you asked sharply. “What do you gain from this arrangement, aside from further entangling yourself in something you already wished to escape?”
“Several things,” his mouth curved. “For one, it allows me to correct the spectacle I have already made of myself. For another…” His gaze flicked briefly toward the door, as though aware of unseen ears, before returning to you. “It offers certain…satisfactions.”
“Such as?”
“Such as watching my dear cousin come to terms with the fact that what he overlooked is now beyond his reach,” he said lightly.
You held his gaze. You could not deny that something in you responded to that. Vindictive. Baratheon.
“And the court?” you pressed. “They will not simply accept that you changed your mind twice in as many days.”
“They will accept whatever story we give them,” he replied. “People prefer a narrative that makes sense of discomfort. We provide one, and they will cling to it.”
“What story would that be?”
“That you were overwhelmed,” he said, watching you carefully now. “That my proposal came too suddenly, that you felt…cornered. That you withdrew, and I, in my pride, took it as an insult and withdrew in turn.”
“And now?” you asked.
“Now we reconcile,” he said simply. “Privately first. Publicly soon after. A misunderstanding. A quarrel. Nothing more.”
You were quiet for a long moment. It was a good plan. Too good.
“And you will take the blame,” you said slowly.
“If necessary,” he replied without hesitation. “It will cost me less than it costs you.”
That, too, was true. You exhaled. “…fine,” you said at last. “We will do it.”
Relief did not show on his face. He nodded once. “It will be done, then.”
You turned back toward the trunk, reaching for a folded gown with more force than needed, as though the conversation had settled something cleanly.
It had not. There was a pause behind you.
Then: “There is something else.”
You stilled, your fingers tightening slightly in the fabric. “What?”
He did not answer immediately. When you turned back, Aerion was watching you again, but differently now.
“I remember it,” he said.
Your stomach tightened.
“The way I felt,” he clarified. “Not all of it. But enough.”
You swallowed.
He took a step closer, slower this time, as though approaching something uncertain.
“It was…” He exhaled, searching for the word. “Intense. Yes. Overwhelming. But also...” He frowned faintly, as though the admission irritated him. “Good.”
You looked away.
“I remember wanting to be near you constantly,” he continued. “Wanting to touch you. To speak to you. To…” He stopped himself, jaw tightening slightly. “It was not entirely unpleasant.”
“It was not real,” you said, colder than intended.
“I know,” he replied. There was no argument in it.
“I know,” he repeated, softer now. “That does not mean it was not...something.”
Silence stretched.
“I remember you, as well,” he added after a moment.
Your almost took a step back to escape.
“You were not cruel,” he said. “Not entirely. You were…careful. Even when you did not wish to be.”
You did not know what to say to that. You had not realized he had noticed.
“I remember your hands,” he went on, almost absently now, as though the memory had taken hold of him despite himself. “You touched me as though I might break. As though you were…” He trailed off, then shook his head once, as if dismissing it.
You forced your voice steady. “You were ill.”
“That is not the point.”
“No,” you said quietly. “It is not.”
“I would not mind,” he added, almost casually, though his eyes betrayed something else entirely, “if you did not hate me quite so much this time.”
Your breath caught.
He turned away then, as though the admission cost him more than he would ever allow you to see.
The betrothal was renewed before the court had quite decided what to make of the first disaster. There was no room left for whispers to grow teeth. Aerion Targaryen spoke with a clarity that bordered on insolence, as though the reversal were not a reversal at all but the correction of a trivial misunderstanding. You stood beside him, still as carved stone, aware of every eye in the hall and yet refusing to give them anything they could feast on.
Your uncle watched. That was the worst of it. Lyonel Baratheon did not shout, did not laugh, did not storm out in outrage, he simply watched, weighing the thing like a man deciding whether to split a table with his bare hands or leave it standing out of sheer spite.
When it was done, Maekar Targaryen summoned Aerion away from the hall. You did not follow, but Maekar’s voice carried through the half-open doors.
“You will not make sport of this again. You will not dangle alliances as though they were baubles to be picked up and dropped when you tire of them.”
Aerion did not answer immediately, and in that pause there was something unfamiliar. When he did speak, it was lower than you had ever heard him, stripped of ornament.
“I will not repeat it.”
It was not apology. Maekar would not have cared for one. But it was something like acknowledgement, and that seemed to suffice, for the door shut and the matter, outwardly, was settled.
Outwardly.
It left other things to fester.
Valarr Targaryen did not rage. That would have been easier to bear. Instead, he watched you with an attention that grew more suspicious by the hour, as though he had misplaced something and could not remember where he had last set it down.
You felt it at your back, across tables, in corridors where chance encounters began to feel less like chance. He lingered in conversations that did not concern him, appeared too quickly when you withdrew, dismissed explanations that might have satisfied anyone else. There was something strained in him now, something pulling tight.
You might have endured it longer if not for Rhae Targaryen, who had never learned the discipline of silence.
She did not confess outright. It slipped from her sideways, dressed in half a joke, a careless remark that would have meant nothing to anyone without context. Unfortunately, Egg Targaryen had context. Years of being the unwilling subject of her concoctions had given him an ear for precisely that sort of mistake.
Valarr found you in one of the smaller passages, where the tapestries swallowed sound and the court felt far away. He did not bother with courtesy.
“Tell me it is not true.”
You knew at once what he meant, though you tried, out of reflex more than hope, to evade it. “You will have to be more specific.”
“The potion,” he said, and there was something raw beneath the words now, stripped of the careful composure he usually wore so easily. “Rhae’s foolishness. Aerion drinking it. All of it, tell me it is not true.”
You hesitated.
He drew in a breath that did not quite steady him. “You should have come to me.”
“And said what?” you exploded instantly, worn thin by repetition and scrutiny and the slow erosion of patience. “That your cousin made a spectacle of himself under something he did not understand? That I was dragged into it? What would you have done with that?”
“I would have stopped this,” he said, and now he stepped closer, urgency overtaking restraint. “You would not have had to accept him again.”
“I was not forced...”
“You were,” he insisted, more quietly, and that quiet was worse. “You always choose the path that preserves your dignity, even if it binds you to something you do not want. You would rather endure than be pitied. I know you.”
The familiarity of it stung.
“We can undo it,” he pressed. “We will speak to them again. Properly this time. There are ways...”
“There are not,” you said, and you meant it, though saying it felt like closing a door you had not quite examined.
“There are,” he repeated, but now there was something else threading through his insistence, something less noble. “If you stand with me...”
“And what shall that look like?” The question did not come from you.
Aerion Targaryen leaned in the archway as though he had been there long enough to hear everything that mattered. There was nothing languid in him now, nothing of the careless prince who provoked for sport; his attention was fixed.
Valarr turned sharply. “This is not your concern.”
“It is precisely my concern,” Aerion replied, pushing himself away from the stone and stepping into the narrow space between you. “You are advising my betrothed to dismantle her own standing. I am curious what you intend to offer in its place.”
“I intend to offer her a way out.”
“From what?” Aerion’s tone did not rise, but it sharpened, each word set carefully. “A marriage that restores her position? That silences the insult you allowed to stand when it first mattered?”
Valarr’s expression darkened. “Do not twist this into something it is not.”
“I am not twisting anything,” Aerion said. “I am asking a simple question. What do you offer her?”
Valarr opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Aerion did not look away. “Exactly. You offer her indignation and nothing else. A grand gesture that leaves her to bear the consequences alone.”
“That is unfair.”
“Yes,” Aerion agreed softly. “But it is accurate.”
He shifted then, not quite placing himself between you and Valarr, but close enough that the intent was unmistakable without needing to be stated.
“She will not leave this court diminished,” he said. “Not while I can prevent it.”
Valarr looked at you, and for a moment the anger stripped away, leaving something else, something that might have been regret if it had come sooner, if it had not arrived amplified by the sight of you standing beside another man.
“You do not have to stay,” he said.
The simplicity of it nearly undid you.
But before you could answer, Aerion spoke again, far more cutting. “She has already chosen.”
It was not true entirely but the way he said it made it feel settled.
“Go,” Aerion waved a hand. “Attend to your own betrothal. Leave mine alone.”
Valarr did not argue again. There was nothing left for him to use that would not unravel further under scrutiny. He stepped back, the tension in him coiling inward rather than dissipating, and left without another word.
Aerion did not look at you immediately. When he did, it was brief, as though confirming something to himself, and then he turned away as well, leaving the corridor feeling suddenly too narrow.
The dress arrived the following afternoon. It was not the sort of thing you would have chosen, it was unflattering but it refused modesty. The fabric was rich without being ostentatious, dark enough to make the gold threading at the seams stand out. The neckline dipped lower than was strictly proper, softened only by the structure of the bodice, which held everything precisely where it ought to be.
You ran your fingers over the embroidery, recognizing the pattern without needing to think: stags worked subtly into the design. Baratheon, reshaped.
When Aerion appeared later, you did not bother to hide your suspicion. “You are aware this will be noticed.”
“That is rather the point,” he said, as though it were obvious.
The certainty in it should have irritated you more than it did. You wore it.
At supper, Valarr's gaze found you quickly and lingered without disguise, drawn to the unfamiliar lines of the gown, the way it altered your shape, the way it made something that had always been present suddenly impossible to ignore.
It should have satisfied Aerion.
That had been the intention, after all: a small, petty victory carved neatly out of a larger, more complicated situation.
Instead, he found himself distracted by something far less convenient. By you.
It was not new, exactly. The memory of the potion still lingered in him in unwelcome fragments: the pull toward you, the restless need for proximity, the disorienting certainty that everything else was secondary. He had dismissed it as an aberration, a chemical imposition that had nothing to do with him.
Watching you now, he was less certain.
It was quieter, what he felt. Less consuming. Yet no less persistent.
You shifted in your seat, adjusting the fabric at your waist, and his attention followed the movement before he could stop it. When you laughed at something Rhae said, the sound caught him off guard, familiar in a way that unsettled him. He looked away. It did not help.
Later, in your chambers, you turned slightly before the mirror, fingers fussing with the neckline. “It sits oddly,” you murmured, though the complaint lacked conviction.
“It does not,” Aerion said from where he leaned against the doorframe.
You glanced at him through the reflection. “You would say that.”
“I would not, if it were untrue.”
You studied your reflection a moment longer, then, in a small voice, “Do you like it?”
It was a simple question, but it held more weight than it ought to have. There was something in the way you asked, as though his answer mattered in a way that had not been the case before.
“Yes,” he said at last.
You nodded, satisfied, and turned back to the mirror, smoothing the fabric once more.
He pushed himself away from the wall without quite deciding to do so, drawn forward by something he had not named and could not easily dismiss.
He reached for you before the rest of the thought could form. His hand came up, fingers brushing along your jaw with a familiarity that might have startled you if it had not already existed somewhere beneath the surface. He tilted your face toward him, just enough to meet your gaze fully, and for a moment he simply looked at you, as though measuring something he had resisted too long. Then he closed the distance.
The kiss was nothing like the fevered grasping the potion had driven from him before. There was no urgency to it, no desperation clawing at the edges. It was slower, steadier, shaped by awareness rather than absence of it. That made it far more difficult to dismiss.
Rhae’s careless words returned to you then, unwelcome and impossible to ignore. It only amplifies what is already there.
part 4: see here
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notes. dear lord have mercy bcs i'll be the one stealing them from their wives rn
AERION.
The cold glass of the window pressed against your bare skin, a sharp contrast to the heat of Aerion’s body behind you. He held you firmly in place, his grip strong enough to leave bruises by morning — exactly what he wanted. He wanted the world to see that you were no longer the untouched, dutiful bride your betrothal demanded. You had already been ruined. Claimed. Profaned by him.
And he was going to make sure no one could ever take you away.
Goosebumps erupted across your skin as his warm hand slid down your stomach, pulling you harder against him. Your mind and body were at war — half of you desperate to push him away, the other half aching to surrender completely.
“Please… listen to me,” you begged, voice breaking. A choked moan escaped you as his fingers dipped between your thighs, finding you shamefully wet. Your hips arched back against his hand before you could stop yourself. “This isn’t right. I’m getting married soon, and—”
“Shh, shh,” Aerion hushed you, his voice low and dark. Two long fingers parted your slick folds and sank into you with agonizing slowness. “Why do you think I’m doing this now, silly girl?” He curled his fingers inside you, stroking that perfect spot. “If I wait even one more day, I’ll lose you…”
His words trailed off into a low groan as he focused entirely on the wet sound of his fingers pumping in and out of your cunt. He needed you. He always had. But time was running out, and desperation had turned him feral.
You pushed your ass back against the hard line of his cock, and the movement dragged him back to reality with a deep, hungry growl.
“…But if I make you mine tonight,” he rasped, “they won’t be able to tear you away from me.”
His fingers thrust deeper, curling deliciously, and suddenly you stopped caring that your breasts were crushed against the freezing glass. All you could focus on was him.
“What’s the point?” you gasped. “No one will ever know—”
His teeth sank into the side of your neck, a sharp warning that made you whimper. Still, you continued, breathless: “No one will know this ever happened.”
Aerion pulled his fingers out abruptly, leaving you clenching around nothing. You turned your head, only to meet his intense violet eyes burning into yours — dark and gleaming with a new, wicked idea.
“Oh, but they will know,” he murmured, voice velvet and venom. “I’ll make sure of it.”
His hands gripped your waist, positioning you exactly how he wanted. The thick head of his cock nudged against your soaked entrance for only a heartbeat before he drove into you in one brutal thrust, burying himself to the hilt.
A broken cry tore from your throat at the sudden stretch. You were grateful the window was closed — otherwise the entire garden would have heard you — but Aerion didn’t seem to care at all. He fucked you with purpose, deep and relentless, each stroke claiming you more thoroughly than the last.
“I’m going to put a baby in you tonight,” he growled against your ear, punctuating the vow with a particularly hard thrust that stole the breath from both of you. His sharp canines grazed the back of your neck as he smiled. “I’ll stay inside you all night if I have to. Do you hear me? Then you’ll be mine. Truly mine. And no one will dare take you from me.”
MAEKAR.
You weren’t sure how you’d ended up in this position, but after the heated argument about your impending departure and the arranged marriage, you now found yourself straddling Maekar’s lap in his favorite cushioned armchair.
He was still grumbling under his breath, but it was impossible to focus on his words when his thick cock was buried to the hilt inside you and his rough hands gripped your hips with bruising strength, refusing to let you move even an inch.
“And you did not think to tell me you are leaving at morrow,” he growled, the sound pulling you out of your lust-drunk haze. His dark eyes locked onto yours. “What was the lord’s name again?”
You shifted your hips slightly, desperate for friction, but he held you firmly in place. He was clearly determined to punish you. You were his. Had you still not realized it? Did he really need to take you like this — impaled on his cock, helpless in his lap — for it to finally sink into that pretty head of yours?
His fingers dug harder into your flesh, denying every desperate roll of your hips.
“You know what? It does not matter,” he rasped. “His name means nothing. His house means even less. He will not have you.” When your walls clenched tightly around his cock at his words, his voice dropped lower, rougher. “He will not have this.”
Encouraged by your reaction, you squeezed around his length again, trying to memorize the shape of him. Maekar finally gave in — just barely. He lifted his hips in a slow, controlled thrust, guiding you with those powerful hands in one long, torturous stroke.
“Maekar… it was already decided,” you tried to protest, breathy and weak. “The Septon—”
The old prince cut you off with a fierce kiss, his mouth claiming yours until you melted against him. Maybe it was affection. More likely, it was just another way to silence any argument or denial trying to leave your lips.
“Fuck the Septon and whatever vows he wants to spout,” Maekar growled against your mouth, nipping at your lower lip. “I will deal with him at morrow. I would sooner have you bear my name than see you wed to some lord in a forgotten keep.”
DAERON.
Your nightly tea lay forgotten on the bedside table, long gone cold beside the grand bed where you lay beneath Daeron.
He was trembling, skin slick with sweat, as he hovered over you. What had begun with him slipping into your chambers under weak excuses — that he only wanted to talk, to see you one last time before tomorrow — had quickly turned into desperate touches and broken pleas. He couldn’t bear to watch you leave. He couldn’t stand the thought of you belonging to another man.
“You’re mine,” he whispered shakily, bracing his arms on either side of your head so his weight wouldn’t crush you. “You’ve always been mine. Why didn’t you refuse?”
His cock was buried deep inside you, but despite how badly he wanted to make you feel good, his thrusts remained slow and shallow. Exhaustion and sorrow weighed heavily on him, yet his glassy violet eyes never left your face — intense, almost desperate.
“Refuse?” you answered softly, your gentler hands sliding along his ribs in a soothing caress. “Do you think I had any say in the matter? No one even knew you wanted to ask for my hand. Not even me.”
Daeron let out a pained groan at the truth of your words and dropped his forehead to the crook of your neck. His breathing was ragged — the only sign he hadn’t simply fallen asleep on top of you. After a long moment, he spoke again, voice barely above a whisper.
“But I knew,” he murmured. “And I did nothing. I never courted you. I never fought for you. Nothing.”
He pressed a soft, almost reverent kiss to your collarbone. After several agonizing seconds, his hips began to move again. It was almost pathetic how the only thing bringing him any satisfaction was the fact that he hadn’t come in the first four seconds, as heartbroken as he was. Embarrassing.
“I'm still here,” you whispered, rolling your hips up to meet his. He inhaled sharply, trying to steady himself. “It’s not too late, Daeron.”
He might finish embarrassingly fast. And he wasn’t going to pull out — whether you wanted it or not. He didn’t have that kind of control right now.
“Do you really think I still have a chance…?” he asked quietly, voice thick with emotion. “To make you stay with me.”
You nodded.
Daeron hated that the only thing of true value he possessed was his name. But if he had to use it — if he had to wield it like a weapon in this desperate moment — he would. For you. For both of you.
His body shuddered, balls tightening as his climax approached.
“Fuck… Alright then.” His voice cracked with raw need. “I’ll take care of it. As soon as I’ve finished with you.”
BAELOR.
The fire in the hearth had burned low, casting long shadows across your chambers, but neither of you cared. You were pressed against the edge of the large table, bent forward with Baelor behind you, his broad chest flush against your back. One of his strong hands covered yours on the wooden surface, fingers intertwined, while the other gripped your hip, holding you steady as he thrust into you with slow, deep strokes.
It had started with a quiet conversation that quickly turned desperate. You were to leave in one day. To marry. To be taken away from him. Baelor, ever the dutiful prince, had tried to accept it — until the thought of another man touching you became unbearable.
“You were meant for me,” he murmured against your ear, voice low and rough with restraint. His hips rolled forward, pushing his cock deeper into your soaked heat. “Not some lordling who knows nothing of your heart. Not some political pawn.”
A soft whimper escaped your lips as he hit that perfect spot inside you. Your walls fluttered around him, and Baelor groaned, pressing his forehead to the back of your neck.
“I tried to be honorable,” he continued, breath hot against your skin. “I told myself I would let you go if that was your duty. But I cannot.” His grip on your hip tightened, almost bruising. “I will not.”
He pulled back almost completely before sliding back in with one powerful thrust, drawing a broken moan from you. The table creaked beneath your bodies.
“Say it,” he whispered, voice thick with both love and command. “Tell me you are mine. Tell me you do not want to leave.”
You could barely form words, overwhelmed by the way he filled you, the way his body surrounded yours so completely. “Baelor… I—”
He kissed the side of your neck, then gently bit down, possessive in a way that contrasted with his usual chivalry. “I will speak with the king. With whoever I must.” Another deep thrust made your knees weak. “You will not be given to another. Not while I still draw breath.”
His pace quickened, no longer slow and measured but driven by weeks of suppressed longing. The sound of skin meeting skin filled the room, along with his low, ragged breaths.
“I will put my child in you tonight if that is what it takes,” he said, voice dropping into something darker, more desperate. “So the realm knows exactly who you belong to. So no one can ever take you from me again.”
He pulled your back flush against his chest, one arm wrapping around your waist as he drove into you harder. His lips brushed your temple, almost reverent even as his cock claimed you completely.
“You were always going to be my lady,” Baelor breathed, mismatched eyes burning with fierce determination. “And I will make it so.”
VALARR.
“You must stay with me,” Valarr murmured, his body covering yours as one of his hands gently parted your thighs again. “I’m yours, can’t you see that?”
The head of his cock, slick and glistening with the mess of your previous rounds, slid in and out of you with ease. You were both exhausted, covered in sweat and trembling with fatigue, yet a strange, desperate force kept driving him to fuck you again and again — as if he could rewrite fate with every deep thrust.
“It’s too much, Valarr—” you whimpered, your overstimulated pussy fluttering around his cock each time he pushed back inside.
He stilled for a moment, buried to the hilt, though he didn’t pull out. You could feel the warm, thick evidence of his earlier releases slowly leaking out of you, kept in place only by the thickness of his cock.
“You must not go with him,” he insisted softly, panting against your lips while holding your dazed gaze. “You’re mine. This is proof.” His heterochromatic eyes searched yours. “Because that lord has not touched you, has he?”
You nodded, and a small, relieved smile brightened his face for a brief moment.
“Then it’s decided,” he whispered with quiet reverence. “You’ll stay with me. You will be my wife, and I will be your husband… because that’s what we were always meant to be.”
His mismatched eyes traced every inch of your face with pure adoration. “Gods, you’re so beautiful. I should have told you that moons ago.”
You smiled up at him, your fingers threading gently through the pale strands of his brown hair over his ears. “How improper of you,” you teased softly, “stealing me away from my future husband.”
Valarr hid a small smile against the curve of your neck, pressing tender kisses to your flushed skin — almost apologetic for how roughly his desperation had taken you. You had to be sore and exhausted by now.
“Husband?” He kissed your neck again, slow and sweet. “I am your husband.” Another kiss. “Or I will be, if you’ll have me. Because the ship waiting in the harbor won’t be sailing with you on board. I swear it.”
"With a hot husband, comes great responsibility (and the bothersome burden of other women talking to him)"
── ⟡ FireLord!Zuko x FireLady!Reader.
── ⟡ Word count: 2.4k
This was fully motivated by the edits of adult Zuko so there may be slight ooc behaviour bcs i haven't seen the show in a while! I'm rewatching it tho so i might edit it later to fit better. Either way, any correction on that or grammar is well received, english is not my first language blah blah. Requests open so i can write while I procrastinate studying hehe.
The room is too warm. You notice after one hour of festivities and polite talk.
Well, this is the Fire Nation, after all. It’s to be expected. Even more during a diplomatic reception such as the current one; splendid ambient, elegant decoration, perfect temperature. You ensured it yourself days ago when the organisation of the event was delegated to you.
So, either the staff didn’t follow your orders…or the rush of emotions of the evening had made your temperature rise higher than usual.
Surely, your husband -your very hot, very much married husband-, currently surrounded by noblewomen (if they had anything noble in them, seeing how shamelessly they seemed to want to earn the Fire Lord’s favour) might have influenced it.
It was fine, at first.
As Fire Lady, it wasn’t precisely a relaxed celebration. Nothing ever really is. So, even if the event was smaller than others hosted in the halls of the palace, your role still required small talk and a display of regal attitude towards all guests. So did Zuko’s; you had learned this a long time ago.
However, after a long talk with a particularly chatty Earth Kingdom ambassador, you had realized you hadn’t seen your husband in a while. So what a surprise it was to look for him and find him positively surrounded by people who, clearly, weren’t his wife.
This had happened before. Of course it had.
One couldn’t expect to marry someone who looked…like that, and expect him not to draw attention. Someone in such relevant position. Someone who had (even if earned through the years) a poised presence that could catch the eye even without relying on such good looks and formidable title. It would be foolish to do so.
But seeing him so…comfortable at it? Not seeing him even flinch as one of the women (the daughter of one of the older council members, if you recall correctly) gets closer to mumble something to him, while he has the audacity to smile while he replies? Unheard of. Disgraceful. Absolutely maddening.
And the reason you’re overheating with jealousy, clearly.
It’d be less awful if he didn’t look so pleased with engaging in the conversation, you think to yourself, turning towards one of the closest refreshment tables to pick one glass of whatever was being served. Something just to put your hands to use, to maintain the decorum expected of the Fire Lady instead of the dramatic behaviour of a possessive wife.
How you wished to at least know what those women were saying to have him so content…
The evening had been delightful. That much was clear for Zuko. Shades of gold and red decorating every space of the room, from the fresh flower arrangement to the silk banners on the walls, to the display of the tables and carefully curated menu. A festivity more than worthy of being hosted by the palace.
After all, it had been carefully overseen by his wife, so there wasn’t any other way for it to be.
“Fire Lord Zuko.” Another noble woman called for his attention, as had been common in the last few minutes, even while he had made sure to dismiss them swiftly to finally have a moment to look for his beloved. “The evening has been wonderful. The palace is brighter than ever tonight… one might wonder if it’s your presence that makes it so radiant.”
…a moment he believes gets further away from his grasp, with every new conversation.
Still, he takes a moment to think of the words, mentally considering the best answer for someone of his position. Even years into the title, he still sometimes has to pause to consider the best course of action, even for something as small as chatter in the middle of a diplomatic reception.
Which is why, after a few seconds, and in the voice of a man who now knows how to command a room, but apparently, not catch second intentions, he utters:
“I haven’t made any changes to the lighting.” He clarifies as if it were needed. Then, feeling like he should add something more, he continues. “But it was my wife who organised the decorations. She has a good eye for that.”
The noblewoman’s smile doesn’t falter but almost threatens to do so, until she remembers who she’s talking to.
“That’s…wonderful, Your Majesty.” She ends up replying, laughing softly as if to ease the one-sided tension. “But I imagine it must be difficult to balance such responsibilities. Do you ever find time to enjoy evenings like this by yourself?”
“There’s usually work to finish all the time.”
This time, he doesn’t add more to his words, almost pleased with himself on his diplomatic ways.
“As it’d be expected of such a demanding position.” The woman continues either way, set on gaining the favour of the Fire Lord in at least some way. She had seen women speak to him half the night without any of them succeeding, so either they had been terrible at it, or this man was the most challenging one in the entire Fire Nation. “I’m sure many would gladly assist you, if you ever required… lighter company.”
“That wouldn’t be necessary. The council handles most of the matters, and my wife manages the rest.”
The woman almost sighs, but decides to try one last direct approach.
“Even so, if you ever find yourself looking for another kind of presence…I’d be honoured to spend more time in your company, Your Majesty. Perhaps in a less crowded space.” She continues, using her fan as if to highlight the expression of her face or the subtle pigment adorning her lips.
“Ah, yes.” He ends up replying, with such a casual tone that almost makes the woman hopeful that her tactics seem to have been successful…until he opens his mouth again. “If you’re looking for a position, you could talk to the members of the council.”
…
“Of course, Your Majesty. Thank you.”
“My Lady, are you feeling unwell?” Your thoughts are interrupted by your personal attendant, who has discreetly gotten closer to you after sensing your internal turmoil even from the other side of the room.
“Not at all.” You compose yourself quickly, taking your eyes off the woman speaking to your husband, stopping your assumptions for a few seconds. “Everything is perfect.”
“Would you want to step outside for a moment?”
“That would be lovely, yes.” You agree quickly, clearly preferring to gaze at the sky to clear your mind. At least the sky didn’t have women on their left and right looking for the smallest opportunity to make a man pay attention to them despite being publicly married.
Even so, as the cold air of the night hits your face as you step into the closest balcony, your thoughts don’t ease even for a moment. After all, the image of someone else getting that close to the man you love (and the fact that it has become a recurring occurrence) isn’t something easy to shake off.
‘No, he isn’t like that. But he usually stays close to me in these events, why didn’t he today? But he’s Fire Lord, it wouldn’t be good if I stick to him all the time; he has to talk to people. But he seemed so entertained while talking to them, what if..?’
“You left.”
A voice can be heard behind you. An unmistakably familiar, and very annoying for the thoughts you were having kind of voice.
And surely, a few seconds later, the man himself appears next to you. Fire Lord Zuko, in full formal attire, hair half up in a bun you fixed yourself before the event, and expression unexpectedly soft for anyone else that wasn’t you.
And apparently, the man who had a radar on noticing the immediate moment you abandoned the main hall.
“…yeah.” You end up simply nodding, almost embarrassed of the thoughts you were having mere seconds ago. “It was, uhm, quite…crowded inside.” You add as excuse.
“Did something happen?” He asks, sensing it might not be the full truth. Which might have made you cave in to him if it wasn’t for the expression he made as he spoke, the same one he did minutes ago with another woman. The memory is enough to make the previous jealousy rise again.
“Nothing at all. You can come back inside if you want. I wouldn’t want to take much of your time when you have plenty of company waiting for you.”
That makes him pause.
If these years of marriage have taught him anything at all, that tone of hers didn’t exactly want him to come back inside. And he had probably made a mistake he should apologise for. So, with the subtlety of a glass being smashed into the pavement, he simply asks:
“What do you mean?”
Which makes her sigh as she finally looks at him.
“I don’t know, Zuko. Maybe I don’t like seeing you surrounded by women who seem to be waiting at the inevitable moment I make a mistake so they can get closer to you.” A hint of sarcasm can be heard in your tone, more exhaustion than real anger toward him.
His expression inevitably shifts at your words. After years of knowing him, you can almost read them like an open book. First confusion, then consideration of them, a mix of something quieter as he seems to realise the meaning of what you just said.
“What kind of mistake-?” Realisation hits his features as his thoughts form fully. “Oh.”
“…'oh'?” You repeat, almost offended.
“That’s what this was about.” He ends up muttering, almost to himself. “You believe I’ve been talking to other women because I’ve wanted to?”
“You seemed quite content.”
“I wasn’t- “He stops himself like he knows his words will need to be more exact than that. “I’ve been trying to end those conversations as soon as possible to come look for you. But more of them kept appearing before I could. And when I was alone, you left the hall.” He speaks, tone even but no less firm, like it always has been when it comes to reassure you, in his own way.
Still, as you don’t seem fully convinced, he continues.
“They were speaking to me. I answered.” He clears his throat. “That was all.”
You stop to look at him for a second, his tone and words making you almost ashamed of the fact that you thought he could be entertaining other kind of thought. But even so, stubborn as usual, all you can manage is:
“Didn’t look like that to me.” Which would’ve been more intimidating if it wasn’t for the faint flush of embarrassment on your face.
“Sorry, I just thought you’d be…glad. Of me following your advice.”
“…what advice?”
“What you said to me last week.” He recalls, tone sincere. “That I should speak to dignitaries myself instead of glueing myself to you.”
…ah, that advice.
“I mean- yeah, I did say that. But referring to- I don’t know! Ministers, ambassadors, representatives, not other women.” You continue despite the growing mortification on your face.
“Were you jealous?”
“…no.” You mutter despite how utterly unconvincing your tone is given the situation.
But instead of mocking you or teasing you into it, he glances for a second towards the hall he left minutes ago. The distant sound of chatter and probably political nonsense you both technically should come back to. Then takes your hand in his, with the same gentle touch he always has with you, like the way he touches you matters more than anything his title might ask of him.
“Would you rather we leave early?”
“What?”
“Leave already. We were noticed enough; I think it’s normal for me to want time with my wife instead of nobles and ambassadors.” He repeats, then adds. “And for what’s worth, I’d have rather spent all evening with you instead of talking to other people about lighting.”
That finally makes you squeeze his hand as a gesture of relief, moving closer into him until your forehead rests against his shoulder, feeling the warmth he radiates even in the middle of the night chill.
“…I should’ve figured that myself. Sorry that I didn’t.”
“It’s fine. If something is wrong, I want you to tell me.”
“Alright.” You end muttering, surrounded by his words. As the calm settles over your thoughts and posture, you move even closer, allowing yourself to press a soft kiss to his lips that he quickly answers, his free hand moving to settle over your waist with the familiarity of someone who had been waiting for that precise moment all night. “We’re leaving, then?” You whisper against his lips.
“To wherever you want to, my love.”
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Bonus scene:
Later, you both walk hand in hand towards your shared chambers. The lights of this side of the palace are dimmer, more private even as the palace guards gaze at you slightly. Almost curious about what the Fire Lord and Fire Lady are doing there despite how the event is still ongoing.
And then, almost as an afterthought, you finally recall some of his earlier words.
“What did you say before?” You gaze slightly towards him as he walks next to you. “That someone was talking to you about…lighting?”
“Yeah, something about how the evening was…brighter, I think she said.”
“Brighter how?”
“With me.” The reply was casual, but his faintly puzzled tone showed his previous confusion even now. “I don’t even handle those aspects of the palace, but I figured she was complimenting your decorations.”
That makes you pause, as you process his words, a smile forming immediately.
“Did she… say something else?”
“That she wished to assist me with company, something about lighter presence. So, I advised her to ask the council for a position.”
That’s what finally makes you laugh freely, supporting yourself lightly onto him for balance.
“Zuko, that woman was trying to get into your bed, not getting a council position.”
That makes him pause, making him furrow his brow, until he continues, voice fully honest like he can’t even fathom such a possibility.
“Why would she? You’re my wife, you’re the only one I share my bed with. You’re the only one I want.”
Aerion Targaryen x f!reader x Valarr Targaryen (part 1, part 2)
Summary: Based on the request "A fic where you tried to give Valarr a love potion but Aerion drinks it instead (like what one of Egg's sisters did)". Reader is a Baratheon (but no physical descriptions are given), who is a childhood friend of Valarr's.
The night was chaos. Maids were summoned. Whispers spread quickly: of sickness, of spoiled wine, of something ill in the prince’s constitution.
He was kept to his chambers, pale and shaking, his body rejecting whatever had been forced upon it by Rhae's witchery.
You did not sleep. You did not dare.
By morning, it was over. The love was gone. You saw it immediately in the way he looked at you. He was back to himself. Weakened, but no longer consumed.
“And now,” he said hoarsely, reclining against his pillows as Maekar stood nearby, his expression darkening with every passing moment, “I will not marry her.”
Maekar stared at him. “You begged for this match.”
“I was not myself.”
“You were very much yourself,” Maekar snapped. “You declared it before the court.”
“I was under some…influence,” Aerion said, his gaze flicking briefly, very briefly, to you. “It has passed.”
Maekar’s jaw tightened. This had not been the love match he had hoped for. This was pure embarrassment.
Lyonel arrived that same day. Storm itself incarnate. And when he learned that the match he had ridden hard to secure was now dismissed, that his niece had been all but tossed aside, his temper broke.
“You think this is a jest?” he thundered, his voice carrying through the hall like a war drum. “You send for me, speak of betrothal, and then...what? Change your minds like children at play?”
Maekar stood firm, unyielding. “My son has reconsidered.”
“Your son has insulted my blood,” Lyonel shot back. “And you expect me to simply swallow it?”
“You will accept that no vows were made,” Maekar replied coldly.
Lyonel laughed. It was a threatening, mad, unpleasant sound.
“No vows?” he echoed. “You think that matters? You think word means nothing now? Is that what your dragons have come to?”
The tension in the hall tightened.
“You will be compensated,” Maekar said, as though that settled it. “Another match will be arranged. One of my kin...”
“I do not want another match,” Lyonel snarled. “I want the one that was offered. Or I will take my own crown and be done with this mummer's farce.”
The threat hung in the air. Open rebellion.And still it was not enough.
Tyrosh, apparently, mattered more. Trade. Alliances. Politics.
You did not.
You did not attend dinner. You dismissed your maids. You stood in your chamber, packing your things, jaw clenched so tightly it ached.
“Ours is the fury.” Your house words rang in your mind.
You had been humiliated. Overlooked. Used as a convenience, then discarded. And there was nothing you could do. Nothing but leave.
“Have the carriage be ready by morning,” you had ordered. “I shall return to Storm’s End.”
Alone. You would not stay here another moment, you had already decided. That was the only thing holding you upright. Not dignity, not after being bartered and dismissed like some ill-fitting arrangement, but sheer, stubborn resolve. The kind that had been carved into you long before you knew what court politics even were. The kind your uncle had raised you on between laughter and blood and storm-winds.
“Ours is the fury.” It rang through you now like a war drum.
You would not give them the satisfaction.
Your uncle would rage, of course. He already had, if the echoes of his voice earlier in the hall were anything to go by. But at least there, his fury would be yours. Not something you were forced to stand still beneath while others decided your worth in measured, political tones.
The door opened behind you. You did not turn at once.
“Get out,” you said, assuming it was one of the maids returning despite your dismissal. “I said I would finish...”
The door shut firmly. You turned.
Aerion stood there. He did not look like the lovesick creature who had followed you through corridors and gardens only days before.
“What did you do to me?” he asked.
You stared at him for a moment, then folded your arms slowly across your chest. “I might ask you the same. You caused quite enough trouble without needing help from me.”
He took a step further into the room, gaze fixed on you in a way that made it clear he was not here to be dismissed.
“I remember pieces,” he said, measured. “Not everything. But enough to know I was not in my right mind. I was...” He exhaled sharply, almost disgusted with himself. “Clinging. Begging. Speaking nonsense.”
You said nothing.
His eyes narrowed. “You will explain.”
You considered lying. You did not.
Perhaps because it no longer mattered. Perhaps because you were too tired to construct something neat and palatable. Or perhaps because, for all his faults, Aerion had already suffered enough humiliation without being left in ignorance of it.
“You drank a love potion,” you said plainly.
Silence followed.
“…what?” he asked incredulously, after a moment.
“One Rhae made,” you continued, your tone steady even as your fingers curled slightly against your arms. “She meant it for someone else. It was never intended for you. You took the goblet before I could stop you.”
“The goblet,” he repeated slowly. “The one I took from your hand.”
“Yes.”
“And that was...what?” His gaze lifted back to yours, something keen and probing behind it now. “Meant for whom?”
You hesitated. Only for a second. But he noticed.
“…Valarr,” you said.
That did it.
It was subtle, but unmistakable, the shift in him. Not anger, not outright, but something far more cutting. Something almost…offended. A short, disbelieving breath left him.
“So,” he said, pacing once across the room before turning back to you, “I was not even the intended fool. I merely…stumbled into the role.”
“You took it from my hand,” you snapped, irritation flaring. “Uninvited, I might add.”
He gave a short laugh, though there was little humor in it.
“And you paid for it,” you added. “You were sick enough to rid yourself of it.”
He studied you for a long moment after that.
Then he glanced around, taking in the half-packed trunks, the folded gowns, the disarray that spoke not of leisure but departure.
“You are leaving,” he said.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“In the morn.”
His eyes flicked back to yours.
“And you intend to go quietly?” he asked. “After all this?”
“What would you have me do?” you shot back, the fury you had been holding in your chest surging up at last. “Stay? Smile? Pretend I was not offered and dismissed like a passing inconvenience? They have made their priorities quite clear. I will not remain here to be pitied.”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “You would not.”
Silence stretched again. Then: “I will make you a proposal.”
You stiffened. “I am not interested in...”
“You should hear it first,” he cut in, not unkindly, but firmly enough to stop you.
You pressed your lips together. “Speak, then.”
“We restore the betrothal,” he said.
You stared at him. “…what?”
“We renew it,” he continued, as though discussing something simple, something practical. “Publicly. Before your uncle leaves. Before the court has time to settle on a version of events that does not favour you.”
“You refused it,” you said flatly.
“I did,” he agreed. “Under the impression that my previous…condition had made the decision for me.”
“And now?”
“Now I am making it consciously.”
You threw your hands up in exasperation. “This is absurd.”
“No,” he said calmly. “This is useful.”
You turned away from him, running a hand over your hair in frustration. “You expect me to simply agree? After everything? After your father dismissed my uncle’s anger as though it were nothing?”
“My father dismissed the threat of rebellion because he believes it will not come to pass,” Aerion replied. “You and I both know your uncle would burn half the realm before bending easily, but he will not start a war without cause that he can justify to others.”
“He has cause,” you snapped. “His niece was insulted.”
“His niece was inconvenienced,” Aerion corrected, though there was no mockery in it, only blunt truth. “And inconvenience is not enough to rally banners, no matter how loudly he roars.”
That stung. Because it was true. You hated that it was true.
He watched your reaction carefully before continuing.
“But a renewed betrothal changes that,” he said. “It removes the insult. It restores your standing. It gives him what he came for.”
“What of you?” you asked sharply. “What do you gain from this arrangement, aside from further entangling yourself in something you already wished to escape?”
“Several things,” his mouth curved. “For one, it allows me to correct the spectacle I have already made of myself. For another…” His gaze flicked briefly toward the door, as though aware of unseen ears, before returning to you. “It offers certain…satisfactions.”
“Such as?”
“Such as watching my dear cousin come to terms with the fact that what he overlooked is now beyond his reach,” he said lightly.
You held his gaze. You could not deny that something in you responded to that. Vindictive. Baratheon.
“And the court?” you pressed. “They will not simply accept that you changed your mind twice in as many days.”
“They will accept whatever story we give them,” he replied. “People prefer a narrative that makes sense of discomfort. We provide one, and they will cling to it.”
“What story would that be?”
“That you were overwhelmed,” he said, watching you carefully now. “That my proposal came too suddenly, that you felt…cornered. That you withdrew, and I, in my pride, took it as an insult and withdrew in turn.”
“And now?” you asked.
“Now we reconcile,” he said simply. “Privately first. Publicly soon after. A misunderstanding. A quarrel. Nothing more.”
You were quiet for a long moment. It was a good plan. Too good.
“And you will take the blame,” you said slowly.
“If necessary,” he replied without hesitation. “It will cost me less than it costs you.”
That, too, was true. You exhaled. “…fine,” you said at last. “We will do it.”
Relief did not show on his face. He nodded once. “It will be done, then.”
You turned back toward the trunk, reaching for a folded gown with more force than needed, as though the conversation had settled something cleanly.
It had not. There was a pause behind you.
Then: “There is something else.”
You stilled, your fingers tightening slightly in the fabric. “What?”
He did not answer immediately. When you turned back, Aerion was watching you again, but differently now.
“I remember it,” he said.
Your stomach tightened.
“The way I felt,” he clarified. “Not all of it. But enough.”
You swallowed.
He took a step closer, slower this time, as though approaching something uncertain.
“It was…” He exhaled, searching for the word. “Intense. Yes. Overwhelming. But also...” He frowned faintly, as though the admission irritated him. “Good.”
You looked away.
“I remember wanting to be near you constantly,” he continued. “Wanting to touch you. To speak to you. To…” He stopped himself, jaw tightening slightly. “It was not entirely unpleasant.”
“It was not real,” you said, colder than intended.
“I know,” he replied. There was no argument in it.
“I know,” he repeated, softer now. “That does not mean it was not...something.”
Silence stretched.
“I remember you, as well,” he added after a moment.
Your almost took a step back to escape.
“You were not cruel,” he said. “Not entirely. You were…careful. Even when you did not wish to be.”
You did not know what to say to that. You had not realized he had noticed.
“I remember your hands,” he went on, almost absently now, as though the memory had taken hold of him despite himself. “You touched me as though I might break. As though you were…” He trailed off, then shook his head once, as if dismissing it.
You forced your voice steady. “You were ill.”
“That is not the point.”
“No,” you said quietly. “It is not.”
“I would not mind,” he added, almost casually, though his eyes betrayed something else entirely, “if you did not hate me quite so much this time.”
Your breath caught.
He turned away then, as though the admission cost him more than he would ever allow you to see.
The betrothal was renewed before the court had quite decided what to make of the first disaster. There was no room left for whispers to grow teeth. Aerion Targaryen spoke with a clarity that bordered on insolence, as though the reversal were not a reversal at all but the correction of a trivial misunderstanding. You stood beside him, still as carved stone, aware of every eye in the hall and yet refusing to give them anything they could feast on.
Your uncle watched. That was the worst of it. Lyonel Baratheon did not shout, did not laugh, did not storm out in outrage, he simply watched, weighing the thing like a man deciding whether to split a table with his bare hands or leave it standing out of sheer spite.
When it was done, Maekar Targaryen summoned Aerion away from the hall. You did not follow, but Maekar’s voice carried through the half-open doors.
“You will not make sport of this again. You will not dangle alliances as though they were baubles to be picked up and dropped when you tire of them.”
Aerion did not answer immediately, and in that pause there was something unfamiliar. When he did speak, it was lower than you had ever heard him, stripped of ornament.
“I will not repeat it.”
It was not apology. Maekar would not have cared for one. But it was something like acknowledgement, and that seemed to suffice, for the door shut and the matter, outwardly, was settled.
Outwardly.
It left other things to fester.
Valarr Targaryen did not rage. That would have been easier to bear. Instead, he watched you with an attention that grew more suspicious by the hour, as though he had misplaced something and could not remember where he had last set it down.
You felt it at your back, across tables, in corridors where chance encounters began to feel less like chance. He lingered in conversations that did not concern him, appeared too quickly when you withdrew, dismissed explanations that might have satisfied anyone else. There was something strained in him now, something pulling tight.
You might have endured it longer if not for Rhae Targaryen, who had never learned the discipline of silence.
She did not confess outright. It slipped from her sideways, dressed in half a joke, a careless remark that would have meant nothing to anyone without context. Unfortunately, Egg Targaryen had context. Years of being the unwilling subject of her concoctions had given him an ear for precisely that sort of mistake.
Valarr found you in one of the smaller passages, where the tapestries swallowed sound and the court felt far away. He did not bother with courtesy.
“Tell me it is not true.”
You knew at once what he meant, though you tried, out of reflex more than hope, to evade it. “You will have to be more specific.”
“The potion,” he said, and there was something raw beneath the words now, stripped of the careful composure he usually wore so easily. “Rhae’s foolishness. Aerion drinking it. All of it, tell me it is not true.”
You hesitated.
He drew in a breath that did not quite steady him. “You should have come to me.”
“And said what?” you exploded instantly, worn thin by repetition and scrutiny and the slow erosion of patience. “That your cousin made a spectacle of himself under something he did not understand? That I was dragged into it? What would you have done with that?”
“I would have stopped this,” he said, and now he stepped closer, urgency overtaking restraint. “You would not have had to accept him again.”
“I was not forced...”
“You were,” he insisted, more quietly, and that quiet was worse. “You always choose the path that preserves your dignity, even if it binds you to something you do not want. You would rather endure than be pitied. I know you.”
The familiarity of it stung.
“We can undo it,” he pressed. “We will speak to them again. Properly this time. There are ways...”
“There are not,” you said, and you meant it, though saying it felt like closing a door you had not quite examined.
“There are,” he repeated, but now there was something else threading through his insistence, something less noble. “If you stand with me...”
“And what shall that look like?” The question did not come from you.
Aerion Targaryen leaned in the archway as though he had been there long enough to hear everything that mattered. There was nothing languid in him now, nothing of the careless prince who provoked for sport; his attention was fixed.
Valarr turned sharply. “This is not your concern.”
“It is precisely my concern,” Aerion replied, pushing himself away from the stone and stepping into the narrow space between you. “You are advising my betrothed to dismantle her own standing. I am curious what you intend to offer in its place.”
“I intend to offer her a way out.”
“From what?” Aerion’s tone did not rise, but it sharpened, each word set carefully. “A marriage that restores her position? That silences the insult you allowed to stand when it first mattered?”
Valarr’s expression darkened. “Do not twist this into something it is not.”
“I am not twisting anything,” Aerion said. “I am asking a simple question. What do you offer her?”
Valarr opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Aerion did not look away. “Exactly. You offer her indignation and nothing else. A grand gesture that leaves her to bear the consequences alone.”
“That is unfair.”
“Yes,” Aerion agreed softly. “But it is accurate.”
He shifted then, not quite placing himself between you and Valarr, but close enough that the intent was unmistakable without needing to be stated.
“She will not leave this court diminished,” he said. “Not while I can prevent it.”
Valarr looked at you, and for a moment the anger stripped away, leaving something else, something that might have been regret if it had come sooner, if it had not arrived amplified by the sight of you standing beside another man.
“You do not have to stay,” he said.
The simplicity of it nearly undid you.
But before you could answer, Aerion spoke again, far more cutting. “She has already chosen.”
It was not true entirely but the way he said it made it feel settled.
“Go,” Aerion waved a hand. “Attend to your own betrothal. Leave mine alone.”
Valarr did not argue again. There was nothing left for him to use that would not unravel further under scrutiny. He stepped back, the tension in him coiling inward rather than dissipating, and left without another word.
Aerion did not look at you immediately. When he did, it was brief, as though confirming something to himself, and then he turned away as well, leaving the corridor feeling suddenly too narrow.
The dress arrived the following afternoon. It was not the sort of thing you would have chosen, it was unflattering but it refused modesty. The fabric was rich without being ostentatious, dark enough to make the gold threading at the seams stand out. The neckline dipped lower than was strictly proper, softened only by the structure of the bodice, which held everything precisely where it ought to be.
You ran your fingers over the embroidery, recognizing the pattern without needing to think: stags worked subtly into the design. Baratheon, reshaped.
When Aerion appeared later, you did not bother to hide your suspicion. “You are aware this will be noticed.”
“That is rather the point,” he said, as though it were obvious.
The certainty in it should have irritated you more than it did. You wore it.
At supper, Valarr's gaze found you quickly and lingered without disguise, drawn to the unfamiliar lines of the gown, the way it altered your shape, the way it made something that had always been present suddenly impossible to ignore.
It should have satisfied Aerion.
That had been the intention, after all: a small, petty victory carved neatly out of a larger, more complicated situation.
Instead, he found himself distracted by something far less convenient. By you.
It was not new, exactly. The memory of the potion still lingered in him in unwelcome fragments: the pull toward you, the restless need for proximity, the disorienting certainty that everything else was secondary. He had dismissed it as an aberration, a chemical imposition that had nothing to do with him.
Watching you now, he was less certain.
It was quieter, what he felt. Less consuming. Yet no less persistent.
You shifted in your seat, adjusting the fabric at your waist, and his attention followed the movement before he could stop it. When you laughed at something Rhae said, the sound caught him off guard, familiar in a way that unsettled him. He looked away. It did not help.
Later, in your chambers, you turned slightly before the mirror, fingers fussing with the neckline. “It sits oddly,” you murmured, though the complaint lacked conviction.
“It does not,” Aerion said from where he leaned against the doorframe.
You glanced at him through the reflection. “You would say that.”
“I would not, if it were untrue.”
You studied your reflection a moment longer, then, in a small voice, “Do you like it?”
It was a simple question, but it held more weight than it ought to have. There was something in the way you asked, as though his answer mattered in a way that had not been the case before.
“Yes,” he said at last.
You nodded, satisfied, and turned back to the mirror, smoothing the fabric once more.
He pushed himself away from the wall without quite deciding to do so, drawn forward by something he had not named and could not easily dismiss.
He reached for you before the rest of the thought could form. His hand came up, fingers brushing along your jaw with a familiarity that might have startled you if it had not already existed somewhere beneath the surface. He tilted your face toward him, just enough to meet your gaze fully, and for a moment he simply looked at you, as though measuring something he had resisted too long. Then he closed the distance.
The kiss was nothing like the fevered grasping the potion had driven from him before. There was no urgency to it, no desperation clawing at the edges. It was slower, steadier, shaped by awareness rather than absence of it.
That made it far more difficult to dismiss.
Rhae’s careless words returned to you then, unwelcome and impossible to ignore. It only amplifies what is already there.
part 4: pending...
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Beautiful stunning incredible life changing 10/10!!! Finding myself on team Aerion for the first time ever 👀👀 can’t wait to see what Valarr will do next though
Aerion Targaryen x f!reader x Valarr Targaryen (part 1)
Summary: Based on the request "A fic where you tried to give Valarr a love potion but Aerion drinks it instead (like what one of Egg's sisters did)". Reader is a Baratheon (but no physical descriptions are given), who is a childhood friend of Valarr's.
Valarr did not leave when you gave your answer. He stood as though he expected you to laugh, to say it was a jest, that you were merely amusing yourself at court’s expense. When you did not, when you held his gaze with a steadiness you had never quite used against him before, something unsettled flickered across his face.
“You cannot be serious,” he said.
“I am,” you replied, evenly.
Daella shifted beside you, arms crossed, chin lifted defiantly. Rhae hovered nearer the window, trying and failing to look inconspicuous.
Valarr looked between the three of you, his confusion becoming probing.
“When did this happen?” he pressed. “You never spoke of him. You...” He stopped, frowning faintly. “You do not even like him.”
“That is not your concern,” you said.
It was colder than you had ever spoken to him.
He stepped closer. “It is my concern if...”
“If what?” you cut in, your voice tightening despite your control. “If I make a poor match? You did not seem concerned when yours was announced.”
That struck. His mouth parted, then closed again.
Daella seized the moment. “Perhaps you should leave,” she said, sweetly sharp. “You are upsetting her.”
“I am not...” Valarr began.
“You are,” Rhae chimed in, far too quickly, her nerves making her bold. “And she is to be married. You cannot simply barge in and question her like...like...”
“Like what?” he asked, eyes narrowing.
Rhae faltered.
You stepped in before she could unravel the entire truth with one poorly chosen word.
“Unchaperoned,” you said.
Valarr’s expression shifted, hurt, unmistakably so, though he tried to mask it.
“…I see,” he said quietly.
He did not, you thought.
He bowed his head, stiffly, and turned to leave.
At the door, he hesitated.
“You could have told me,” he said, without looking back.
Then he was gone.
The moment the door shut, Rhae burst into motion.
“I can fix it,” she said, already rummaging through her things, knocking over a small vial in her haste. “There must be a counter-potion. Something to reverse the binding, perhaps a dilution, or...”
“Rhae,” Daella said, rubbing her temple, “you do not even know what you made.”
“I do!” Rhae insisted. “It is a love draught. A very potent one, clearly.”
“That you made by guessing,” Daella replied dryly.
Rhae ignored her entirely, muttering to herself as she began sorting through herbs and powders.
You watched her for a moment. Then you turned away. There were more immediate problems.
You wrote to your uncle Lyonel that same day.
You did not mention potions or spells or foolish drunken decisions. You were not that reckless. But you told him enough.
You told him that Aerion had been improper with you, rude, lewd in a way no lady should tolerate. You told him that his sudden declaration of love felt unnatural. That you did not trust it. That you feared being made a spectacle of, a laughingstock at court if this proved to be some cruel whim.
You did not exaggerate. You did not need to.
You sealed the letter and sent it off with steady hands.
If nothing else, Lyonel Baratheon would come.
And Lyonel Baratheon did not take kindly to anyone slighting his family.
The reply came swiftly. Not to you. To Maekar.
A short, brisk message, delivered with all the subtlety of a storm breaking over the Narrow Sea.
He would come to King’s Landing personally to discuss the matter of his niece’s betrothal.
If there had been any hope that things might quiet in the meantime, it died quickly. Because Aerion did not leave you alone.
You were walking through the gardens when he appeared at your side, as though conjured.
“You did not come to break fast,” he said, his voice softer than you had ever heard it.
You did not slow. “I was indisposed.”
“You should have sent for me.”
You stopped then, turning to him with a sharp look. “Why would I do that?”
His expression softened, as though you had asked something terribly gullible.
“Because I would care for you,” he said simply.
It unsettled you more than his usual arrogance ever had.
“I do not need your care,” you replied.
“I know,” he said quickly. “But I wish to give it.”
You resumed walking. He followed.
You tried to be rid of him. You truly did. You snapped at him when he grew too close. You cut your words sharp and precise, hoping to pierce through whatever madness had taken hold of him.
“You are insufferable,” you told him once, when he would not stop hovering at your shoulder.
He only smiled.
“You may insult me as you please,” he said. “It does not change what I feel.”
“It should,” you retorted. “Any sane man would reconsider.”
“I am not any man,” he said lightly.
That, at least, was true.
You cornered him once, away from the others, your patience fraying.
“This is absurd,” you told him, your voice low and cutting. “You do not know me well enough to love me.”
“I know enough,” he replied.
“You knew enough to pinch me like a tavern girl,” you snapped.
He stilled. For a moment, you saw something flicker across his face. Regret? Shame? It was gone too quickly to be certain.
“I will not do that again,” he said, quieter now.
“That does not undo it.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I will spend the rest of my life making amends, if you allow me.”
You stared at him. He stepped closer, too close.
“You may hate me,” he continued, his voice dropping, something almost desperate threading through it now. “You may strike me, curse me, turn your back on me in public and private. I do not care. Only...” His breath hitched, just slightly. “Do not refuse me.”
“This is not love,” you said.
“It is,” he insisted.
“It is obsession.”
“Then I am obsessed,” he said, without hesitation.
You recoiled. He did not falter.
It worsened.
He began to trail after you openly, no longer caring who saw.
At feasts, he sat too close. In halls, he appeared at your side as though tethered to you.
“Do not send me away,” he murmured once, catching your wrist lightly when you turned from him.
“I will give you anything,” he said, his voice low, almost unsteady. “Anything you ask.”
You pulled your hand free. “I want you to leave me alone.”
Aerion shook his head, as though the very idea was impossible.
“Ask something else,” he said.
You stared at him, incredulous. “You cannot simply decide which of my wishes you will grant.”
“I can if one of them is to lose you,” he replied.
You had no answer for that.
He spoke endlessly.
Of things that made your skin crawl. And things that, against your will, made something in your chest ache.
“I will give you the finest gowns,” he said, pacing before you as you sat, utterly exhausted by him. “Silks from Lys, jewels from Volantis, whatever you wish.”
“I do not care for such things.”
“Then I will build you something better,” he said immediately. “A palace. Not here, somewhere grander. Somewhere worthy of you.”
You scoffed. “You cannot simply build palaces on a whim.”
“I can,” he said, utterly serious. “For you, I will.”
You rubbed your forehead.
“I will fill it with anything you desire,” he continued, relentless. “Books, if you wish. Gardens. A place where storms rage, if you miss them.”
Your breath caught, just slightly. You hated that he noticed.
“I will give you sons,” he went on, softer now. “And daughters. They will have your strength.”
You looked away.
“You will never be overlooked again,” he finished.
That, more than anything, got stuck in your mind. You hated him for it. Well, you tried to. You truly did. But it became…complicated.
Because beneath the madness, beneath the unnatural devotion, there was something else. It was not like he could control it. His voice softened when you spoke, even when your words were sharp. He faltered not in arrogance, but in uncertainty when you pushed too hard. He had not asked for this. He had not meant for it. And still he bore it because he had no choice.
You softened. Not enough to encourage him but enough that your cruelty dulled. Enough that, when he leaned too close, you did not always push him away immediately.
Valarr did not let it rest.
He returned the next day, and the next, and the next after that, each time with the same restless air about him, as though something had shifted beneath his feet and he could not quite understand where the ground had gone.
It was never a single question, never a simple inquiry. He circled the matter, as though careful probing might reveal a crack.
“You must see how sudden it all seems,” he said one afternoon, standing before you while Daella idly flipped through a book and Rhae pretended very poorly to be absorbed in her notes. “Aerion has never shown you any particular…regard before. Not of this kind.”
You folded your hands in your lap, posture straight. “Men are allowed to develop affections.”
“Yes, but...” He hesitated, frowning slightly. “Affections do not usually bloom overnight. Not like this.”
Daella snorted softly, not looking up. “Perhaps you simply never noticed.”
Valarr’s eyes flicked toward her, briefly annoyed, before returning to you. “And you,” he continued, “you never spoke of him either. Not once. You spoke of…many things. But not him.”
You tilted your head faintly, as though considering. “Must I report every passing interest to you?”
“That is not what I meant,” he said quickly, though his composure was beginning to fray. “I only mean that I thought I would have known if there had been…something.”
There had been something, you thought.
Just not what he imagined.
Rhae suddenly interjected, far too brightly, “People can be very secretive about matters of the heart.”
Daella shot her a look.
Valarr’s gaze sharpened. “Secretive? Since when?”
“Since always,” Daella said lazily, closing her book with a soft snap. “You are not entitled to every detail of her life, cousin.”
Valarr exhaled through his nose, clearly dissatisfied, but there was nothing he could press that would not make him seem...what? Petty? Possessive? Something he had never allowed himself to be.
And so he left again, though this time more slowly, as though reluctant to turn his back.
You watched him go. You felt something like vindication. It did not taste as sweet as you had once imagined.
Rhae hadn't slept properly since that fateful day.
At first, it had been frantic scribbling, muttered theories, a scatter of ingredients that grew more chaotic with each passing hour. But as the reality of the situation dawned: Lyonel on his way, Maekar already in agreement, Aerion growing only more attached, her efforts shifted from frantic to feverish.
“This is not simply infatuation,” she insisted one night, pacing the length of your chamber while Daella lay sprawled across your bed, watching her with half-lidded eyes. “It is binding. There must be a way to break a binding.”
“You do not even know how you made it,” Daella pointed out for the hundredth time, already resigned to what fate had willed.
“I know enough,” Rhae snapped, whirling toward her. “There were elements of suggestion, of amplification, of desire already present...”
You lifted a brow. “Desire?”
Rhae faltered for half a second, then recovered. “Perhaps not conscious desire. But something. The potion does not create from nothing, it enhances...”
“Then you have enhanced something deeply unfortunate,” Daella muttered.
Rhae ignored her again, turning back to her table, hands moving with increasing precision now. “If it binds, it can be unbound. It must. Otherwise…” She trailed off, her mouth tightening.
Otherwise, Lyonel would arrive to find you entangled in something unnatural, Maekar would defend his son, and neither man was known for yielding.
Aerion did not give you much space to think.
He found you everywhere. In the corridors, where he would fall into step beside you as though summoned by your presence alone. In the gardens, where he would appear at your shoulder, speaking your name with a familiarity that still felt jarring. At meals, where he abandoned his place without hesitation if it meant sitting closer to you.
“You did not come to the yard this morning,” he said, falling into step beside you as you walked along the outer gallery. “I looked for you.”
“I did not know you kept such careful watch over my movements,” you replied, not slowing.
“I would, if you allowed it,” he said, entirely serious.
You glanced at him, irritation flaring. “I do not.”
He smiled faintly, as though indulging you. “Then I will settle for watching from afar.”
“You are not watching from afar,” you pointed out.
“No,” he agreed, and there was something almost pleased in it. “I am improving my position.”
You huffed a quiet breath, shaking your head, but you did not send him away.
You had learned by now that cold rejection did not deter him, it only twisted into something softer, more pleading, more difficult to withstand.
“You should not encourage me,” he added after a moment, his voice lowering slightly as he studied your expression. “You look at me as though you are considering something unkind.”
“I am considering many unkind things,” you said dryly.
“Will you tell me?” he asked, almost eagerly.
“No.”
“Then I will imagine them,” he said, and for once there was a flicker of something like amusement in his tone. “I suspect they will be worse.”
You sighed and bit back a frustrated scream.
“I have been thinking,” he said, sitting down too close beside you on a bench as you tried unsuccessfully to read. “If you do not wish to remain in King’s Landing after we are wed, we need not. We could go elsewhere.”
You did not look up from your book. “Where would you go? You are a prince.”
“I would go where you are,” he said simply. “The rest can be arranged.”
“That is not how kingdoms work.”
“It is how I would make them work,” he replied.
You sighed, closing the book at last. “You cannot bend the world to your will simply because you wish it.”
His gaze softened, unbearably so. “Not the world. Only my life. And you are part of it now.”
You looked away. He leaned closer.
“Are you unhappy?” he asked quietly.
The question caught you off guard. “…what?”
“You seem…” He hesitated, as though searching for the word. “Distant. When I speak of these things.”
You swallowed. “I am not accustomed to them,” you said carefully.
“I will give you time,” he murmured.
You almost laughed at that.
Time was the one thing you did not have.
The days slipped by too quickly. Lyonel would arrive soon.
Rhae worked relentlessly. And finally, she came to you with something that did not look like a disaster waiting to happen. It was a small vial with clear liquid inside with faint lavender hue.
“This will work,” she said, with a conviction that made even Daella sit up straighter.
Rhae thrust the vial toward you. “This is different. It is not a draught, it is a dissolving agent. It will break the binding. I am certain of it.”
You took it. It felt far too light in your hand for something that might decide the course of everything.
“You must give it to him,” Rhae added, her voice dropping. “Soon. Before your uncle arrives.”
You nodded. Because what else could you do?
It was not difficult to get Aerion alone. You sent for him, and he came immediately as though he had been waiting for the summons.
He entered your chamber with an ease that still felt inappropriate, his gaze finding you instantly, softening in that now-familiar way.
“You sent for me,” he said, and there was something almost pleased in it, like a man rewarded.
“I did.”
You had prepared for this. You had rehearsed it in your mind. It should have been simple. Offer him the drink. Watch him take it. Wait.
Instead, you found yourself hesitating.
Because he was looking at you. He looked at you as though you were...everything. It was too much.
“You seem troubled,” he said, stepping closer. “Has something happened?”
You tightened your grip on the vial, hiding it within your sleeve. “No.”
“You are a poor liar,” he murmured, and there was no mockery in it., only concern.
“I am not lying.”
“You are,” he said gently. “And I do not like it.”
You exhaled slowly. “I am merely…tired.”
“Then you should rest,” he said at once. “You should not be standing. Sit...”
“Aerion,” you interrupted, more sharply than intended.
He stilled.
You softened your tone, forcing steadiness into it. “I asked you here for something else.”
His attention sharpened immediately. “Anything.”
You reached for the goblet you had prepared, pouring the contents of the vial into it.
“For me?” he asked, watching you curiously.
“For you,” you said, offering it to him.
Aerion took it without hesitation but did not drink.
Instead, he looked at you longer than necessary.
“You are sad,” he said softly.
Your throat tightened. “I am not.”
“You are,” he insisted, stepping closer, the goblet momentarily forgotten in his hand. “You look as though you are about to send me away.”
Something in your chest twisted. “I am not sending you away.”
“Not yet,” he murmured.
You swallowed.
He reached up slowly, and brushed his fingers along your cheek, as though testing whether you would pull back. You did not.
“May I kiss you?” he asked tentatively.
The question struck harder than any demand could have.
For a moment, just a moment, you wavered.
Because this...this gentleness, this asking, this was more than you had ever been given. More than Valarr had ever offered.
And it was not even real.
You forced yourself to move. You closed your hand lightly over his, guiding it down, pressing the goblet back toward him instead.
“Drink first,” you said, your voice softer than you intended. “Please.”
He studied you.
Then, because it was you and he was bewitched, he obeyed.
He drank all of it without question.
You looked away.
Because you could not bear the way he would be looking at you when he finished.
The potion did not work.
At least, not as Rhae intended.
Aerion's expression shifted, his mouth twisted.
He doubled over violently.
The goblet slipped from his hand, shattering against the floor as he staggered, one hand bracing against the table, the other clutching at his stomach.
“Aerion...” you started, alarm flaring.
He did not answer.
He was already retching.
part 3: pending...
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