i live in the hightower in the center of oldtown, on the 132nd floor. my name is ormund hightower. i’m 37 years old. i believe in taking care of myself, in a balanced diet, and a rigorous perfuming routine. in the morning if my stomach is a little riotous, i’ll light some scented candles while filling my pomander. i can fit fifteen grams of dried herbs in it now. after i put out the candles, i have a tub drawn. in the bath, i use a rose and lavender soap. then a honey oak scrub for smoothing the skin, and on the face, a soothing almond oil. then i apply a rosemary lemongrass facial paste, which i leave on for ten minutes while my squire daeron prepares the rest of my routine. i always use an after-shave cream with little or no witch hazel, because witch hazel dries your face out and makes you look older. then a rosewater infused cream, then an anti aging eye balm followed by a final lilac scented protective cream. there is an idea of an ormund hightower, some kind of great lord. but there is no real me, only a new kingmaker, something better than criston cole. and though i can hide my sensitivity to odors and you can drink my wine and taste the same delicate aromas, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable once i give you driftmark, i simply am not there.
dancin' in acid rain alone it's new, but i don't wanna do it anymore; i guess i'll sing alone (modern!ormund hightower x fem!reader).
synopsis: weeks after you and ormund have called it quits, your car breaks down, your cellphone battery dies, and you're stranded on the side of the road under a pouring rain. and somehow, in an act you have yet to decide is either a blessing or a curse, you're thrown back into the dangerous spiral that comes with the very last person you wanted to see.
cw: smut (18+, MDNI!), angst. modern!au, canon divergence. age difference (ormund is implied to be in his early 40s and reader in her mid 20s). oral (male!receiving), masturbation (female!receiving), objectification, praise as dirty talk. power imbalance, toxic dynamics. reader is aegon’s ex, mentions of cheating, ormund is manipulative and a jerk! | 1.4k words
ORMUND lets out a breath, swipes his tongue over his bottom lip, and the thin silver chain that adorns his neck sways like a pendulum with every thrust of his hips.
“you’ll touch yourself to this when you go back home, won’t you?” he whispers, and his words burn through your skin until they’re scorched on your bones. “finger that pretty pussy thinking of me?”
you're in his kitchen, and your knees feel tight against the cold wooden floor, and you're bobbing your head up and down, up and down, up and down, along the length of his cock.
you're in his kitchen, and your shirt lies discarded by your side, pretty tits jiggling with every move, and he does not part his eyes from the sight.
excuses materialize inside your head like wisps of smoke.
you are on a break. yours and aegon's relationship was broken before you officially called it quits, either way. and you are on a break. he's probably doing the same thing, anyways, and he was barely loyal to you when you were actually dating. and you are on a break.
you stop yourself before you can conjure any more.
in this moment, none of them matter.
none of them make up for the fact that he, the man whose cock is far down your throat, is almost twice your age. none of them make up for his steady hands and careful sounds. none of them make up for the fact that he, the man whose cock is far down your throat, has already broken your heart.
it does not matter, not when you swallow around his length and he lets out a quiet groan.
“you look so beautiful like this,” ORMUND hisses through clenched teeth, and a cigarette dangles from the corner of his mouth. “it's easy to see why aegon was so besotted by you. hard not to be when you look this pretty on your knees.”
a moan breaks past your lips.
you’re certain that his words will come back to haunt you later, when you’re back home and start dissecting the evening by its seconds, but at the moment, you close your eyes and do your best to tuck them away.
you run your tongue down the side of his cock, tracing a vein, and your hands travel down between your legs.
and it’s the stretch, and it’s the heat, and it’s the way he’s holding back from thrusting inside your mouth, and your mind is spinning with how good it feels.
“no, pretty girl,” he says, words falling out of his mouth in a purr. you decide you hate how soft it sounds. you cannot help but want to hear it again. “eyes open. come on, keep looking at me.”
you obey. you look up at him through your lashes, and he twitches inside your mouth. one of your hands slips under the hem of your shorts and starts to circle your clit over your panties, your own body trying to match his pace.
it’s not enough.
you press your digits harder against your throbbing pearl, try to circle them faster, but you’re dripping down your thighs, warm and sticky, and as you struggle to take his cock deeper inside your mouth, you cannot help but think of how it feels when it is splitting your cunt open instead.
you can still feel his hands on you. you can still feel his lips on your skin.
it’s been months since the last time you laid with him—the night he said it would be best if you stayed clear of each other for the sake of your relationship with aegon, speaking against your embrace as he held you after fucking you—and you can still feel his hands on you: his soft skin and long fingers, his thick knuckles and strong hold.
it all remains, like the ghost of a touch over your skin, sending shivers down your spine at the memory it evokes.
you wonder if it will ever leave you.
“look at you, pretty girl, making such a mess for me,” his hips thrust against your face again, cock pushing down against your throat. he takes a drag from his cigarette, inhaling deep, and you swear you can feel it in your lungs. “is this turning you on? mhm, are you getting off on the taste of my cock, pretty?”
a nod. you whimper around his length, and he hisses. he removes his right hand from the back of your head and curls his fingers around his base, pulling his cock out of your mouth as your pleasure begins to take form at the bottom of your stomach. a ribbon of spit bridges the empty space between his tip, reddened and leaking, and your lips, swollen and glistening.
ORMUND smirks, angling your face upwards, and runs the head of his cock over your lips.
you open your mouth and stick your tongue out, moaning as your orgasm ripples through you with a force that makes you realize that you have bitten more than you can chew; because this kind of bliss is the kind that has teeth, and is the kind of bliss that bites back.
it’s the kind of bliss that leaves its mark.
“by the seven, look at that,” he mumbles, and a clump of ash falls to the floor. his words are messy and slurred as he strokes his cock faster, and faster, and faster, chasing the same pleasure you have just surrendered yourself to. “you’re beautiful. seven above, you’re beautiful.”
and he comes undone.
a hoarse, broken moan leaves his mouth when he lowers his guard. he continues jerking his cock as he cums, balls drawing tight as he streaks your waiting mouth with ribbons of white. they fall all over your lips, down your chin, along the expanse of your cheeks.
he drinks up the sight, pupils growing wide to take it all in, and his euphoria, unlike yours, is the kind that has wings.
you swallow, and the moment he closes his eyes to take a breath in, you wipe at the corner of your mouth with the back of your hand. you lower your head to put on your top, and miss the way in which his eyes search for yours.
the lightning fixture shines over your head, golden and gentle like a low-hanging moon, bathing the kitchen in a faint amber glow. light bleeds over every surface as the day leaves little by little, and, for a moment, there is silence: silence as he gathers his thoughts and silence as you comb through yours.
he feels himself isolated from the world and is only standing in a quiet kitchen; glowing warmly under an artificial moon, and is sure that this is all there is, with his gaze set on the horizon and his anchor dropping on a bed of sand. silence, and the smell of grapefruit dish soap.
then, an exhale.
the world is the world again.
“this cannot happen again,” he whispers, voice soft as silk, words set in stone. they sting, hot and painful, running like acid down your spine. you can still taste his cum on your tongue. “we don’t work, you and i. not really. you know that, don’t you? and he loves you still, i know he does. he wants to try again. and you two—he's a better fit for you.”
your words die on your throat, and you answer what you can. “i know.”
ORMUND nods, chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths, and tucks his softening cock back inside his pants. he squares his shoulders, picking up the boulder, shouldering the weight.
“you should stay the night,” he adds, after a moment. he leans over your form and leaves the bunt of cigarette on the counter. “there’s pasta, if you want something to eat.”
the daze is over as quickly as it began. your knees, raw and reddened, sting when you stand, and you're left with his words, quiet and regretful, as the bitterness of bile rises up your throat.
Ormund Hightower, who feels desire for a married lady and can only be close to her in his dreams. He is consumed by shame because he is still a man of faith, and thoughts of another woman are the greatest sin weighing on his soul. It is vile and two-faced, but he thinks of you in the most improper way. He undresses you with his eyes, wondering what lies beneath all those silks. His imagination works in the most lavish way. He would love to fuck you right in front of your husband. Would your husband do anything about it? Ormund realizes his thoughts are so dark and unworthy, especially when you don't even suspect a fraction of the filth he has imagined in his sick mind. How can you smile so sweetly at a man who shamelessly pictures you in his enormous bed? Lord Hightower is more than certain that you would agree to be his lover, because your affection for him is obvious. But he would never do it. That would betray himself and the vows he made to his younger, not yet fully corrupted self.
summary: sent to oldtown as a ward beneath your cousin lord ormund hightower's protection, you learn there are some vows that are easier to preach than to keep.
pairing: ormund hightower x targtower!reader
content/warnings: 18+ (mdni), icky guardian/ward relationship, canon-typical incest (cousins), age gap (~20 years), grooming, religious abuse and religious guilt, emotional manipulation, coercive control, possessiveness, severe power imbalance, forced declarations of affection, physical intimidation/rough handling, parental abandonment, references to childhood neglect, implied sexualized ritual, canon-typical misogyny, canon divergent, no use of y/n
word count: 6.8k
A/N: i need psychological help for how badly i need this man fr. originally had this planned as a oneshot, but i kept writing more...and more...and more...and felt like i was going to rush through the material if i tried to fit it all in one, so now we have a three-part series that i am very excited for you all to read :) hope you guys enjoy this freak of a man AND to see how freaked out i make these two hehehe! and excited for you all to see what ormund means when he reminds reader it is the seventh day...hmm...wonder what he has in store... also, fun drinking game: take a shot every time reader says "yes, my lord"
MASTERLIST
next chapter → (COMING 7/24)
The other side of the bed was empty when you awoke, though the sheets remained warm and rumpled. Eyes still heavy from the lingering seeds of sleep, your hand reached across the mattress, patting until it found the warm hollow of where his body had lain. Ormund was almost always up before dawn.
“Idleness is as plain a sin as vanity or greed,” he liked to say. “It begets indulgence, indulgence begets excess, and excess begets unfaithfulness.”
Unfaithfulness, of course, was inexcusable.
The bedchamber was still dim, with only the first suggestion of morning creeping beneath the shutters. Beyond the walls of the Hightower, you could hear the bells of the Citadel begin their first tolls.
Ormund, as expected, was already kneeling before the small altar in the corner of the room. He wore only his linen sleeping shirt and breeches, and though his back was turned to you, you could see one hand slowly turning the pages of his weathered copy of The Seven-Pointed Star and hear the low murmur of passages he had committed to memory.
In all the years you had lived in Oldtown, never once had Ormund deviated from this morning ritual. You remember the first time you had seen it. You had been a small child then, prone to wandering from your own chambers in the middle of the night into this one, back when it had belonged to the late Lady Hightower as much as it did her husband. She had always been kind to you. Like a true mother, when your own was so far away.
Whenever sleep would not come, or the young Hightower boys had filled your head with tales of monsters lurking beneath the floor, you would creep from your bed and patter barefoot down the stone passage. You would ease open the heavy, creaking door and stand silently at the foot of the canopied bed until Lady Hightower stirred. She would always lift the blankets for you. From his side of the bed, Ormund would grumble some half-hearted objection about indulgence and the necessity of teaching you independence, but Lady Hightower paid him little mind. She would draw you into the warmth between them and promise that no monster in Oldtown would dare pass through their chamber door.
Even after she died, you did not cease coming.
It hurt, at first. To lie in the bed where she had once held you, the space now empty without her. Ormund never objected to your staying. Though he remained stoic and stony throughout his own grief, perhaps there was comfort for him, too, in not being left to sleep alone. When you wept silently into her old pillow, he would smooth your hair back from your face and say nothing.
The habit endured long after your tears had dried and the black mourning clothes had been packed away. Some nights, you would attempt an honest effort at remaining in your own chambers, only to find yourself once again padding down the candlelit passage towards his.
Ormund never turned you away. Now it was his hand that lifted the blankets for you to crawl beneath. Now it was his arm that pulled you in, wrapped around your waist in the night, his face that pressed into your hair, his body whose warmth you sought beneath the covers.
The servants of the Hightower knew that your own chambers were little more than a formality, so seldom occupied that dust gathered upon the bed. You slept in your cousin Ormund’s chambers, you bathed there, you dressed there. Nearly every trace of your daily life had migrated into his rooms, until there was little left in your own to suggest they had ever belonged to you.
It was only natural. After Lady Hightower’s death, the keeping of the household had fallen into your hands. It was you who approved the servants’ schedules, arranged the seating at feasts, and received the wives and daughters of visiting noble houses. Some might have found it strange that Ormund’s ward should occupy so much of his late wife’s place while remaining neither wed nor formally mistress of his household. Stranger still, perhaps, that if anyone entered Lord Ormund’s chambers before the sunrise, they would find him curled around his ward– Queen Alicent’s youngest daughter– his body arranged in the shape a husband’s would make.
If they did find it strange, no one within Oldtown had the courage to remark upon it.
“You’re awake.”
You propped yourself up on your elbows to watch as Ormund closed the prayer book and rose from the altar.
“Yes,” you answered as he crossed the chamber to the washstand. He dipped his hands into the porcelain basin and brought the water to his face. “I heard you praying.”
Ormund hummed as he dried himself with the folded linen cloth laid fresh each morning beside the ewer. “It would serve you well to join me in morning prayer.”
You ducked your head. “Yes, my lord.”
“I think only of your soul. One burdened by the sins of your…Targaryen…forefathers should labor all the more harder to absolve herself of them.”
“Yes, my lord.”
You waited for him to chide you further, or launch into one of his soliloquies on how faithfulness did not sleep merely because the sun had yet to rise. Ormund did none of that.
Instead, he made his way to the bed and lowered himself onto the edge beside you, his weight dipping the mattress. Ormund lifted one hand to cup your cheek and ran his thumb gently beneath your eye. You nuzzled into his touch without a thought.
“We will have visitors from the Reach in the Hightower later today. In particular, Lord Godric Ashford will call upon me this morning in my solar,” he said, as casually as if he were discussing the day’s weather.
Your brows rose. You knew that several noble houses from across the Reach were expected at the Hightower in the coming days for discussions of taxes, grain, and the season’s feasts. Hosting them was hardly unusual. Nor was it unusual for one of their unmarried sons to request a private audience with your guardian. “Lord Robert’s son?”
“Yes, unfortunately,” Ormund mused, seemingly more occupied with gently stroking his thumb back and forth over your cheekbone. “I assume he intends to ask for your hand in marriage.”
Your stomach twisted in a mixture of dread and excitement. Lowering your eyes, you worried at a stray thread in the coverlet. “Do you…do you think he might be suitable?”
The thumb on your cheek stopped. Ormund’s face tightened slightly, as though some rancid smell had entered the room. “That, my dear, remains to be seen.”
He stood from the bed, and you instantly missed the warmth of his touch. You watched him cross to the wardrobe and pull open the carved doors, retrieving his clothes for the day.
“But you will still hear him, yes?”
“That is what I have agreed to,” Ormund answered with obvious reluctance, stepping into his breeches. “And I suppose I must keep my word. I will hear his presentation, just as I have heard the others before him.”
He slipped his arms into the doublet, turning to you as he began buttoning it. “You will not concern yourself with the meeting. You were entrusted to me for good reason. Namely, my rectitude and discernment in such matters. You would not want to be betrothed to some ignorant oaf, would you?”
“No, my lord.”
“And you know that I have only your best interests at heart, including the question of what sort of man you should be given to. Correct?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Ormund smiled affectionately. “Good girl.”
Your heart squeezed at the praise. It had always been that way with Ormund, desperately seeking any type of reassurance that you were saved. That you were obedient. That you were wanted. That you were good.
The sound of light footsteps and swishing skirts echoed under the chamber’s door. Your servants, no doubt, waiting to be beckoned in by the Lord Hightower to serve upon his ward.
Ormund made his way back over to you, but this time stayed standing, looking down upon you. “You will attend the sept this morning. When Lord Ashford has finished his proposition, you will come to me in the solar. This evening, we will receive our guests for supper in the Great Hall.”
You bowed your head obediently, just as he taught you. “Yes, my lord.”
Ormund turned to the door as if he meant to call the servants in, and then paused. He slowly turned back to you, his blue eyes swimming with a feeling you had become quite familiar with. Determination, and something weightier under it. Something you had never been able to name, but knew intimately.
“It is the seventh day,” he stated, his voice low. You knew that. You knew by now not to recognize the day by name, but by its count. “You will come straight to this chamber after supper. Bathe first.”
Silently, you nodded. His face twisted in disapproval. “Your words, please.”
“Y-yes, my lord.”
He exhaled, a small measure of satisfaction returning to his face. “Good. Very good.”
Ormund laid one hand over yours where it rested atop the coverlet, looking suddenly very serious. “And do tell your women never use to that horrid citrus oil on you again like they did last week. It taints you.”
“I will.”
He squeezed your hand in appreciation, then straightened himself and turned towards the door. “You may enter.”
The door opened at once, like your women had been waiting. They filed into the chamber with lowered eyes, none appearing surprised to find you sitting in Lord Ormund’s bed. He did not bother to look at them, his gaze fixed on you as he spoke.
“See that she is properly dressed to receive visitors.”
The girls spoke in unison, eyes still fixed on the ground. “Yes, Lord Hightower.”
Ormund nodded at you once. An unspoken acknowledgement passed between the two of you. The seventh day. What the night would hold. Then he departed, leaving the chamber door open behind him.
Your women moved quickly and efficiently, drawing back the blankets and settling a robe over your shoulders as they began the familiar work of preparing you for the day. There was no time to dally. Before long, your hair had been pinned, your gown laced tightly in Hightower green, and your throat and wrists adorned with jewels Ormund had gifted you on namedays and holy days.
One of the girls uncorked the vial of citrus oil and reached for your neck. You grabbed her hand, stopping her.
“Lord Ormund,” was all you had to say.
She bowed her head in immediate understanding and exchanged it for another perfumed oil he had shipped from Lys for you.
Soon, you looked as a proper Hightower woman ought to look. And by the next tolling of the bells, you had entered the sept of the Citadel.
The seven-walled chamber appeared much as it had when you first arrived in Oldtown– or, at least, as it had in your earliest memories once you had gone from a crawling babe to a waddling child. Damp clung to the stone floors. At the center stood an altar crowded with pools of hardened wax and burning candles, while bejeweled likenesses of the Seven watched from alcoves set into each wall. Your attendants lingered behind you like silent shadows as you moved through the sept, a veil drawn over your hair.
You walked as Ormund had always instructed you to walk: head bowed, hands clasped, each step quiet. The very picture of piety in a woman.
Stopping at the Maiden, you thought once more of the late Lady Hightower. You often served as her little companion to the sept on mornings like this, following closely behind as she knelt and prayed before each altar. You could feel the memory clearly: the whisper of her skirts against the stone, the warmth of her hand around your smaller one, the patient way she corrected your prayers when your childish tongue stumbled over the words.
The truth was that you had no memories before ones such as these, ones of Oldtown.
You were just a babe when your father, King Viserys, sent you south to be fostered among your Hightower kin. Ormund had always said that, for all the sins of your parents, they had at least possessed the wisdom to recognize Oldtown was where you belonged.
The explanation for your immediate exile from King’s Landing had always been a convoluted one.
On some days, you had been sent away because court was dangerous. On others, because King’s Landing was steeped in pride and your father wished for you to be raised in the piety of your mother’s kin. Lady Hightower had longed for a daughter. Your health was fragile as a babe, Oldtown’s air was better for a delicate infant. Alicent had a difficult birth and needed time to rest. The reasons always shifted depending upon who offered them.
The clearest explanation, though it was the one that had always gone unspoken, was that you had simply not been wanted.
At first glance, there was nothing about you that suggested descent from Old Valyria. You possessed neither silver hair nor amethyst eyes. Beautiful, certainly, but not plainly Targaryen. You bore none of the unmistakable marks of your father’s house.
More importantly, you had no dragon.
Ormund refused to speak of that last matter. You did not know whether an egg had been placed in your cradle according to custom, whether it had failed to hatch, whether the hatchling had died, or whether no egg had ever been given to you at all. Whatever the circumstances, it seemed the Seven had determined that you were not to be a Targaryen, but a Hightower.
“A blessing,” Ormund often called it, standing behind you, watching intently as you brushed your hair in the evenings. “That your appearance was not marred by the stain of inbreeding. You should be grateful the gods favored you enough to preserve your beauty from such impurity.”
What he really meant was, “You should be grateful the gods gave you to me”.
And you were. Your childhood in Oldtown had been a happy one. Ormund and Lady Hightower’s sons took to you as a true sister, including you in their games no matter how often you ran weeping to their mother after they shoved you into the mud. You received the finest education the Citadel’s maesters could provide and were thoroughly instructed in histories, languages, scripture, and the workings of court. Ormund instilled in you the virtues expected of a holy and pious woman. Lady Hightower taught you kindness. You wanted for nothing. You were cared for completely.
Being cared for, however, was not the same as being wanted.
One by one, the boys grew into men. They departed to serve in other courts, took wives, and established households of their own. You remained behind. After Lady Hightower’s death, the question of where you belonged began to trouble you even more.
You searched everywhere for some reflection of yourself. In histories and poems. In portraits, tapestries, and family trees. You studied every face and name, hoping one might reveal why you had been born in the first place.
Though Ormund preferred that you remain ignorant to the fact, you knew you were a Targaryen.
He contradicted himself often in that regard. He insisted that you were a Hightower whenever you longed for King’s Landing, yet invoked the sins of your Valyrian predecessors whenever you displeased him. As a child, the inconsistency had deeply confused you. Now, though, you knew better to question it.
The histories did not speak of Targaryens as aliens deserving only shame. On the contrary, they praised them. Aegon the Conqueror had crossed the Narrow Sea and conquered Westeros, his lineage sitting upon the Iron Throne from then until the end of time. They had bound themselves to mighty beasts that would bow to no other riders. Why should you not wish to be one of them? Why should you be ashamed?
Perhaps that was why, during one of your rare visits to King’s Landing, you became determined to find some way of securing your place within your own bloodline. Ormund had permitted you, after much begging on your part and great reluctance on his, to attend the wedding of your brother Aegon to your sister Helaena. You had still been young enough to think yourself a girl, though womanhood waited only just around the corner, and through that haze of youth the wedding had seemed beautiful.
Now, of course, memory revealed what you had been too young to recognize then: the discomfort across Helaena’s face, the uninterested ambivalence with which Aegon accepted the ceremony, the celebration disguising a union neither seemed to really desire. But that morning, surrounded by jewels and music and flowers, by feasts and speeches proclaiming the strength of their union, you had understood only one thing.
If your appearance could not prove you a Targaryen, perhaps marriage could.
When you returned to Oldtown, full of courtly notions and girlish fancy, you announced to Ormund that you would marry your brother Aemond– who had scarcely looked your way throughout the entire visit. Ormund had been seated behind the desk in his solar, writing upon a sheet of parchment. At your declaration, the quill froze between his fingers.
With deliberate care, he set the quill aside and lifted his eyes to you with a dreadful stillness. “You will do no such thing.”
Your smile slowly faded. “But…Aegon married Helaena. That is what Targaryens do.”
Ormund rose suddenly from behind the desk, his chair scraping harshly across the stone floor. You remembered how the sound had frightened you.
“The Targaryens– your father’s family– are incestuous barbarians,” he had declared. “Their minds are so corrupted by generations of inbreeding that they no longer possess the sense to recognize depravity. Your mother whored herself to a Targaryen. I will not give you to your own brother. I will not allow you to repeat her sins and bring further shame upon the Hightower name.”
By then, he had crossed the solar and taken your chin firmly in his hand, his fingers dimpling the skin of your cheeks. You had begun to cry, though you could not tell whether it was from fear, shame, or the sudden loneliness of knowing you might never truly belong anywhere.
“But then I could live with Father and Mother,” you whispered, tears slipping down your cheeks. “I could go home.”
Ormund bent until his face was close to yours, his breath hot against your skin. His grip tightened beneath your chin. “This is your home.”
The memory faded as you reached for a candle from the basket beneath the Maiden’s altar. You held its wick to one of the burning flames and watched a bead of wax gather at the tip before slipping towards your fingers.
Aemond had been the first man Ormund refused you. He had not been the last.
Among Ormund’s duties as your guardian was the arrangement of your eventual betrothal. Ormund approached that responsibility as he approached all others: with severe discretion, particular judgment, and standards so high that no man alive seemed capable of meeting them.
There had never been a shortage of suitors. You were young, unmarried, and beautiful– and whatever Ormund might say of your father’s house, the hand of a Targaryen princess remained a prize few sensible men would dismiss.
As you grew older, the procession became a lengthy one.
The first man to formally inquire after you had been Ser Joldwin Mormont. You remembered him quite clearly. He had been nearer Ormund’s age than your own, tall and broad as most Northmen seemed to be, with a rough face that was not altogether unpleasant. He was steady in temperament and remained remarkably calm beneath Ormund’s inquisitions. He had even brought you a gift: a beautiful velvet cloak trimmed in bear fur. You had thought he resembled the carved likenesses of the Warrior found in the sept. He would make a good husband, you had decided.
Ormund had not agreed.
He had no shortage of qualms. Men of the North were ignorant, uncivilized, and hardly better than an illiterate barbarian dragging around a club in Ormund’s opinion. Bear Island was remote, bitterly cold, and impoverished. Worst of all, the Mormonts possessed a peculiar habit of treating their women as though they were equals.
It was not a place, he decided, where you belonged.
Ormund had declared Joldwin entirely unsuitable, and forced you to toss the beautiful cloak into the fireplace of the Great Hall. He said it smelt of bear shit.
After that, the list of suitors started to blend together.
There was a Martell, handsome enough to make you blush with warm brown eyes, who winked at you across the hall. Ormund reacted as though the man had attempted to bed you in the middle of the Hightower. The Dornish were lecherous and tried to “fuck anything that walked”, he told you.
There was a young Rowan who stuttered frequently and spoke so softly that you had to lean closer to hear him. Ormund dismissed him as weak and unfit for a wife.
A ruddy-cheeked and quite cheerful Redwyne heir sent you summerwine and a song composed in praise of your beauty. Ormund called him frivolous.
One man lived too far from Oldtown. Another lived so near that Ormund questioned whether he sought your hand only to gain influence within the city. One possessed too many ambitions. Another had none. One was too young to govern you properly, while another was so old that Ormund expressed outrage at the very notion of subjecting you to him.
There was always some defect. Too proud. Too timid. Too wealthy. Too poor. Too worldly. Too sheltered. Too handsome. Too plain.
Ormund’s standards contradicted one another so thoroughly that, had all his preferences been gathered together, the perfect husband would have needed to be commanding without controlling you, gentle without indulging you, wealthy without greed, devout without presumption, and situated near enough that you might never truly leave the Hightower.
Such a man had yet to present himself.
Perhaps, you thought as you placed your candle down before the Maiden’s altar and bowed your head, Lord Godric Ashford would be different. Perhaps today would finally be the day Ormund found a suitable match for you. Perhaps today was the day you would understand what fate had intended for your life. Perhaps you would finally be chosen.
You set your candle upon the Maiden’s altar and prayed for love, for a fruitful marriage, and for a husband who chose you with a pure heart. You tried to imagine such a life with Godric, though you did not yet know his face.
You hoped he was strong, like Ormund. Tall, like Ormund. Handsome, like Ormund.
You hoped that he might be enough like Ormund to earn his approval. You hoped, without really understanding why, that he was like Ormund.
By the time you returned to the Hightower, Lord Ashford had already been shown into Ormund’s solar and begun his proposition.
Ormund had never permitted you to be present for such conversations, of course. Serious matters, he insisted, were to be muddled by girlish sentiment. Over the years, you had therefore found other ways to learn what decisions were being made about your future without you. Some time ago, you had discovered a narrow passage running behind the rear wall of Ormund’s solar– an old servants’ entrance, long forgotten, its doorway boarded over and concealed behind a heavy tapestry.
And so, upon returning to the Hightower, you dismissed your ladies with the excuse that you wished to pray alone in your chambers (surely the gods would forgive the lie, given the good reason for it). Once they had gone, you slipped behind the tapestry and crept down the cobwebbed corridor until you reached the boarded door. Pressing your ear to the weathered planks, you heard the low murmur of men’s voices.
“...and I would never seek to separate her from Oldtown, Lord Hightower,” an unfamiliar voice spoke. You leaned closer. It was firm but polite, young but not imprudent. Lord Godric Ashford. He sounded kind. “I understand the princess is quite close with you, and I would ensure she could visit the Hightower as often as she wished. Family is of the utmost importance to me.”
You heard Ormund’s chair squeak. You could imagine he had leaned back in it, hands clasped in front of him, assessing Lord Ashford as he did all things brought before his judgement. “That seems to me an indulgence. She would be your wife, would she not? You would not want her with you in Ashford?”
“Of course, my lord. But I would not be so cruel as to forbid her from visiting the man that raised her. My own mother was a Caswell, and she visited my grandsire at Bitterbridge at every turning of the season.”
“And if she wished to visit more often than you considered appropriate?”
There was a brief pause. “I would speak with her, as husband and wife should.”
“Hmm. And if speaking did not bring her around to your judgement?”
There was another lull, longer this time, before Lord Godric gave an uneasy chuckle. “Well, I would hope my wife did not need to be disciplined as a child would.”
“Hopes are not the same as reality,” Ormund replied easily. “Particularly where Targaryen blood is concerned. They are a willful and proud people. Very resistant to correction.”
“I-I have heard no such things of the princess, my lord.”
“No? Then what have you heard of her?”
“Every account has described her as the very image of what a noblewoman ought to be: beautiful, gracious, and demure. I’ve been told she is quite pious, as well.”
A thoughtful silence settled over the solar. You wished desperately you could see Ormund’s face. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet.
“She is.”
Your heart swelled and instinctively, you pressed yourself closer to the boards. You were a good girl.
“But do not mistake her nurture for nature, Lord Godric. She did not arrive in Oldtown so.”
“My lord, I did not mean to suggest–”
“Every virtue you have heard praised in her was cultivated beneath my hand. Her modesty, her devotion. The weeds of Targaryen pride had to be pulled, one by one. A garden does not become handsome just because a flower has good intentions. It becomes handsome because a gardener has the discipline to attend to it every single day and cut away what ought not grow.”
Lord Godric hesitated in his answer. “And…you believe a husband must continue that work? Pull the weeds from her?”
“I believe,” Ormund answered slowly, “that any man who means to take her from me must be capable of preserving what I have made.”
What he had made.
You drew a shaky breath, your fingernails pressing into the weathered boards.
Perhaps it was true. Ormund had spent years teaching you the faults of your father’s house. They were blasphemous, unnatural. Incestuous and violent. An abomination before the Seven. His lessons were so ingrained within you that even the faintest reminder of your Valyrian blood could fill you with shame.
You had not chosen that blood. You had not asked to be born into it. You had only ever wanted to be good. And if Targaryens were innately wicked, perhaps you truly did owe everything virtuous within you to Ormund.
As a child, you had often wondered what sort of creature you might have become without his guidance. If he were true, which he often was, you would be a terrible creature malformed by sin. The thought frightened you still. But another more terrible one followed suit: without his guidance, you would not have had him.
No arms around your waist in the night. No hand smoothing your hair. No voice telling you what was right, what was wrong, what was safe. A life without Ormund. You tried to imagine it and found only emptiness. Would such a life truly be worth living?
And yet…you wanted to be chosen.
Your own mother and father had decided they had no need of you in King’s Landing, though they kept their other children close. You had been sent to Oldtown, where you doubted Ormund and Lady Hightower had been given much choice in whether they would receive you. No one had ever truly chosen you.
That was what made the suitors difficult to dismiss. They came before Ormund willingly, they asked for your hand because they wanted you. You liked that more than you wished to admit.
And though the thought of leaving Ormund filled your stomach with dread, it had become increasingly difficult not to resent him for refusing every man who tried to choose you.
“I believe I have heard all I need,” Ormund said suddenly, his voice decisive. Your heart faltered. You knew what that meant.
“...My lord?” You could hear Godric shift closer to the desk. “I hope I have not caused offense of any sort. I only meant that, should the princess become my wife, I would do all within my power to–”
“I said I have heard enough.” Something heavy was placed on the desk with a thud. A wine cup, presumably.
You wanted desperately for Godric to protest. You wanted him to declare his love to you, though he had never once seen your face. You wanted him to insist that perhaps the choice of whom you married ought to belong, at least in part, to you. You wanted him to accuse Ormund of cruelty for denying you the right to a husband.
The last thought filled you with immediate shame. You whispered a hurried prayer under your breath to the Father, begging forgiveness for having judged the man who had only ever sought to protect you.
Godric did none of that. Instead, he simply uttered with cool restraint, “As you will, Lord Hightower.”
A chair scraped across the floor and heavy footsteps crossed the solar, followed by the opening and closing of its main door. You withdrew from the boarded door slowly, blinking as tears began to brim at your eyes.
Usually, disappointment was all you felt when another suitor was refused. A dull ache in your heart followed by the acceptance that Ormund must have seen some defect you had overlooked. He knew the nature of men and the dangers of the world in ways you did not.
This time felt…different.
Godric had spoken respectfully. He had promised not to sever you from Oldtown. He had regarded your devotion and gentleness, and when Ormund questioned whether he could govern you, Godric had not boasted of cruelty or correction. His only failure had been suggesting that you ought to be treated as a wife rather than a child.
By the time you emerged from behind the tapestry, Lord Ashford was gone. The corridor stood empty, save for the guard outside the solar, offering no glimpse of the man who had come to ask for your hand and been dismissed before you could even see his face.
Ormund had instructed you to come to him once the proposition concluded. Usually, you obeyed quickly. Now, though, you lingered outside the solar door with your hand raised to knock, struggling to understand the feelings swimming in your mind. Confusion, disappointment. And something dangerously close to anger.
You knocked anyways.
“You may enter,” Ormund called.
You opened the door and stepped inside, carefully pulling it shut behind you. Ormund had moved from the desk to the window and stood peering down at the city below. The shutters had been opened. He turned at the sound of the door closing, looked you over once, and– apparently finding no objections with your appearance– gestured towards the carved chairs near his desk.
“Sit.”
You did.
Ormund remained beside the window and drew a long breath through his nose. His face tightened with mild disgust. “Lord Ashford seems, from his smell, to possess a great fondness for horses.”
You sniffed discreetly. There was nothing in the air besides parchment and the dried florals Ormund preferred to keep throughout his rooms. “Perhaps he rode in this morning.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps the men of Ashford prefer to sleep in stables.” Ormund reached into the pocket of his breeches and withdrew the ornate pomander he carried. He held it beneath his nose and inhaled deeply. Only once he appeared satisfied that every trace of Lord Ashford had been driven from his nostrils did he return it to his pocket. Then he turned to you, settling against the window ledge with his hands clasped before him. “You attended the sept this morning?”
You stared down at your hands, folded in your lap. “Yes, my lord.”
“And for whom did you light a candle for today?”
You chewed on your lower lip. “The Maiden.”
Ormund nodded in consideration, crossing his arms over his chest. “And why did you choose the Maiden today?”
“I…I wanted to pray for your meeting with Lord Ashford to go well.”
“You prayed for Lord Ashford?”
Your palms had begun to feel sweaty. “Y-yes, my lord.”
“You prayed to marry him?"
“...yes, my lord.”
The muscle under Ormund’s eye twitched. He pushed himself away from the window and approached you slowly. Rounding the corner of the desk, he stopped beside your chair. Then, tugging at the fabric of his breeches over his thighs, he lowered himself until he was kneeling at eye level with you. You kept your gaze fixed on your lap.
“You wish to leave Oldtown so badly,” he said softly, so quietly it was barely a whisper, “that you would pray to marry a man who you have never met?”
“M-my lord, I did not–”
“Look at me.”
Trembling, you raised your gaze to meet his. Ormund’s face had gone still, though the blue of his eyes had turned icy. Your stomach lurched.
“I have risked much to raise you,” Ormund began, leaning in closer to you. “I have shielded you from those at court who question why King Viserys cast his youngest daughter out of King’s Landing. I have protected you from men who would use your blood and name for their own advancement. I have purged you of the evils of Valyria and shaped you into a proper woman. And now, now you hate me enough that would you leave my bed for a stranger?”
Heat burned at your cheeks, hearing Ormund speak like that. Like your shared bed was something…you could not finish the thought. “No, Ormund, please, I don’t–”
“You hate me enough that you would question my judgement?” he pressed, voice lowering to a gravelly hum. “You believe you know better than I? That I am ignorant?”
Hot tears had begun to spill over, wetting your lashes and blurring your vision. “I don’t, my lord, I don’t know b-better than you, I only wanted–”
“Tell me, then.” Ormund seized your face in one hand, his rings digging into your cheeks as he forced your chin upward. “Tell me that you do not wish to leave me.”
“I-I do not wish to leave you, my lord,” you choked, sobbing fully now.
“Tell me that no man could care for you as I have.”
“No man could c-care for me as you have!”
His hand tightened enough around your chin that your cheeks squished together. His face, though, had shifted, a diseased softness bleeding into it. “Now, you must tell me what you have forgotten to say.”
Shame and something hotter burned low in your gut. He always made you say the words like this. When you had no option but to force the truth out of you.
“I…” your breath shuddered. “I love you.”
Ormund’s grip refused to loosen. “Again, please.”
The words caught in your throat, scraping like sand. “I love you, Ormund.”
Finally, his face eased, and so did his hold.
“There,” he murmured, sickeningly tender as he wiped his thumb across your cheek, catching one of your stray tears. “Was that so difficult to say?”
You shook your head quickly. You did not trust your voice.
Seemingly satisfied, Ormund rose from where he was crouched, dusting off his breeches. The matter was finished. He returned to his desk, lowering himself in his chair, no trace of the man who had just seconds ago demanded the sick truth of your devotion. You remained frozen, unable to move, cheeks wet and burning. You suddenly were conscious of how horrible you must look, swollen eyes and shaking hands.
Ormund glanced up from his papers. “You will go and ready yourself for the evening’s feast now.”
Numb, you stared at him. He raised one brow in question. Ormund did not like to repeat himself.
“Y-yes, my lord,” you stuttered.
“Wear the blue silk. The one with the square neckline,” he dipped his quill into the ink, already moved on from the excitement and back to his usual self. He glanced up once more, eyes moving across your face. “And…have the women repair your face. It would be quite unbecoming to our guests to see you have upset yourself.”
You were thoroughly humiliated. “Yes, my lord.”
Legs shaking slightly, you rose and smoothed your skirts.
“And, one more thing,” Ormund spoke, though he continued reading the parchment he held. “You will not speak with Lord Ashford this evening.”
You paused. Was this a trap? “Would it…would it not appear discourteous if I refused to–”
“The matter has already been decided, my girl. You have no need to encourage him further.”
“I…I understand.” You bowed, trying not to trip over your still unsteady feet, and then turned towards the door. You had just put your hand on the latch when Ormund spoke again.
“Have you forgotten something?”
You paused, and then looked back in the solar. Ormund had finally lifted his eyes from the parchment and was leaning back in his seat. He tapped one finger against his cheek.
Your cheeks grew hotter, though you had done this hundreds of times before. Thousands, perhaps. You crossed the solar to where Ormund sat, his expression completely neutral. Heart beating in your throat, you bent carefully and pressed your lips briefly to his cheek. He caught your wrist before you could retreat.
“Once more, properly this time,” he commanded.
You swallowed and kissed him again, lingering this time until you felt the faint scrape of where he had shaved that morning and breathed in the familiar fragrance of his pomander.
Ormund released his grip on you, mouth curled in a smile. “Good girl. You may go now.”
You bowed, lower this time, and left the solar with the warm and humiliating feeling you had become accustomed to now living in the very place Ormund had hollowed out inside you over years and years.
As you walked down the halls of Hightower, face lowered so any passerbys would not catch a glimpse of your reddened cheeks and puffy eyes, you wondered why you felt the way you did.
Lord Ashford would be at the feast that evening, and though Ormund had forbidden you from speaking to him, you knew that you would search for him among the gathered faces. For what, you could not say. To prove something, perhaps. But what, exactly?
That Ormund was right? Or that he was wrong?
And afterward…no matter the excitement from the day, you had not forgotten Ormund’s reminder that morning.
“It is the seventh day.”
You dreaded the fact, but not for the ritual that awaited you, but rather the shameful fact it made you excited.
It seemed this was to be a day of contradictions.
You wanted Lord Ashford to see you, and you hoped he never appeared so that you might obey Ormund without temptation. You wanted Ormund to loosen his hold upon you, and you wanted him to swear that he would never allow you to belong to anyone else.
How could both desires live in the same body? The same heart? You did not know.
You knew only that, by the end of the night, Ormund would decide which desire you were permitted to keep.
so detailed, so thorough, absolutelyy amazing work!! ormund’s characterization is spot on and the entire dynamic is just chef’s kiss. he would indeed behave like a deranged fanatic and hypocrite at the same time 💔
um jumpscare of the day, tumblr logged me out because apparently “you cannot use tumblr if you’re not 16 or older.” dog trust me. i’m pretty sure i know how old i am. if i can pay taxes and be legally employed, i think i have the age thing covered 😭
HOME IN THREE DAYS. DO NOT WASH ormund hightower x wife!reader
synopsis: returning victorious from the battlefield, the lord of oldtown, ormund hightower, sends a most intricate request to his lady wife
warnings: mdni. spoilers for dance of the dragons, canon divergence, timeline that makes absolutely zero sense but it’s called fanfiction for a reason okay guys pls don’t come at me, oral (f receiving), mentions of war and death, ormund is lowkey a perv, piv, emotional sex, touch of breeding kink, religious motives
word count: 6.8k
a/n: honestly after writing this, all i have to say is enjoy 😭 (and thank you for all the ormund girlies for putting me onto this idea) there are two direct quotes from george martin so ofc all credits go to him 4 that
You are seated in your solar when the letter arrives.
The messenger carrying the sealed parchment bows his head low before placing it into your hands.
“A message, my lady, from your Lord husband.” He declares, the heavy wool doublet covering his frame bearing the flame sigil of your house.
You offer a brief nod of dismissal. He retreats in silence, leaving you with a handful of your highborn companions and servants in the sunlit chamber. You can feel the weight of their wandering eyes and curious gazes trying to discern what exactly your husband has sent. They long to catch a glimpse of the ink, doubtless to trade it for gossip later over their embroidery.
“That will be all for today, thank you.” Your eyes turn to the perfumed women in their vibrant, colorful silks. Your tone leaves no room for argument, and truth be told, none would dare disobey the lady of the castle.
You can see the light dim behind their eyes, their spirits deflating at being dismissed and denied a glimpse into your private marital affairs. Yet, they all rise quietly, murmuring the proper courtesies and offering to remain at your service. You thank them, as politeness dictates.
Finally, the heavy oak doors thump shut behind them as the last of the ladies files out. Only then does the tension in your shoulders ease, the careful, rigid posture you were taught to maintain since childhood melting away. The remaining household servants are as silent as stone, and they know better than to sneak glances at the parchment. Not that most of them possess the letters to read it anyway.
You shift quietly, settling into the silken cushions where you have sat for hours. Your ringed fingers make short, careful work of breaking the green wax seal; the parchment parts with a soft, crisp tear.
Yet, before you even unfold the missive, it is the scent that finds you first. It is the unmistakable, intimately familiar fragrance of your husband’s scented water—the blend he carries with him everywhere.
In the early days of your marriage, you had often made his habit a point of jest, teasing him for clutching an incense filled thurbil like some prissy lady of the court. But through years of shared bed and counsel, you had come to accept it as an essential part of him; your husband simply possessed a rare appetite for the finer things. For sweetness, mostly. In time, you had even learned to love it, for it spoke so entirely of his presence.
Safe to say, the parchment is utterly drenched in it.
You feel an involuntary quickening in your blood—a sudden warmth spreading through your belly at the sheer intimacy of the vapor. He knew precisely what he was doing, all but bathing the very pages he intended for your eyes.
A breathless laugh nearly escapes you, imagining Ormund clad in heavy steel, quill in hand amidst the dirt of the commander’s pavilion, deliberately dousing the sheet with his essences while soldiers marched and shouted just beyond the canvas.
“Always so mindful,” you murmur to the empty air, for the servants remain as silent as stone and would scarce understand the jest regardless.
Your eyes skim over the lines, a familiar sense of comfort washing over you at the sight of your husband’s heavy script. You fail to stifle the smile that softens your lips.
Much of it is the usual talk of how dreary and dull the campaign has proven. He makes mention of the Queen, his cousin Alicent, his other cousin Gwayne, and Ser Criston Cole, the Lord Commander whose host they are soon to join. He writes, too, of the battle at Tumbleton that is likely to follow.
At that, your heart squeezes painfully in your chest. Ormund is one of the finest soldiers and commanders in the realm, but he is a mortal man still; his flesh can bleed, and his bones can break. And after all it is only natural for a wife to fear for her husband.
Naturally, he complains bitterly of the camp—the wretched stench of unwashed men, muck, and horseflesh that hangs thick over the pavilions. In his words it is utterly unbearable.
He speaks of his squire, prince Daeron as well. Noting that he can spy the nervousness in his young nephew, though both the boy and Tessarion stand ready for battle.
Ready to take the Iron Throne itself, should Prince Aemond fall and the burden descend to them—since word has reached the camp that Aemond has proclaimed himself Protector of the Realm. You care little and less for who sits upon the Aegon's seat, you only pray for your husband to return to your arms in one piece.
And then, at the very end, he closes the letter with something that steals the breath straight from your lungs.
Home in three days. Do not wash.
A sudden heat flushes your cheeks a deep crimson.
He is so terribly sure of himself, so entirely confident that no harm will find him, that Tumbleton will be won, and that he will ride back to Oldtown safe and whole. It is so undeniably Ormund.
You bite your lip, the warmth in your belly turning to a dull ache, knowing all too well that a safe return is a promise no man can truly make while the Dance rages on.
At the end of the parchment, he had signed his initials in a bold, dark hand: OH
You softly traced the ink with the tip of your finger, as if the stroke of his quill could somehow bridge the leagues between you. Yet as the moment of sentiment passed, you quickly folded the sheet, pressing it tight within your fist.
Rising from your seat, you paced over to the hearth. It made your heart ache to tear the missive into fragments, but you cast the pieces into the embers nonetheless.
You watched as the parchment caught flame, curling and turning to gray ash, even as your husband’s familiar fragrance still hung heavy upon your tongue. Alas, you knew the scent of water could never compare to the musk of his skin, or the steady thrum of his heart pulsing beneath your fingertips.
A sudden, dark thought pricked your mind—a fleeting wonder if those ashes were the last pieces of him you would ever hold should he fall in the Reach—but you fiercely willed the shadow away.
No, your Ormund would return to you. Or he would die trying.
You inhaled sharply, steadying yourself. The letter had to be destroyed. Its contents were far too scandalous for any prying septa or maester to accidentally stumble upon.
Clasping your hands behind your back, you turned your gaze to one of the remaining maids. “I shall be having no need of the bath after supper today.” you declared.
The woman’s eyes sought yours, a flicker of confusion crossing her face at the unusual command, yet she quickly lowered her head. “As my lady commands it.”
“Very well.”
And with that, you turned your back on the hearth and set off toward the quiet sanctuary of your bedchambers.
It is perhaps, the first day that is the easiest.
You go about your usual duties, overseeing the keep and holding audience with the lesser lords in your husband’s stead. You seek out the sept nestled within the great stone walls of the Hightower, lighting tallow candles and praying to the Mother for your husband’s safe return.
Your hours pass largely uneventful. No fresh ravens from King’s Landing or the battlefield arrive to disturb the peace.
The realm is still in great peril, locked in the throes of a bloody succession, yet you are among those rare, fortunate few whose daily lives do not yet feel the cruel shift of war. Your husband’s absence is the only true sign that the world is bleeding.
It is only when twilight deepens into night, and the hour for your evening bath approaches, that you must dismiss your handmaidens once again.
“But, my lady,” one of the elder women frowns, her hands clasped nervously over her apron. “I mean no insolence, but… you have foregone the hot waters since yesterday morn—”
You cut her off with a look as sharp as Valyrian steel, and she freezes instantly.
“I should find it most pleasant if you did not question my choices,” you say, your voice clipped as you force a veneer of stiff politeness over the reprimand. “Thank you.” You offer a single, final nod.
“Of course, my lady.” A sudden heat flushes her cheeks in embarrassment at her own boldness. “Forgive my insolence.” She mutters.
You hum in cold acknowledgment before bidding her lay out your linen shift so you might change for the night.
Thankfully, none of the others dare question you further, leaving you to slide into the great, empty bed in silence.
On the second day, the irritation truly begins to fester.
It is not even the scent of your own sweat or the slight, muskier heat of your skin that unsettles you most, but rather the heavy, lingering glances from both the highborn ladies and the serving girls. The lords fail to notice, of course. Men are blind to the subtle shifts of the solar. But women... women possess a hound’s nose for such things.
“Forgive my curiosity, my lady,” one of your companions ventures during the mandatory hour of afternoon wine and needlework, her spine stiff and a sharp, a calculating glint in her eyes. “But are you... quite well? Has some sudden ague or illness been troubling you these past few days?”
A few of the younger girls stifle titters behind their silk handkerchiefs, while a seasoned lady snorts softly at the sheer boldness of the question.”
“Nothing has troubled me,” you reply coldly, your gaze sweeping over the circle like winter frost. “And I confess I do not fathom what should prompt such a thought.”
“Of course not, my lady. Forgive me.” she murmurs quickly, dipping her chin and retreating back into the safety of the embroidery circle.
Yet, the silence does not last. Once their heads are bent back over their frames, the murmurs begin—whispers that your wits have been murked by the absence of your lord, or that you have simply grown neglectful of your proper duties as wife now that his eye is far from Oldtown.
One or two even dare breathe the word slothful. But they are only whispers, drifting like smoke through the high stone arches.
You owe them no accounting of your lord’s desires. So you let them whisper.
But without a doubt, it is the third day—the very day your lord husband is expected to ride through the gates—that proves the worst.
It is not the ever-growing musk of your unwashed skin that irks you most, but rather the heavy black raven that arrives with the morning mists, bearing tidings of a grim victory at Tumbleton.
The greens have triumphed, or so the parchment claims. In a twist of monumental treachery, the Dragonseeds—Rhaenyra’s own dragonriders—had turned their fires upon her own host.
Yet, despite the grand declarations of victory, the remaining lines are stripped of any joy.
The sack of the town has been anything but a noble affair. It has been an exercise in absolute butchery. Houses put to the torch, infants slain, and women—even holy septas and silent sisters were not spared— being subjected to the brutal whims of a victorious, drunken army. It is a horror to even contemplate, let alone witness.
You feel a sharp pang of selfishness when your eyes skip past the carnage, desperately searching for a single name. When you find it, confirming that your lord husband lives, unwounded, and is already riding hard for Oldtown with a vanguard of his personal household guard, a ragged sob of relief escapes your throat.
The Dance is far from ended, and the realm will continue to bleed. But the battlefield would have to wait. There are plenty of hungry lords and capable men who can take your husband's place in the mud, if only for a night.
By the time night falls, your husband has still not arrived in Oldtown.
No news has reached the gates, and no scouts have brought sign of his riding party.
Your entire day has been spent pacing the drafty halls of the Hightower, seeking out any task to keep your mind from fracturing with anticipation.
You have seen to it that the entire household is in order, the stones scrubbed clean, and every tapestried hall set aright. You have ordered a plentiful feast prepared to greet his vanguard. You even went so far as to take up your needlework, in a desperate attempt to stave off the madness of the wait.
Alas, the effort ended miserably; shaky fingers and an unsteady mind are poor tools for fine embroidery. Sitting with your highborn companions proved more tedious still, and you dismissed them scarce a quarter of an hour into tea-time.
The whole of the castle is charged with a heavy, restless air, every servant and man at arms waiting on a knife's edge for the return of their Lord.
Your nails are bitten down to the quick, and you have endlessly twisted the rings upon your fingers. When the handmaidens arrive for the evening, they practically beg to prepare the bath.
“But the Lord Ormund—” one of them ventures, her voice hesitant.
“Do you suggest you know the needs of mine own husband better than myself?” Your patience is utterly frayed, and you can no longer keep the sharp edge of your tongue from snapping like a whip.
“My lady.” she murmurs, bowing her head in hasty obedience before scurrying away.
“And take away this boar meat. Leave the arbor gold,” you command, and the remaining servants quickly clear the table.
You turn to the household guards standing post at your door—the men in steel who have trailed you through your duties all day. “Leave the chambers. Let no one inside. You are to enter only to notify me when my Lord husband is at the gates.”
The man in the iron half-helm nods, drawing the thick oak doors shut. The heavy latch falls into place, leaving you alone in the awful, suffocating silence. Waiting.
What must have been minutes felt like hours. Time takes on a strange, twisted shape when one is locked in such nervous anticipation. Yet, the sands in the glass trickle down regardless.
Left with nothing but the loud thrumming of your own thoughts, you tried to lose yourself in a leather-bound history, though you managed scarce a few pages before the letters swam before your eyes.
You smoothed the heavy furs and linens upon the high bed perhaps a dozen times.
You combed out your hair, adjusted the laces of your linen evening shift, and even debated opening the door to ask the guardsmen if they had forgotten your command. But you checked yourself, knowing such frantic fretting would be incredibly unbecoming of the Lady of the Hightower.
And still, in that agonizing stillness, the unmistakable musk of your own unwashed flesh caught up with you. It was no longer a mere unpleasant odor. It was a heavy, ripe scent that hung thick in the small hours of the night.
For a fleeting second, you debated calling the servants back to prepare a hasty basin of hot water before Ormund arrived.
But his written instructions had been absolutely clear. Home in three days. Do not wash. He had kept his part of the covenant; three days had passed and he was riding back to you, whole and alive. It remained only for you to hold up your end of the bargain.
You sought the sanctuary of the castle sept once more, then retreated back to your chambers, the chill air of the drafty stone corridors offering a strange, cooling comfort against your sticky, stale skin.
By then, the hour of the owl had long since passed, and still there was no sign of your husband.
You wanted to wait for him—desperately so. You wished him to find you awake and waiting, so that you might see with your own eyes that the Stranger's steel had spared him.
But exhaustion and the tumultuous toll of the day’s anxiety were fast catching up to you. All that frantic pacing, coupled with a belly empty from a lack of appetite, had sapped the last of your strength. With every blink, your eyelids grew heavier and heavier, like lead.
You tried splashing your face with cool water from the basin and flung wide the shutters to let in the midnight breeze, but even the salt and tar air of Oldtown drifting up from the harbor did little to rouse you.
Defeated by weariness, (alas reluctantly) you finally laid your head atop the silken pillows, burying the heavy scent of your unwashed skin into the linen sheets, which your maids had surely doused with an extra measure of rosewater.
You were drifting in that liminal, strange place where one is not entirely awake yet no longer asleep when you heard it—the distinct, muffled grunt of a guardsman greeting his lord, and the heavy creak of oak hinges before the thick door closed once more with a dull thud.
You just barely managed to stir, shifting clumsily beneath the furs to sit up and rub the sleep from your tired eyes.
The chamber was drowned in half-darkness. Most of the candles you had lit hours ago had long since guttered out; only a handful remained ablaze, casting a scarce, flickering amber light across the stone walls.
Even through the gloom of the late hour, you could make out the great shadow of his figure moving about the room, his movements weary but urgent as he unbuckled and discarded the heavy sword-belt from his hips. The Valyrian longsword of his house Vigilance, which he cherished so deeply, fell to the ground with a dull thud.
“Ormund?” you breathe. The name is both a prayer and a question.
A desperate thing you need to hear spoken aloud to believe. You need to know that it is truly him standing there before you, alive in the flesh, at the foot of that shared bed which has stood cold for far too long.
Your vision is still blurred with sleep, but the moments that follow unfold with such fierce intensity that you know you will remember them for the rest of your days.
In two long, hurried strides, he collapses onto the silken sheets atop you.
Once again, it is his scent that finds you first.
Except this time, it is no spiced water or pleasant courtly incense, all of that is buried beneath an overwhelming stench of dirt, stale sweat, and the unmistakable, coppery tang of blood. Whose… you pray to the Gods, is anyone’s but Ormund’s.
Your hands scramble for leverage, finding the damp nape of his neck and gripping him so fiercely that it must bruise. The skin there is slick—either with the sweat of the road or from some futile, hurried attempt to wash away the field of battle before reaching your chambers.
Perhaps it is both. But you care little and less. He is your husband. Your Ormund, here in the flesh, breathing and alive, smelling of what all men smell of when they have looked upon the face of death and survived.
A sudden rush of tears gathers in your lashes, and a ragged sob threatens to tear from your throat at the pure, blinding elation of his presence.
Narrowly escaping the butchery of Tumbleton and witnessing thousands of men yield up their lives has awakened something primal within him. You can feel it in his shallow, ragged breaths, and in the way his calloused hands grip the bare skin of your arms, even through the heavy layers of your linen shift.
His touch will surely leave marks—blooming into dark blues and purples on the morrow—but you do not care. You would let him carve a place for himself inside your very ribcage if he wished it.
You feel that same desperation as he buries his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling the heavy, ripe musk of your unwashed skin like a drowning man catching his last taste of air.
“Ormund.” You speak his name again, clearer this time, the certainty finally settling into your bones. He is here. With you.
You card your fingers through his tangled hair, which hangs damp and messy with sweat, pulling him closer still—impossibly close, until there is not an inch of air between your bodies.
He is heavy, his armor-stiffened frame nearly crushing you into the bedding, but you do not mind. If the ceiling were to collapse upon you now, you would die content.
“I prayed...” you murmur against the rough stubble of his cheek. His eyes remain closed, his lips silent; he says nothing, needing these few stolen moments of quietude to wash the horror from his mind. “I prayed every morrow and every twilight to the Seven, begging them to return you to my arms,” you confess, your voice shaking with the weight of the tears you can no longer hold back.
A half-choked laugh escapes him at your words, a brief flash of delight breaking through his exhaustion at the knowledge that you kept him in your prayers, that you had spoken to the Seven with his face in your mind.
Gentle Mother, font of mercy, save our sons from war, we pray, stay the swords and stay the arrows, let them know a better day. Gentle Mother, strength of women, help our daughters through this fray, soothe the wrath and tame the fury, teach us all a kinder way.
He nearly groans at the thought, the holy words a stark contrast to the butchery he has just left.
Instead, he buries his face lower, pressing his lips straight against your collarbone. He inhales the deep, unmistakable scent of your skin—the salt of your sweat, the rich, built-up musk of three days without the basin. To a highborn court, it might seem uncouth, but to him, it is simply, purely woman. And woman means alive and real.
To breathe you in is to know he has escaped the cold clutches of the Stranger and found sanctuary in the arms of the one he loves.
What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms... or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.
In this singular, breathless moment, Ormund feels the truth of those words more fiercely than ever before.
He has won his share of victories, commanded hosts, and broken lances in grand tourneys, but none of it compares to this. Nothing in the Seven Kingdoms or the lands beyond could make him feel more entirely alive than the strain of narrowly escaping the slaughter, riding his stallion hard through the night even as his thighs ached and his sore muscles screamed at him, begging him to simply stop, to yield to the weariness. But he could not. He would not.
Not when you were waiting for him in the Hightower, his lady wife, keeping your quiet vigil until he could return to the warmth of your shared bed. Your shared life.
“Husband,” you nudge his head with a gentle hand, attempting to draw him back only for his grip to tighten. “I have not...” Your cheeks flush a hot, sudden crimson. “I have not bathed,” you admit quietly, the confession tasting heavy on your tongue. “It is most unbecoming of a lady—”
For the first time that evening, he raises his head and pierces you with his gaze. Those familiar eyes, which you have looked upon a thousand times before, are lined with a solemn, bone-deep tiredness, frayed at the edges by war.
Yet, at the very same time, he looks utterly, fiercely alive, the sharp line of his nose and the strength of his jaw all too intimate.
“You received my letter.” He states, his voice gruff and thick with the dust of the road. His fingers do not cease their exploration, trailing over every inch of skin and linen they can find, before his hand bunches up the heavy fabric of your shift within his fist.
“I did.” You reply softly, your eyes dipping toward the sheets, but you feel the firm pressure of his thumb and forefinger catching your jaw, forcing your chin up into stillness.
“Look at me.” He commands. The words bear the weight of a lord, yet they sound far more desperate than any commander who has just tasted victory should ever sound.
You can see it takes everything within him to restrain from simply crashing his lips against your own. “I have ridden hard across the Reach to be here. I have escaped the cold clutches of the Stranger, I have left my men and my host behind, all to return to your side. To rest in your arms. And no one, not the septons, not you, dear wife, not even the Gods themselves will forbid me the luxury of gazing upon you or breathing you in.”
Before you can offer any further reason or protest, his calloused hands bunch the linen of your shift upward, pulling the fabric past your hips and exposing your bare skin to the chill air of the chamber.
Beads of perspiration still cling to your brow, and your fingers instinctively seek leverage, carding through his tangled auburn locks as he bends his weight down between your thighs.
“Husband—”
He groans at the title, his mouth pressing fiercely against the soft flesh of your inner thighs. He marks you with the heat of his lips, tasting, touching, and inhaling sharply as the ripe, unwashed musk of your intimacy and sudden arousal mingles in the heavy air.
“Gods be good,” he rough-whispers against your skin, just loud enough to pierce the quiet of the room. “No host, no King—not even the Seven themselves could have kept me from this. From you.”
He takes his time, deliberately savoring every stolen second, his tongue tracing the tender skin just on the cusp of your heat while he buries his face deep against you.
“I thought of you,” he murmurs, his breath hot against your thighs as he presses a trail of slow, heavy kisses upward. “I thought of you every single wretched hour upon the road. Amidst the reek of horseflesh, muck, and dying men. Amidst the blood of the field, and the fires of the dragons.”
The confession is a heavy, ragged thing, and your breath hitches sharply—not merely from the mounting pleasure, but from the raw weight of his words.
“I closed my eyes and thought only of your smile, your touch... the sweetness of your cunt.” As if to prove his point, he presses his face entirely into the soft folds of your womanhood, inhaling your deep, concentrated musk before his tongue flicks out with a sudden, devastating stroke.
An unrestrained cry escapes your lips, echoing off the high stone arches.
“Only you... my lady wife...” he mutters against your wetness, his tongue exploring you with a fierce, starved hunger. “I prayed to the Mother to keep you whole... prayed to the Father to make your womb fruitful and clean, so that my seed might finally take root within you.”
At his words, a sudden tremor ripples through your entire body, and your thighs instinctively clamp tight around his head as the heat begins to break over you.
“Ormund!” You cry his name, the sound laced with a desperate, breathless heat that echoes shamelessly through the quiet bedchamber.
The household guardsmen standing post beyond the thick oak doors will have surely to play the fool on the morrow, but you care little and less for the gossip of smallfolk.
You can think only of your husband—of the wet fire of his tongue between your thighs and the bruising grip of his fingers pinning your legs wide to keep you open to his hunger.
He works you apart with a starved intensity, making you unravel from the seams, pulling you apart thread by thread as the coil in your belly tightens to an agonizing point. Ormund had ever been skilled at bringing you to your peak with his mouth, but tonight the familiar rhythm is entirely transformed. Gone is the careful, courtly teasing of a lord in his solar; this is something primal. Fierce, and animalistic. Born from the mud and blood of the battlefield.
Seven forgive us, the thought flashes like a desperate prayer in the dim recesses of your mind.
He is not merely pleasuring you; he is quite literally drinking you in, drenching his face in the ripe, unwashed scent of your climax and indulging in every slick, heavy stroke.
Your vision begins to swim, the amber candlelight blurring into streaks of gold as he drives you ruthlessly toward the edge.
“Come for me, sweet wife...” his voice buzzes low against your skin, and you feel as though your entire body has been set ablaze. “Let me taste you... bury me in your scent...”
His words, matched with the fierce, unyielding work of his mouth, finally topple you over the edge. You break with a ragged cry of his name, your fingers knotting tight in his hair as you instinctively grind your weight against his face.
He does not stop. Continuing his relentless strokes even as the climax ripples through you and you ride out the peak of your release. The firm muscle of his tongue drives through your sensitive walls, your juices slicking his cheeks and spilling onto the linen sheets beneath.
Your thighs tremble so fiercely you are certain your legs will no longer bear you. At last, after what feels an age, he comes up for air, though he keeps his face pressed close against the soft mound of your womanhood.
The damp hairs there are heavy with the rich, concentrated musk of your arousal, and you feel the hot expansion of his chest as he breathes it deeply into his lungs.
“Always so good for me...” he murmurs, pressing a final, lingering kiss against your skin while you are still reeling, your pulse hammering in your ears.
Through the faint buzzing in your head, you fail to notice him reach for a square of clean linen discarded by the bedside. You only realize his intent when you feel the cloth pressing against your center. You hiss softly at the contact, your flesh still far too tender from the peak of your release.
“Ormund?” Your eyebrows furrow in the gloom. “What are you—”
“Shh, let me,” he hushes you, his voice thick, and your wits are far too scattered to offer any true protest, nor do you truly wish to do so.
You feel the slow, deliberate swipe of the linen through your folds. You think at first he means to clean you, but as he pulls the cloth away and brings it directly to his nose, the truth settles into your mind.
He is gathering the very essence of your release, letting the fabric drink it deep so that he might preserve it—a token of your flesh to carry with him into the mud and smoke of the next campaign. A soft moan escapes you at the sheer, desperate intimacy of the act.
Yet, you have little time to dwell upon it as his hands are already framing your waist, urging the linen shift up and over your head, before he turns to frantically strip away his own heavy doublet. You lend your shaking hands to the task, helping him loosen the laces until the wool drops somewhere to the floor.
Your bare breasts are caught in the amber glow of the candlelight, and you watch Ormund's gaze fix upon your perked nipples. Reaching out, you catch his calloused hand and guide it to your flesh. He takes the weight of you, squeezing and caressing the soft curve with a starved sort of reverence.
Alas, his patience has reached its end. The heavy, rigid evidence of his hunger presses hard against his breeches, and he makes hasty work of the laces, cursing softly under his breath as he discards the last of his garments into the shadows.
He takes his manhood into his palm, giving it two firm strokes before lining himself up with your entrance. You bite your lip, your body slick and more than ready to welcome the familiar, heavy stretch of him filling you up.
“Tonight,” he murmurs, his words catching you off guard in the dark. “If the gods should grant me, as their humble servant, a reward for serving the Realm and the true King... I pray it be the planting of a son inside your womb.”
His hand reaches up, his calloused thumb gently brushing a stray lock of hair from your damp forehead. “Do you understand, sweet wife?” he whispers, leaning down upon his elbows, his weight pressing you into the bedding as he kisses the corner of your lips. “That you will grow round and swell with child... so that the next time the war calls me away, you will ever have a piece of me with you.”
Before you can muster a breath to reply, he drives forward, pushing deep inside and bottoming out with a barely suppressed groan. A sharp cry escapes you at the sheer, sudden width of him stretching your sensitive walls.
He gives you no time to adjust to the intrusion, mercilessly beginning to pound into you, the cords and tendons in his neck straining with the sheer force of his movements.
Your head is thrown back against the pillows, and he chases your mouth with his own, sealing your lips in a desperate, hungry kiss—a fierce clash of teeth and skin. In his starved frenzy, you are certain he would eat you alive if he could, losing himself entirely within your flesh to wash away the memory of the sword.
“Please, Ormund!” you cry his name for what feels the thousandth time that evening. Your nails claw at his bare skin, gripping his back in a desperate attempt to pull him closer still, and this time it is you who buries your face against him, inhaling the sharp, earthy musk of his sweat-slicked skin. “I need you to—”
“Hush, sweet girl, I know...”
He slows his frantic thrusts for a brief moment, focusing his strength to set a steadier pace, finding a deeper, more deliberate rhythm. With every long, unyielding push, he ensures you feel every single inch of him.
The old endearing term brings a sudden flock of memories rushing back to you—sweet, distant memories of the days when he was still courting you in the high gardens of Oldtown.
“I know...” he whispers hoarsely against the column of your throat, and your thighs lock tight around his hips, anchoring him to you.
“Give me your seed, husband,” you manage to gasp against his ear, the ragged shakiness of your voice betraying the depth of your undoing. “Please, by the gods—I need you, I need it inside me—”
He groans fiercely at your words, at the sheer intoxication of being buried deep within your warmth after weeks of staring into the dark abyss of death.
He feels the sudden, heavy quickening in his blood, signaling that his release is near. He is a man of formidable stamina, possessed of a soldier’s hard-bitten body, but tonight he is reduced to a mere mortal. Acutely aware of the frailty of his flesh and the preciousness of this life.
He manages only a few more messy, desperate thrusts before you feel the sudden, hot pulsing of his release spilling deep inside you, the thick ropes of his seed coating your inner walls.
You wrap your arms and legs even tighter around him as the phantom touch of his climax triggers your own second peak of the night, your body shuddering in perfect unison as you hold him fast, willing him never to let you go
When you part at last, you are both a tangled mess of limbs, reluctantly breaking your interlocked lips to catch your breath. Ormund rests his heavy head onto the pillow beside you—his rightful place—and does not hesitate for a single beat before pulling you securely into his side.
Your soft breasts press flush against the hard, unyielding plates of his chest as he idly cards his fingers through your tangled hair.
For a long while, you remain wrapped in silence, the quiet of the chamber filled only with your heavy, ragged breaths, the musk of your passion and shared lust thick in the air. You glance up, noting the faint smile that softens his tired eyes.
Finally, it is you who speaks first, breaking the serene calm of your shared silence. “Never, ever even dare to leave me again.” You push yourself up slightly, cupping the rough stubble of his cheek with your palm.
He presses his face into your hand, planting a heavy kiss there. “You know I cannot promise such a thing, sweet wife,” he replies solemnly. “Duty...”
“Your duty,” you begin shakily, your voice thick with emotion, “is to be by your wife’s side. Here in Oldtown.” You finish the thought, tilting your chin slightly.
A huff of quiet, weary laughter escapes him at your words.
“You think I jest—”
“No, my sweet wife, it is not you I laugh upon. It is simply...” He pulls you back down against his bare chest, his embrace iron-tight. “It is simply that duty is no simple matter. My family needs me, needs us. The realm and the King—”
You know he speaks the truth. You know he is bound by an unbridled sense of holy purpose and devotion that is utterly unbreakable, with his love for you coming second only to the honor of his house. At times it angers you, but a part of your heart understands that it is a thing so deeply ingrained into Ormund's bones that he cannot help it.
“Who will defend honor, hm? Righteousness, justice—” he reasons softly.
You sigh, the fight draining from you. “All I wish...” you begin, all your barriers and defenses melting away from your gaze, leaving your rawest emotions laid bare before him. “All I mean to say is... I wish it did not have to be you.”
He smiles at that—one of those easy, confident smiles that are so entirely him, making your chest squeeze with a painful fondness. The green silk of the pillows beneath your head suddenly feels as soft as a cloud, and you let out a long breath, settling back into the quiet.
“I know... sweet girl... I know...” That is all he offers, knowing too well that he cannot give you the false comfort of a lie.
After a few moments, you feel his calloused hand trail down from the curve of your hip to where the slick evidence of your coupling still lies fresh. He plunges a finger between the folds of your center, gathering the mixed cream of your releases. At the sudden intrusion, your hips instinctively buck against his hand.
He beams at the movement, a flash of white teeth in the gloom. “Always so jumpy for me…”
You can feel the battle-worn stiffness and the lingering shadow of death finally washing out of the room as he brings his hand back up to his lips, not hesitating for a moment before pressing his fingers into his mouth to taste you.
“You are utterly depraved.” You manage to whisper, watching him lazily lick the pads of his fingers.
He ignores the reprimand, choosing instead to anchor you even closer into the warmth of his chest.
“We will bathe on the morrow, together,” he promises, his voice dropping into a sleepy rumble. “Oh... and remind me, sweet wife, to order a thousand squares of linen from the merchants, so that every last one of them might be drenched in your scent.”
“Ormund.” You let out a breathy laugh at the sheer absurdity of the idea, but as you gaze into his dark eyes, you realize he is entirely serious.
“This way... I shall carry a piece of you with me into the field. Everywhere. Always.” he reasons, pressing one last, lingering kiss into the crown of your head. Finally, his heavy hand moves lower, his palm flattening out to trace the soft skin of your belly. “And you of me.” he whispers against your ear.
i will always fall for the “it’s beautiful” “yeah it is” trope where you think they’re talking about something until you realize they’re looking at the other person with the most hopelessly devoted, lovesick expression known to humankind btw
stormborns
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