genre: fluff, domestic softness, married idiots in love
warnings: none really — one (1) mention of the coming war, some mild kissing, gwayne being insufferable about his hair
summary: a morning in the gardens beneath OldTown, a basket of peaches, and a knight who has never once in his life won an argument with his wife.
(set a year or so before the dance. everyone is alive. everyone is happy. we do not speak of what comes next.)
╭┈◦•◦❥•◦
The gardens of Oldtown were at their best in the hour after dawn, and you had learned in two years of marriage that you were the only person in the whole keep who believed it.
The stone paths were still dark with dew. The bees had not properly woken. Fog came up off the Honeywine in long grey ribbons and caught in the myrtle hedges, and the great tower itself stood behind you with its beacon gone dim and pale, the way a candle looks when someone opens the shutters. Everything smelled of wet earth and lemon blossom and, faintly, of the sea.
You had a basket on your arm, half-full of peaches, and grass stains on the hem of a gown that had cost more than a horse.
"Now, my lady," came a voice from the top of the terrace steps, "I have been told a great many things about you, but no one warned me you were a common orchard thief."
You did not turn around. You had known him by the sound of his boots on the steps for a year and a half now; Gwayne walked like a man who suspected there might be an audience.
"They're my peaches.”
“They are my father's peaches."
"Your father is in King's Landing," you said, choosing another, turning it in the light to check the blush of it. "The peaches have been left in my care. I am inspecting them. Rigorously."
"You've eaten two already."
"How could you possibly know that?"
"Because I've been standing here since the bell," said Ser Gwayne Hightower, coming down the steps in that ambling unhurried way of his, "watching my wife commit crimes."
You turned.
He had come straight from the yard, which meant he had come straight from the yard and then gone somewhere to make himself presentable about it, because his hair was damp and combed back off his brow and his shirt was clean and open at the throat, and no man alive had ever left a morning's swordwork looking like that by accident. There was a bruise blooming just under his jaw. He was grinning about it.
"You've been watching me for an hour," you said.
"A quarter hour."
"An hour, Gwayne. The bell rang at dawn."
He came to a stop in front of you, close enough that you had to tilt your chin, and he did not deny it. He looked down at the basket instead, took out a peach, considered it with the gravity of a maester examining a wound, and bit into it.
"Well," he said, with his mouth full. "Now I'm complicit."
"You're a knight of the Reach."
"I am. And this is the finest fruit in the Reach, and my wife stole it, and I intend to eat the evidence." He wiped his thumb along his lip. "Nobody hangs for a peach."
"Your father might."
"My father would write a letter about it," Gwayne said. "Six pages. With citations."
You laughed before you could help it, and he looked so pleased with himself, the way he always did, like a boy who had just cleared a fence he wasn't sure of. That was the thing nobody told you about him, back when your marriage was still ink and seals and two families shaking hands over your head. They told you he was vain. They told you he was clever and quick and difficult to pin down. Nobody told you he would look at you like that when you laughed, as if the sound were a coin he'd found in the street.
"Come," you said, and hooked your free arm through his. "Walk with me before the fog goes."
The path curved down past the fountain and under the arch of climbing roses that your good-mother had planted before she died, white ones, heavy-headed, dropping petals into the water. Gwayne finished the peach and threw the stone into the hedge with the underhand flick of a man who had spent his life throwing things into hedges.
"That'll grow," you said.
"Then Oldtown will have one more peach tree and my father will have one more thing to be irritated by. Everyone profits."
"You're very cheerful this morning."
"I'm very cheerful most mornings."
"You are cheerful in company," you corrected. "This morning you're cheerful with me, which is different, which means something has happened. Did you win?"
He put a hand to his chest. "You wound me. You think I only smile when I've won."
"Gwayne."
"I won," he admitted immediately. "Twice. Ser Robin has developed a habit of dropping his shoulder before he comes over the top, and I have been very patient about not telling him, and this morning I collected on my patience."
"That's cheating."
"That's observation."
"It's cheating dressed for a feast."
"Which is what all the best things are," he said, and stole a second peach out of your basket without breaking stride.
You let him. You had learned to let him. In the first months you had counted every little liberty he took as a battle lost, because you had come into this marriage braced for something; you weren't sure what, only that women told you to brace and it had taken you the better part of a year to understand that Gwayne Hightower was not laying siege to you. He was just like this. He took peaches. He talked through the septon's sermons under his breath. He put his cold feet on your legs in the night and pretended to be asleep when you shoved him. He was the least dangerous man in Westeros and he was armed at all times.
You reached the low wall at the garden's southern edge, where the ground fell away and the whole of the city lay out below you in the mist: the tangle of roofs, the river, the Citadel's blunt towers, the masts down at the harbour crowded together like a burnt forest. Somewhere a dog was barking. Somewhere else, someone was singing badly.
Gwayne set his hands on the wall and breathed out.
"Say it," you said.
"Say what?"
"Whatever you climbed all the way down here to say. You've been circling it since the peaches."
He glanced sideways at you. Green eyes, Hightower green, the same as his sister's, though on Alicent they always looked like a held breath and on him they looked like a joke you hadn't heard yet.
"You're a witch," he said. "I married a witch. My father will write a letter about that too."
"Gwayne."
"There's a letter from King's Landing."
Your stomach did the small ugly drop it always did now. Two years ago the words there's a letter from King's Landing would have meant nothing to you at all. Now everyone said them the way they said there's a storm coming in off the sea; flatly, and while already looking for the shutters.
"From your father."
"From my sister, in fact, which is worse, because my father tells me what to do and my sister tells me how she is." He turned around and leaned back against the wall with his elbows on it, tipping his face up to the thin sun. "She says she is very well. She says the children are very well. She says the king's health is much improved, which is the sort of thing you write when a man cannot hold a spoon."
"Gwayne."
"I know." He shut his eyes. "I know."
You said nothing for a moment. Below, the mist was pulling apart over the river.
"Does she ask you to come?"
"She never asks. That's the trick of her. She writes six pages about the weather and the septs and how Daeron is growing, and then at the very bottom, in a hand so small you'd think she was ashamed of it, she writes, it would gladden me to see you." He opened one eye. "Which is asking. That's my sister asking with both hands."
"And your father?"
"Oh, my father asks like a battering ram. His last letter said, and I quote, I trust the pleasures of Oldtown have not made you soft."
You considered this. "Have they?"
"Grievously," said Gwayne. "I sleep on feathers. I eat three times a day. I have a wife who steals fruit for me. I am the softest man in the Reach and I intend to defend the title."
"Then we shan't go."
He was quiet. That was the thing that told you it was serious; Gwayne Hightower quiet, for the length of three heartbeats, with the sun on his throat.
"Not yet," he said at last. "Not this year, I think."
"Not this year," you agreed.
"They'll want me eventually. When my father runs out of Hightowers who'll answer him and comes back round to the one who won't stop making jokes." He said it lightly, and it landed the way a light thing lands when it's made of iron. "But not this year. This year I'm going to stand in this garden and watch my wife rob an orchard, and if my father wants an accounting of my time, he may have it."
"He'll be delighted."
"He'll be apoplectic," Gwayne said, brightening. "Write it down, would you? Ser Gwayne rose at dawn, defeated Ser Robin twice, ate two peaches he did not pay for, and spent the remainder of the morning being soft at his wife. Send it under seal. Make it look important."
"You are a terrible son."
"I am the firstborn son," he said. "It's practically a vocation."
You made him carry the basket after that, because he was there and because he complained about it in a way that clearly meant he wanted to be asked, and you walked back up through the terraces to the little walled garden your good-mother had called the Quiet Court a square of grass and old fig trees with a bench nobody ever sat on, because it faced the wrong way for the view and the right way for the sun.
You sat on the grass instead. You always sat on the grass. Gwayne dropped down beside you with the graceless thump of a man in his own home, stretched his legs out, crossed them at the ankle, and put his head in your lap without asking, as though it were a chair that belonged to him.
"Comfortable?" you said.
"Extremely. Don't move."
"I have to move eventually."
"No, you don't. I'll have your meals brought."
You snorted, and set your hand in his hair, and he made a small pleased sound in the back of his throat that he would have denied under torture.
The sun was properly up now. It came down warm through the fig leaves and made moving coins of light all over him, over his shirt and his forearms and the bruise under his jaw, and the bees had woken and were going seriously about their business in the lavender, and the whole garden hummed with it. You could hear the Citadel bells, far off. You could hear a maid laughing somewhere up in the keep.
"Tell me something," you said.
"Anything. I have a great many opinions."
"When they told you who you were marrying… what did you think?"
He opened his eyes. "That's a dangerous question."
"It's a very safe question. You're lying in my lap. I have all the power here."
"You have all the power," he agreed, "at all times, in all places, which is a matter I intend to raise with the septons." He was quiet a moment, and then, in a slightly different voice: "I thought, well, that's that, then."
"Charming."
"No — listen." He shifted so he could look up at you properly. "You must understand what it is to be the firstborn son of Otto Hightower. Everything about my life was decided by other people in rooms I wasn't in. My sister was decided. My name, my knighting, my horse was decided. So when they said you will marry her, I thought: well, that's that, then. Another thing that happened to me."
"That's worse than charming. That's tragic."
"And then," he went on, ignoring you entirely, "you came to Oldtown, and on your third night here you told me at table, in front of my septa that my hair was too long for a fighting man and that vanity was one of the seven kinds of sin, though you couldn't recall which."
You winced. "I was nervous."
"You were magnificent. My septa choked on her wine. And I sat there and I thought, oh no." He grinned. "Oh no. She's going to be the great catastrophe of my life."
"And was I?"
"You are," he said. "Ongoing. Sustained. No end in sight."
You looked down at him for a moment, at the sun-coins sliding over his stupid handsome face, and then you leaned over and kissed him, upside down and badly, and he laughed into it and caught the back of your neck with one hand as if to say yes, that, do that again.
When you sat up your hair had come loose on one side. He looked immensely satisfied about it.
"Your hair is still too long," you said.
"My hair is perfect."
"It's not."
"It is better than yours."
"Gwayne."
"I'm sorry, my love, but it simply is. The gods gave me one gift and I am obliged to be a good steward of it." He settled back down. "Criston Cole wears his cropped like a scullion and look at the state of the man's disposition."
"You've never met Criston Cole."
"I've heard about Criston Cole. That's worse."
You said nothing. You reached over, very quietly, and picked a stem of lavender.
Gwayne, eyes closed, said, "What are you doing."
"Nothing."
"You're doing something. I can hear you doing something."
"You cannot hear nothing."
"I've been married two years," he said. "I can hear nothing better than any man in the Seven King— don't."
You had already begun. You took a thin section of hair at his temple and started plaiting the lavender into it, and he made a noise of pure theatrical anguish and did not, you noticed, move his head one inch off your lap.
"This is an assault," he informed the fig trees. "This is an assault upon my person."
"Hold still."
"On the honour of House Hightower."
"You'll look lovely."
"I will look like a hedge—"
"Gwayne."
He held still.
You worked slowly, because it was slow work and because there was no reason on earth to hurry. Lavender, then a sprig of rosemary because it smelled good, then three of the little white roses from the arch, snapped off short. His hair was fine and slippery and hard to keep hold of, which he would have been delighted to hear, so you didn't say it. Somewhere in the middle of it his breathing went long and even, and you thought he'd genuinely fallen asleep until he said, without opening his eyes.
"Are you happy?"
Your hands paused. "That's a dangerous question," you said.
"It's a very safe question. My head's in your lap. You have all the power."
You looked down at him. There were fine lines at the corners of his eyes now that hadn't been there when you married from squinting into the sun, from laughing, from a life spent mostly outdoors and mostly amused. There was a white knot of a scar through one eyebrow that he claimed was from a boar and that his squire claimed was from a door.
"Yes," you said.
He waited.
"Truly, yes," you said. "Which frightens me a little."
"Why?"
"Because I've read enough songs to know that no one's happy in the middle of a song."
Gwayne opened his eyes. "Then we shan't be in one," he said.
"You can't decide that."
"I can decide a great deal. I've decided about the peaches. I've decided about my father." He reached up and caught your wrist gently, his thumb over the small bones of it and held it there against his chest, where you could feel his heart going along steady and unbothered underneath. "Listen. Somewhere out east there are dragons and there are men writing letters about dragons, and one day someone will come up that road and knock on that door and I will have to go and be a Hightower at them. I know it. You know it. My father has known it since before I was born, I expect; he's a man who plans that far ahead."
"Gwayne—"
"But that's not today," he said. "Today there's fog on the river and my wife has put a garden in my hair and I have eaten two stolen peaches and won two bouts, and if this is the middle of the song then it's the best part and I refuse to hurry it." He kissed the inside of your wrist, quick, careless, like it was nothing. "That's all. That's my whole philosophy. I've been working on it for years."
"It's a very short philosophy."
"It's a very efficient philosophy," he said. "You could have married a man with a long one and been bored to death by midwinter."
You laughed, and your eyes stung a little, and you covered it by tugging his hair.
"Ow."
"Hold still. I'm nearly done."
When you were done he sat up and shook his head like a dog, and about half of it fell out, which was frankly less than you'd expected.
"Well?" he said, turning his face to give you the good side, which was the same as the other side. "Tell me honestly. Ruined?"
You looked at him. Lavender and rosemary and three white roses, sun through the leaves, grass on his shoulder, that bruise going purple under his jaw.
"You look," you said, "like a maiden in a song."
"Excellent. Which one?"
"The one who gets carried off."
"By whom?"
"By her husband, in a moment, if she doesn't stop talking."
He grinned so wide it must have hurt. "Threats. In my garden."
"My garden. You said so yourself. You've told everyone in Oldtown it's my garden since the day I asked for it."
"I have," he admitted, "because when I say my wife's garden the maesters look at me as though I've done something worthwhile, and I've found I like the feeling." He plucked one of the roses back out of his hair and, with great ceremony, tucked it behind your ear. "There. Now we match. Now nobody can say anything."
"Everybody will say something."
"Let them," said Gwayne Hightower, and kissed you.
It was a slow one this time, unhurried, one hand at your jaw and the other braced in the grass, and you tasted peach and he smelled of lavender and clean linen and horse, and above you the fig leaves shifted and the light moved and the bees kept up their work in the lavender, entirely unimpressed. You had a fistful of his shirt. You did not remember deciding to take it.
Which of course was the exact moment that somebody came through the gate at the far end of the Quiet Court.
"Ser — oh. Oh. Ser, I— the master-at-arms says—"
Gwayne did not let go of you. He turned his head, with the rosemary sticking out over his ear, and regarded his squire with the calm of a man who had been interrupted in gardens by squires his entire adult life.
"Yes, Willem."
"The master-at-arms says you're wanted in the yard," said Willem, aged fourteen, magenta from the collar up, examining the sky. "He says. He says you promised him. He says you swore."
"Did I swear?"
"You swore on your sword, ser."
"That does sound like me." Gwayne sighed and let his forehead drop against yours for a moment. "The trouble with being charming," he murmured, "is that you make so very many promises."
"Go," you said.
"I don't want to."
"You'll want to in ten minutes. You'll want to enormously. You'll come back at noon and tell me about it at extraordinary length."
"...That's true," he said, wounded by the accuracy of it, and got up.
He brushed the grass off, and put a hand up to his hair, and stopped; you watched him remember what was in it. You watched him weigh it. You watched, delighted, as Ser Gwayne Hightower, first born son of the Hand of the King, decided.
"Willem," he said. "How do I look?"
The boy, trapped, said: "...Very well, ser."
"Very well," Gwayne repeated. "You hear that? Very well. The lad has an eye." He pointed at you as he backed toward the gate. "Noon. Don't eat all the peaches."
"I make no promises."
"You never do. It's the worst thing about you." He was at the gate. He turned, one hand on the stone, sun in his eyes, lavender in his hair, and for a moment; a small one, a moment you would take out and hold a great many times in the years that came after, on the road, in the dark, in rooms full of men shouting about dragons; he just looked at you across the grass, and didn't say anything clever at all.
Then he said, "I love you, my wife," in the offhand way he said everything that mattered, and was gone down the steps two at a time with his squire trotting after him.
You sat back in the grass with the basket in your lap and the rose behind your ear.
The bees went on. The fog burned off the river. Above you the Hightower stood white and enormous against a sky going properly blue at last, and somewhere far away in King's Landing a sick king was being helped to sit up in bed, and a queen was writing six pages about the weather, and none of it, this morning, had reached the gardens.
You ate another peach.
a/n: no i will not be writing the sequel. gwayne stays in the garden. gwayne stays in the garden forever. reblogs and tags are my bread and butter 🤍
summary: gwayne comes to daemon before the battle at tumbleton to barter for the life of his nephew and gets you in return, the last daughter of an unremarkable house fighting for the black army, who's in want of a wealthy husband. (4k)
characters: gwayne hightower / fem!reader, daemon targaryen, ser roderick, mentions of daeron targaryen and ormund hightower
contents: enemies to lovers, arranged marraige, angst, hurt/comfort, not proofread soz cw for canon typical violence, coercion, allusions to smut 18+ (MDNI), and spoilers for hotd s3 finale!! (gif creds)
The morning hangs heavy with the promise of death. It sits thick in Gwayne’s throat and lungs the whole walk to the Black Army’s encampment. He carries with him nothing but a small hunting knife pressed to Lord Corlys’s back and a fear he cannot quite keep out of his gaze, darting wildly every which way as Daemon’s army cages him on all sides — a Winter Wolf on his left, a small Tully boy on his right, and a stranger looming on horseback; with armor fitted close to fit a woman’s frame, and with a face much too pretty for the throes of war.
“Prince Daemon,” Gwayne greets with a curt nod, still winded from the walk over as his chest heaves beneath his armor. “I’m Ser Gwayne Hightower… Well met.”
“Fuck me,” Ser Roderick laughs; a rough, ugly bark as he looks the small, auburn-haired man up and down. “I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s knife.”
“Daemon, I must say—” Your voice follows, soft and musical and carrying easily over the distant murmur of armed men. It’s the kind of voice that might’ve belonged to a septa or a singer, if it weren’t for the ice running beneath it. “—When you said we were meeting with a Hightower, I expected someone taller than the sigil at least.”
The laughter doubles and strangles Gwayne accordingly, who is completely and utterly out of his element now. He swallows hard through a tightening throat and draws a slow breath through his nose, trying once again to steady himself — because it was not for himself that he was out here in the first place. It was for Daeron, and for the dozen other boys just like him that Ormund had lined along the front ranks to take the war’s first bite.
So Gwayne presses on, forcing an evenness into his voice that he doesn’t exactly feel beneath the death glares all around him. “My cousin, Ormund, has taken leave of his senses. As I’m sure you’re aware. He’d rather die than admit defeat—”
“And you?” Daemon lilts lazily, resting his arms along the hilt of his sword.
Gwayne’s eyes cut across the men arrayed before him, still only a fraction of the true Black host. “Well, I’m not blind… I know we will not survive the day if you attack. So… As a token of good faith… I return your Hand.”
He drops Corlys’s shackles with a heavy clinking sound, but does not take the blade from his side. The silence that follows seems to last for an eternity, until your pretty voice breaks it at last.
“Can he be a Hand with only four fingers?” you joke, tilting your head towards the old lord’s bandaged fist.
The laughter returns again. Gwayne’s icy blue eyes flits once more to you in a quick, assessing pass; he does not mean for his gaze to linger upon you, but he can’t quite manage to look away. Your armor catches in what little light breaks through the clouds overhead, carved with the intricate detailing of your house. And beneath all that heavy steel is your much softer face — beautiful and unbothered by the promise of war simmering in the heavy summer air.
There is something very wrong about you, Gwayne knows; something he can’t quite decide to be afraid of or intrigued by. A bit of both, perhaps.
“I’ve come to sue for peace,” Gwayne announces, louder now, forcing the words out over the laughter. ‘To plead with you at the behest of Daeron Targaryen.”
The amusement in Daemon’s pale eyes flickers at once, a distant warmth running cold as his thin mouth curls into a sharp grin. “The war will end when all the traitors’ heads are mounted on spikes about the King’s Gate,” the older man answers. “And not before.”
“Listen to Daeron’s entreaty,” Gwayne pleads, eyes growing wide behind the silken auburn tendrils swaying over his brows. “Divide the realm. Let the Queen rule over the Crownlands, the North, the Vale, all the lands watered by the Trident… And let Daeron rule from Oldtown—"
“Oh, gods…” Roderick groans in disgust from his left.
“He’s boring me, Daemon,” you tell the silver-haired man standing on foot before you, voice flat with a theatrical ennui that borders on girlish. “Just kill him already.”
“Do you hear that?” Daemon laughs as he turns back to Gwayne. “You’re boring her… And trust me, Ser, you do not want to see how she gets when she’s bored—”
“You jest?” Gwayne spits as his composure splinters all at once. The words seem to spill from his mouth before he can stop them, as he approaches the older man on instinct alone. “You would rather callously cast aside the lives of thousands—”
He does not get another word out before Daemon’s hand closes suddenly around his throat. The world tilts sideways as the man drags him downward in his fist. His metal glove digs hard into Gwayne’s milky white neck, cutting off just enough of his air supply to keep him conscious, though Daemon does not so much as blink at the show of strength.
“No one will rule but Rhaenyra,” Daemon tells him in a casual voice, even as Gwayne’s hands scrabble uselessly for purchase at his wrist. “The ordained Queen of the Andals, of the First Men, of beggars and thieves and cowards, like you. A new Valyria will rise from the ashes of her usurper half-brothers. And of the Hightowers of Oldtown.”
Gwayne can hardly hear him over the thunder of his pulse in his skull as black spots begin to speckle in his vision, like so many drops of ink spreading through water.
“But…” Daemon trails off. His grip on Gwayne’s neck does not loosen, but something in his eyes does. The cold burn of rage melts away into a distant look of calculation. “Since you came under the banner of peace… Perhaps I’ll give you a choice…”
Daemon turns slowly to you, peering up at you from behind the wisps of white hair blowing across his face. Gwayne’s watery, unfocused eyes follow in turn and find you watching the whole ordeal with your head tilted gently to one side. There is no horror in your face, nor an ounce of pity either.
“You said you wanted to live in a pretty castle, didn’t you?” Daemon calls to you, with a sort of fondness creeping into his voice while Gwayne turns purple under his fist. “To twirl around in pretty silk dresses, with a pretty silk husband?”
You had said it half in jest a few months past, in a hall far too to the north for anyone to remember its existence, except for when they needed its sword. You were the last living heir to a name older than most in the realm, ruling alone with more soldiers under your command than servants, when Daemon had come with his dragon asking for whatever men you could spare.
You’d given him what he asked, and when he’d wondered in turn what you wanted for it, you answered him evenly. “A castle… And a few dresses… And perhaps a husband to warm my bed— all the pretty, useless shit people like you worry about.”
You hadn’t expected to be repaid so soon, and certainly not on the battlefield on the very eve of war, with a dead man crumpling to his feet before you.
“What of it?” you say with an arched brow.
“Here’s your pretty husband,” Daemon nods his silver head down toward the man gasping in his grip. “Right here… If you want him, of course.”
Gwayne’s bleary eyes flit back to you. Through the black in his vision, he finds you studying the whole of him as if he were livestock to be appraised at market. He comes to the rather humiliating realization that he wants very badly for you to say yes — both with a primal despair of wanting to live and with the distant desperation of wanting your approval.
You scrunch the bridge of his nose. “He’s a bit puny, isn’t he?”
“A bit?” Ser Rodrick scoffs.
“Well, what he lacks in height and muscle, he makes up for twice over in wealth,” Daemon tells you. “Far wealthier than you’re like to find anywhere else, to be sure… What do you say?”
You consider for a long moment, then, despite watching Gwayne slowly slip from consciousness. He can no longer tell if it takes you one minute or one hour to decide, which you finally do with one lazy bounce of your shoulder.
“Alright.”
Daemon’s fingers loosen at once. Warm, summer air rushes back into Gwayne’s body as he crumples to his knees onto the dried grass below. The oxygen burns in his throat, his shoulders heaving as he retches. It takes a long moment for the world to come back into focus. And when it finally does, Daemon’s voice finds him again as he looms a long shadow over the kneeling man.
“Do you hear that? I will spare your life — and that of your precious nephew’s, should he bend the knee to the rightful Queen — and you will live out the rest of your days as lord husband to the new Lady of Oldtown… How does that sound?”
It sounds nothing like what Gwyane had walked out here to discuss, to be sure. He’d only meant to save Daeron’s life, and somehow bartered his own for a marriage to a woman he had known for the length of one terribly humiliating conversation. But he is still breathing, at least, and his nephew is too. And for now, that’s enough.
He nods wordlessly in response, and feels an aching in his throat when he does so.
“Thank her,” Daemon scolds like a parent would their child. When Gwayne’s bowed hands snap in his direction to make sure he’d heard him right, he feels the man take a sudden fistful of his auburn hair, wrenching him towards you again. “That was not rhetorical, Ser Gwayne— Thank your new lady wife for saving you. It’s only fair.”
Gwayne swallows hard through a raw throat and peers up at you with bleary eyes from where he kneels on the ground before you. “Thank...” he attempts to speak, but the word comes out strangled. “Thank you...”
“My lady,” Daemon reminds him.
Gwayne coughs. “M-My lady…”
You look down at him from where you idle on horseback. A small smile hints at the corner of your mouth as you hum in satisfaction. “Mm… You’re welcome, lord husband.”
You turn on your horse without so much as a backward glance, gathering the reins in your fist and looking instead toward the gates of Tumbleton — where Ormund’s men prepare their archers for the first wave of battle. “Now…” you say, grinning over your shoulder at your house’s men gathered just behind you. Your voice carries across the length of the plain. “Let’s go win this fucking war!”
The ranks roar a wordless answer in response — a ragged, joyous, bloodthirsty sound as swords beat against their shields. Gwayne hears the battlecry swell all around him, and wonders if his death would’ve been a kinder fate than what is sure to await him when the fight is done.
The wedding was done by evenfall, while smoke rose from the ashes of Tumbleton; the air still thick with the scent of blood and rot.
You exchanged vows while your armor was still splattered with the blood of the Green Army and your hair was still matted with sweat. There had been no sept, no godswood, no seven blessings, no ribbon tied around clasped hands. There was only a shaded tent, a Tumbleton septon kept alive for the very purpose of ceremony, and a scrap of parchment to sign your names — though Gwayne’s hand was still a little sore from the heavy chains wrapped around them.
No feast follows. No song, no celebration, no bedding. Because too many people had died on both sides — Ormund among them, burnt and buried in ash. And though Daeron breathes still, safe and unbloodied by sword, Gwayne wears the cost of that safety in the shackles around his wrist and waist. He was lord now, and a husband, and he did not ask to be.
He only wanted his nephew to live to see sixteen.
“So… That’s it then,” Gwayne said on an exhaled breath while a worse-for-wear Daemon shoved the old septon out by his neck. His pretty face was softened by the candlelight of the war tent, even despite the soot streaked across his face and the flaming tendrils clinging to his forehead with sweat. “Husband and wife, are we?”
“Seems that way,” you said beneath the quiet glugging of the ale you poured. The watered wine spilled slightly over the maps scattered there when you turned briefly to flash him a smile over your shoulder. “Congratulations, my lord.”
Gwayne felt a tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, right before a sharp breath escaped him in a sad sort of laugh. “Aren’t you concerned?” he said, pale eyes fixed on your armored form. “I’m not sure how a marriage such as this can be held up by law…”
“Oh, I’m not worried,” you assured him with a shake of your head.
“No?”
“No…” you insisted and turned back around to face him, sporting an old goblet in your bloodied fist. “Because I know you have no interest in being killed— or your nephew, besides… It’s righteous of you, really, so… You’re not going anywhere, Ser Gwayne.”
Your lips curled into a slow, sharp grin as you brought the cup to your mouth, chugging the whole of it until the soft purple wine started to drip down to your chin.
Gwayne still could not yet decide what you had planned for him — if you meant to love him truly or kill him the second you arrived at Oldtown. And a distant, disgusting part of him could not wait to find out.
Oldtown, as you’ve come to find it, smells nothing like the wet cobbles, and horse dung, and rotted wood of the half-forgotten manse you grew up in. Here, everything smells of salt and lemon trees and sun-warmed stone. It is everything you’d asked Daemon for — a large castle, enough silk to drown in, hands that tended to your every want, and a husband to warm your bed. Though you still spend most of your days in the fighting yard, tearing and sweating through whatever fine silk you’d dressed in that day.
Gwayne is still getting used to the presence of you and your men in his ancestral home, and his newfound position within it. Daeron, too, spends many weeks wary of the very sight of you — the reason for the death of his uncle, and simultaneously, the reason for his freedom. You do not ask for his forgiveness; you just put a sparring sword in his hand and ask him to give you all the brunt of the anger you know he keeps hidden.
You and your men put the sweet boy on his back more often than not, but he keeps coming back for more anyway. And somewhere in that routine, gratitude creeps in where the resentment used to live, and Daeron comes slowly around.
“Well… You’ve made a fine swordsman out of him,” Gwayne sighs without turning from the window overlooking the courtyard, where his nephew continues to spar with the northern knights. He hears you waltz by somewhere behind him, your pretty silk gown rustling at your ankles and clinging at the sweaty small of your back. “Ormund would never let the boy train this hard…”
“Daeron has good enough instincts, it seems,” you answer, tugging lazily at the lace in your bodice. “Which I find rather surprising, considering the company he grew up with…”
Gwayne finds himself smiling at the jab, far wider than he realizes. You’ve never run short of witty, merciless quips, he’s found throughout his time with you; and he finds himself taking a strange liking to the way you so effortlessly cut him down.
“And what is that supposed to mean exactly?” he says as he turns away from the window.
Whatever quip had been sitting on his tongue then, turns to ash in his throat at the sight of you — with your gown abandoned in a pile on the cobbles, and you slouched at your vanity stool in nothing but the thin slip beneath it. The fabric rises from your knee, revealing the soft canvas of your thighs. You’ve slid one arm free from the thin sleeves to bare a shoulder painted a darker shade from the fresh bruises blooming there.
Your skin is littered with scars from battles past, and he struggles to look away from any of it. His chest stings with the thought of you ever being hurt, then warms twice over at the sight of your breast threatening to spill over from where the slip had gone askew.
“You needn’t look so scandalized, husband,” you laugh as you reach for the clay pot of healing ointment, which never strays too far from your side. “Surely, you’ve seen worse than a woman’s shift… Handsome as you are.”
Gwayne’s face flushes at the compliment, and he hates how boyish he feels.
He clears his throat and averts his gaze, folding his clammy palms behind his back. “I only find myself surprised, I guess, at how… little you seem to mind it, is all.”
“Mind what? The bruises?” you scoff, dabbing the ointment along your shoulder and hissing at how tender the skin has gone. “I’ve had far worse from far better fights, I assure you. Maybe one day I’ll show you the scar on my—”
“Modesty,” Gwayne blurts before you can finish. “I meant modesty…”
“Oh…” you hum, face screwing faintly as you work the earthy salve in slow circles. “I never had much use for modesty, I suppose… A keep with more soldiers than servants doesn’t have much of it, in truth…”
You reach back then, trying hopelessly to work the balm into the worst of the bruise along your shoulder blade, but the angle is not so forgiving. You huff and twist and achieve nothing but a fresher ache for the trouble.
Gwayne exhales a sympathetic sigh from across the room. “Here…” he huffs as he crosses the distance between you, reaching out an expectant hand when he looms just behind your chair.
You consider arguing for a moment, if only out of habit, but place the clay pot into his pale palm regardless. “Try not to enjoy it too much,” you joke with a small grin tugging at your mouth.
“I make no promises, my lady,” he quips in a low deadpan.
But even his sarcasm cannot mask the tenderness he holds in his hands when they find your shoulder, working the ointment in with a care you didn’t know he was capable of — a care you didn’t know you were deserving of. The pad of his thumb smooths slowly over the worst of the bruise, and you feel something soften in your chest.
“You’re better at this than I would’ve guessed,” you tell him, if only to fill the suffocating silence pressing hard on either side of you.
“I’ve had ample practice with bruises of my own,” Gwayne confesses, lifting his eyes to peer at you through the smudged looking glass. “I didn’t come into this marriage entirely unmarked, if you recall…”
“Mm… I do recall,” you croon lowly, as though amused by the memory. Your head tips back to grin up at him with a fond reminiscence. “You were very purple. And very sore… For weeks… It was delicious…”
Gwayne shakes his head. “Well, you’ll forgive me if I don’t find the memory as amusing as you do…”
“I find everything amusing,” you scoff.
“I know you do,” he huffs a not-quite laugh. “Honestly, it’s among the things I’ve come to… appreciate about you, I suppose.”
Your eyes narrow in suspicion of his compliment. “Careful, Ser Gwayne… A lady could get ideas, hearing you talk like that…”
“Really?” the man hums, still working gently at your bruised skin. “And what ideas are those, I wonder?”
You do not answer him with words. Instead, you rise slowly from the creaking vanity stool until you’re stood just before him. Then you reach for the remaining sleeve of your slip and trail it down your arm until you’re free of it; until the thin fabric falls to your feet in a forgotten piece of cotton; until you’re stood utterly bare before him — made of warm skin, soft curves, and faded scars. There’s one at your sternum, a longer one at your hip, and a darker one along your ribcage.
Gwayne’s breath catches audibly in his throat. The composure he’s spent weeks holding onto — full of dry wit and careful distance and a week’s worth of telling himself this was a political arrangement and nothing more — seems to abandon him all at once. His glassy eyes drift over your naked form, and he feels some warm, boyish feelings sparkling somewhere deep in his chest.
It takes everything in you not to cower — not because you are ashamed at his staring, you’ve never been ashamed of anything, but because you have never once been looked at with so much reverence.
“Do you get the hint now, Ser Gwayne?” you quip drily as you close the scant distance between you. Your palms splay over the chest of his emerald coat and drift slowly upward until they settle cold along his warm neck, dragging him down with a little more force than necessary.
You kiss him then like you’ve kissed him a thousand times over, like you’ve kissed a thousand men a thousand times over. There is little reservation in the way you slot your lips against his, or in the way you lick into his mouth and sigh hard through your nose at the taste of him — like mint and wine and whatever fruit he’d been snaking on before you found him here.
His mouth is far softer than your own, you realize, a far gentler touch than you think you’ve ever felt before. He spreads one wide hand along your back, pressing your bare chest flush against his clothed one, while his other trails down down down the ladder of your spine.
Your breath nearly catches when his calloused palm settles warm along the plush of your ass; you lose it completely when he grabs a fistful of the skin to pull you closer.
You rise onto the tip of your toes, curling your arms around his neck while your noses knock under the weight of your searing kiss — which breaks only when Gwayne’s knee slots between your thighs, and when the rough fabric of his trousers brushes the most sensitive part of you.
His rosy mouth curls into a slow grin at the pretty sound you make for him then.
“Yes. To answer your question…” the man quips through panted breaths, with the tip of his nose brushing the bridge of yours. “I believe I am starting to get the hint, my lady.”
warnings: 18+, very very sweet fluff, no war and dance of the dragons au, tully's family is not book canon, smut, face-sitting, p in v, kissing, making out, teasing, pet names, breeding kink.
summary: You and Jacaerys are betrothed since you were children. He's visiting the Riverlands to see you again... being so sweet in front of your family but craving the feel of you after being apart for so long.
taglist: @claerysa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You and Jacaerys had been betrothed since childhood, your engagement arranged to strengthen the bond between your two houses.
You spent much of your early years in King's Landing, chasing one another through the winding corridors of the Red Keep. You watched him train tirelessly in the castle yard, wooden sword in hand, only for the two of you to sneak away afterward and steal lemon cakes from the kitchens before anyone could catch you.
Those became some of your fondest childhood memories.
When Jacaerys moved to Dragonstone with his family, the atmosphere within the royal family grew increasingly strained. Rather than asking you to travel to him, he began visiting you in the Riverlands whenever his duties allowed.
Neither of you cared where you met.
Whether it was Dragonstone, the Red Keep, or your family's castle in the Riverlands, the place never mattered.
What mattered was being together.
You had loved one another for as long as either of you could remember. As the years passed, your childhood affection quietly blossomed into something deeper, growing stronger with every reunion and every reluctant farewell.
Now, a grand tourney was to be held at Riverrun.
The moment you heard the news, you wasted no time sending a raven to Dragonstone, inviting Jacaerys to attend. The tourney itself was little more than an excuse.
In truth, you simply wanted to see him again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I waited for you..." you said with a playful pout, a teasing smirk tugging at your lips. "But I think you'd rather see my brother than me."
To your surprise, your sweet betrothed hadn't come to greet you first upon his arrival. Instead, one of your maids informed you that he had been welcomed by your older brother, Grover.
Curious, you made your way to the Great Hall.
There they were.
Jacaerys and Grover stood near the great fireplace, each holding a goblet of wine that a servant had just poured for them. Deep in conversation, neither of them noticed your arrival at first.
Only when your voice broke the silence did Jacaerys turn toward you, his face instantly softening into the warm smile you had been hoping to see.
"Forgive me" he says, walking up to you "You know I can't say no to my future brother in law." He says grinning.
He reaches out then—gloved fingers gently brushing a loose strand of hair from your face. The gesture is tender, almost reverent. Behind him, Grover Tully watches silently with folded arms and an unreadable expression.
Grover genuinely liked Jacaerys. The two of them often spent their days hunting through the forests or crossing swords in the training yard, and he had come to respect the young prince both as a warrior and as a friend.
There was only one thing he didn't particularly care for.
The way Jacaerys was always so affectionate with you.
It wasn't that Grover was angry or disapproved of the match. If anything, he trusted Jacaerys more than most men. He was simply a protective older brother, always watching closely, determined to make sure his little sister's heart would never be broken.
Jace ignores the weight of his audience - In this moment, there’s only you.
Without another word, he closes the distance and pulls you into a tight embrace. His armor is cold against your cheek—but his heartbeat thunders beneath it: strong, fast… alive.
A beat passes. Then two.
And then—finally—he kisses you.
The kiss is gentle at first—hesitant, like the brush of a summer breeze. But then it deepens, fueled by months of longing and separation. Jace cups your face in his hands, thumbs tracing your cheeks as if memorizing you.
Your brother clears his throat loudly from across the hall.
Jace breaks the kiss reluctantly, his forehead resting against yours for a breath—just one more second of closeness. When he pulls back, his silver eyes are bright with joy and love.
He turns to Grover slowly, straightening up into the posture of a prince who knows he’s been caught in an intimate moment on foreign soil.
"Lord Tully" Jace says formally—though there's no real formality left in him after that kiss.
Grover steps forward, his dark eyes sharp with unspoken words.
"Keep your hands to yourself, Velaryon." He says warningly smacking him gently on the arm.
Jace meets his gaze without flinching. He gives another firm nod—respectful, solemn.
"Understood" he says simply. No excuses, no empty promises. Just quiet acknowledgment of the weight his actions carry now—not just as a prince, but as the man who will marry his sister.
Grover studies him a moment longer… then turns and strides toward the door without another word.
The tension in the hall eases slightly with his departure.
"You really had to do that in front of him?" You said trying not to laugh.
Jace grins—wide, unapologetic, boyish. The kind of smile that used to get him into trouble as a child.
"Of course I did" he says with mock pride. "If I was going to kiss you after all this time… I wanted your brother to see it. Let him know—right now—that you're mine."
He winks at you, then laces his fingers through yours like it's the most natural thing in the world. Around them, guards and servants pretend not to stare—but they do.
The Great Hall feels warmer somehow.
"I think everybody knows that I'm yours." You say quietly.
Jace squeezes your hand, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. The pride in his eyes is impossible to miss—bright and unguarded, like a dragon finally allowed to stretch its wings after being caged.
"Good," he murmurs. "Let them all know."
He leans down and kisses you again—quickly this time, a soft press of lips—but with no less meaning. Then he rests his forehead against yours once more, whispering:
"I've got something for you," Jacaerys said, slipping a hand into his cloak.
"I hope it's that wonderful Dornish wine we drank at the Red Keep," you replied eagerly, your eyes lighting up.
He let out a quiet laugh and shook his head.
"Not this time, my darling. I'm not making the mistake of letting you get that drunk again."
You rolled your eyes, though you couldn't suppress the smile tugging at your lips.
"You're impossible."
"So I've been told."
At last, he opened his hand.
Resting in his palm was a delicate silver ring, its band shaped like a dragon coiled around itself. The tiny scales shimmered in the firelight, each one catching the glow from the nearby hearth.
For a moment, you could only stare.
"I know we've been betrothed for what feels like forever," Jacaerys said softly. "But I've never given you anything that was truly ours. Something to remind you of me whenever we're apart." His eyes met yours. "And something to let the world know that your heart already belongs to someone."
You looked at the ring in silent amazement, watching the silver gleam in the dancing flames.
"It's beautiful, my love," you whispered. "I can't believe you did this for me."
A gentle smile spread across his face.
"It's a promise ring," he said as he carefully slipped it onto your finger. "A promise that one day we'll stand before the gods and be married." His thumb brushed lightly over your hand. "And from that day forward, we'll never have to say goodbye again."
You felt tears prick at the corners of your eyes.
Every time he looked at you that way... every time he did something so thoughtful, so effortlessly charming, your heart swelled until it felt as though it could no longer contain the love you had for him.
You wondered how it was possible to love someone so completely, yet with every passing day, your feelings for Jacaerys only seemed to grow stronger. "I love you with all the fire." You whispered against his lips.
"I love you, my love, my everything."
Jace hums against your lips—content, happy—as you peck him again. Each little kiss feels like a secret shared between just the two of you, a rebellion against all courtly decorum.
He doesn’t rush to deepen it this time. Just savors the softness—the sweetness of your affection—before returning it with another gentle press of his own.
Suddenly, you pulled away from him breaking the kiss and walked towards the door with a smirk on your face.
Jace’s eyes follow you instantly. That grin of yours? It’s dangerous. Playful and tasing. And it makes his heart leap.
He doesn’t move right away—just watches as you glide toward the door, your steps light and deliberate. The game is on.
A slow smirk spreads across his face—the kind that says: Oh, so we’re doing this now?
Without a word he starts walking after you.
Jace follows at a leisurely pace, hands tucked behind his back—deceptively calm. But there’s fire in his eyes.
The corridor outside the Great Hall is quiet, torchlight flickering on stone walls. You’re ahead… but not too far ahead.
Then—suddenly—he breaks into a light jog and closes the distance between you.
One arm wraps around your waist from behind as he pulls you gently against him.
The sudden warmth of his body pressed to your back sends a shiver through you—his breath tickling the shell of your ear. Jace doesn’t speak, not yet. Just holds you there for a heartbeat.
He lowered his head, pressing a trail of lingering kisses along your neck, each one feather-light against your skin. His hands rested gently on your shoulders, holding you steady against his chest as you melted into his embrace.
"You’re impossible," he murmurs against your ear. "Running off like that… you knew I’d chase you."
"I know... That's why I did that." You say, looking sweetly at him.
"Little tease." He spins you around with surprising grace and captures your lips again - this time deeper and hungrier.
His hands slide up to cradle your face as the torches flicker around you both.
"I need to go..." You said between kisses, trying to catch your breath. "And get ready for the feast."
Jace sighs—dramatic, exaggerated, the pout of a man torn between love and duty. The feast. Of course. Dinner with lords and ladies, politics barely hidden under polite conversation.
"Already?" he murmurs against your lips one last time before reluctantly pulling back.
He smooths his hands over your shoulders like he’s memorizing the feel of you in this moment—and then steps aside to let you pass.
"Go," he says softly, "but I’ll be waiting at the table for you."
A small smirk returns.
"And I won’t stop looking at you all night."
"I know you won't." You wink at him and started to walk towards your chambers.
Jace watches you walk down the corridor, your steps graceful, the sway of your gown catching the torchlight. That wink? Devastating. It lingers in his mind like a spell.
He stands there for a few extra seconds—long after you’ve turned a corner and vanished from sight—just smiling to himself.
A passing servant clears their throat awkwardly. Jace blinks, remembering he’s supposed to be a prince now—not some lovestruck boy daydreaming in hallways.
With one last glance toward where you disappeared… he straightens his cloak and heads toward his own chambers that were placed in completely different direction than yours. Not that your brother had anything to do with that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Great Hall is transformed—long tables laden with roasted meats, honeyed fruits, and dark breads stretch from one end to the other. Torches blaze brightly overhead, casting golden light on silver platters and polished armor.
Lords and ladies filled the benches, their voices blending into a constant murmur of conversation. Soft piano music drifted through the hall, weaving gracefully between the chatter and lending the gathering an air of quiet elegance.
And there at the high table sits Jace—already in his place beside Grover.
Jace scans every guest entering… waiting for your arrival.
Then the doors swing open—guards announcing your arrival with quiet formality. The hall hushes slightly, not out of awe for a noblewoman, but because everyone knows who you are: Lady Tully, Betrothed to Prince Jacaerys.
The murmurs begin instantly—whispers about your gown, your grace, how young and lovely you look beside the prince.
Jacaerys rises as soon as he sees you.
No protocol stops him from coming down to meet you halfway.
Jace strides toward you with purpose—ignoring the stares, ignoring Grover's sharp glance from the high table. The moment he reaches you, his expression shifts: all softness and warmth reserved only for you.
He takes your hand—gloved in black velvet—and presses a respectful kiss to your knuckles. But when he lifts his eyes? That quiet fire is back.
"Beautiful," he murmurs just for you to hear.
Then offers his arm like a true prince escorting his lady.
Jace finally guides you to the table, keeping his arm firmly around you. He serves you first - plucking a juicy piece of roasted pheasant and placing it on your plate with deliberate care. He fills your goblet with wine, then lean close to murmur: "Eat. I can see that you're starving."
How the hell does he know that? You started thinking how he could notice such a thing about you.
"How do you even know that?" You said with a sly smile.
Jace smirks, taking a sip of his own wine before answering. "I notice everything about you, my love." He says simply like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
And it is. Jace pays attention - the way you braid your hair, the way you chew your lip when you're reading a book.
A servant passes by with a fresh bread; Jace grabs a warm roll and hands it to you without being asked.
You take a bite of the food and tug a curl of his hair behind his ear. "You're such a gentleman."
Jace leans into your touch, the gesture is so soft and so affectionate that it makes his eyes close for a brief moment.
"Only for you" He murmurs, and place a kiss on your fingertips.
You returned to your meal, trying your best to hide the smile spreading across your face. You lifted your hand to cover it, hoping no one would notice the blush warming your cheeks at the sight of your beloved.
Jace sees it- of course he does. The way you hide your smile, the flustered eating, the slight pink in your cheeks. He knows exactly what's happening: you're head over heels for him.
And gods, that makes his chest swell with pride. He grins like a smug fool. A slow knowing smirk as he watches you chew.
Jacaerys feels the nudge of your knee and his smirk softness into something fond. He nudges back immediately.
Under the table his knee stays pressed against yours now. A secret point of contact- a way to stay connected even when people bustle around you.
Across from you sat your younger siblings, a lively group of children with bright blue eyes and fiery red hair. They watched Jacaerys with barely concealed amusement, having adored him for as long as they could remember.
He always brought them sweets from King's Landing. Once, he had even introduced them to Vermax, much to their excitement. And somehow, despite having no idea what he was doing at first, he had even taught himself how to braid hair just for your youngest sister.
It was impossible for them not to love him.
"Do you always drink so much wine, Jace?" Your brother asks giggling.
Jacaerys nearly choked on his drink at the boy's boldness. He set his goblet down, trying to suppress his laughter.
"No. Only at feasts."
"Don't ask questions like that!" you whispered to your siblings, lightly kicking their feet beneath the table.
The children yelped—not from pain, but from surprise—and immediately shot you deeply betrayed looks.
Jacaerys, however, couldn't help but chuckle. There was something refreshing about the bluntness of children. No politics. No careful words. Just innocent curiosity.
"It's all right," he assured them with a small smile before adding mischievously, "But if I drank wine all the time like some of the lords do, I'd be drunk by noon."
The children burst into giggles, clearly charmed by him.
"Where did you get that ring?!" your younger sister suddenly exclaimed.
Before you could answer, she reached across the table and took your hand, examining the silver dragon ring with wide, fascinated eyes.
"Jace gave it to me—as a gift."
You couldn't miss the suspicious look Grover sent in Jacaerys's direction.
"It's so pretty!" your sister squealed, squirming excitedly in her seat. "You're so lucky... I want pretty things like that, too..."
Her excitement faded into a small pout.
"Don't worry," Jacaerys said gently. "You will have something pretty of your own one day." He considered her for a moment before smiling. "Perhaps I could have a necklace made for you."
Your sister gasped. "Really?"
"Really."
She nodded enthusiastically, already imagining it.
You couldn't help but smile as you watched Jacaerys with your younger siblings. He was so gentle with them, so patient and kind. Something warm stirred in your chest as you found yourself imagining a future with him—a home of your own, children running through its halls, and Jacaerys looking at them with that same tender smile.
Then, as though she had somehow heard your thoughts, your sister spoke.
"Are you going to have children with my sister?"
The question struck the hall like a thunderclap.
Several nearby guests immediately choked on their wine. Jacaerys froze.
His entire face turned scarlet, his eyes widening as he stared at the little girl in complete disbelief.
Your mouth fell open.
Even Grover looked momentarily stunned.
Your sister, completely oblivious to the chaos she had caused, simply waited for an answer.
Jacaerys opened his mouth. Nothing came out. She tilted her head impatiently "Well?" she demanded. "Are you going to?"
Jacaerys finally found his voice, though it came out an octave higher than usual. "I mean... yes. Eventually."
Your sister gasped before immediately turning to her younger brother.
"Do you know what that means?! Our nieces and nephews are going to have dragons!"
Your brother's eyes widened.
The two children bounced excitedly in their seats, already imagining tiny Targaryen children running through the halls with miniature dragons at their heels.
Jacaerys, still recovering from the question, managed a weak smile at their enthusiasm.
The thought of having children of his own—children with dragons—wasn't entirely foreign to him.
He would be lying if he said he had never imagined it before.
You, however, could only roll your eyes at your siblings for embarrassing both you and Jacaerys.
"Enough with the questions. Go play with someone your own age."
The children pouted but obeyed, hopping from their chairs and scampering toward the dancers, where other children were spinning in circles to the lively tune of the fiddles.
Jacaerys released a long breath once they were safely out of earshot.
"That was... a lot."
He reached for his goblet and took a long drink, clearly attempting to compose himself after the most unexpected interrogation of his life.
Around you, the hall gradually returned to normal. Lords resumed their conversations, ladies giggled behind their hands, and the musicians continued playing as though nothing had happened.
"I'm sorry," you murmured to Jacaerys. "They can't keep their tongues in their mouths."
"No, it's fine," he replied with a quiet chuckle. "I liked her questions."
He leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice so only you could hear.
"Besides..." His eyes softened as they met yours. "I don't mind talking about children with you."
The simple confession caught you off guard.
You had never truly spoken about it before.
Of course, you both knew that one day you would be expected to provide heirs. It was simply part of marriage, especially a marriage between two noble houses.
But neither of you had ever admitted whether that was something you actually wanted.
For the first time, you wondered if perhaps Jacaerys had imagined the same future you had quietly dreamed about—a family of your own, with little children carrying pieces of both of you.
You opened your mouth to answer, but before you could say a word, a servant appeared to refill your goblets. You turned toward her and offered a quiet, "Thank you."
Once she had moved away, you reached beneath the table and took Jacaerys's hand.
With the lightest touch of your fingertips, you slowly traced a single word into his palm. MINE
He shivered.
The possessive little claim sent his heart pounding, and a slow, amused smile spread across his face.
You little tease, he thought.
Without looking down, he gently turned your palm upward and traced his own answer against your skin. YOURS.
You focused on the sensation of his fingertips, following each letter until the meaning became clear.
A quiet smile touched your lips.
Jacaerys wasn't accustomed to this kind of intimacy between the two of you—not in public, where every gesture had to be measured and every glance carefully controlled.
But he loved it.
Every fleeting touch. Every secret glance. Every small gesture meant only for him.
Above the table, he remained perfectly composed—the picture of a prince raised to hide every emotion behind a calm expression.
But beneath it all, your touch had left him thoroughly flustered.
Then your hand moved away from his palm.
You rose from your seat and began making your way toward the dance floor, leaving him wondering for a moment what you were doing.
As you passed behind him, your fingertips brushed lightly against the back of his neck, disappearing beneath his dark curls for the briefest moment.
Jacaerys inhaled sharply.
His shoulders stiffened for an instant before slowly relaxing as warmth spread from that tiny point of contact.
And then you were gone.
You walked toward the dancers with effortless grace, leaving Jacaerys sitting there as though he had been struck by some strange spell.
He watched you disappear into the crowd, unable to stop the smile tugging at his lips.
Jacaerys finally blinked, coming back to reality like a man waking from a dream.
The harpist had begun a lively dance, and couples were already rising from their tables.
His eyes immediately found you.
You joined the other dancers, moving with effortless grace. Every step seemed almost poetic—elegant, confident, and utterly distracting. All Jacaerys wanted was to be the one holding your hand.
Instead, he waited.
Patiently.
At least, he tried to.
The dance wasn't particularly fast, a gentle waltz beneath the warm glow of the torches. Jacaerys watched every movement as you glided across the floor with some nobleman's son who had been bold enough to ask you first.
A tiny spark of jealousy flickered in his chest.
Irrational. Fleeting.
But there nonetheless.
Then the music ended.
The dancers applauded politely, and before anyone could approach him, Jacaerys rose from his seat.
He crossed the hall with purpose, ignoring the curious looks following his every step. Protocol could wait. The musicians were already preparing for the next dance, and this time, he intended to be your partner.
He reached you just as the first notes of a soft lute melody filled the hall—a slower, more intimate tune than the one before.
Without asking, he extended his hand toward you.
A silent request. Dance with me.The entire court seemed to watch. Neither of you cared.
You placed your hand in his without hesitation, your palm fitting naturally against his. Jacaerys led you toward the center of the floor as the other couples formed around you.
The music swelled.
His hand settled gently at your waist while his other held yours, raised gracefully between you. There was no need for words. You simply moved together, matching each other's rhythm as though you had been dancing this way all your lives.
Then you looked up at him, a knowing smile playing on your lips. "Got jealous?"
Jacaerys's steps didn't falter, but his eyes betrayed him immediately.
A guilty little flicker passed through them.
He let out a quiet breath, leaning closer so only you could hear. "...Maybe a little."
There was no point lying to you. Not when you knew him so well.
His gaze softened.
"You know I only want you, right?" you murmured.
For a moment, Jacaerys simply looked at you.
Then a warm smile spread across his face.
"I know," he whispered. "And I only want you."
His fingers tightened gently around yours as the music carried you both across the floor.
"Come with me," Jacaerys murmured, just loud enough for you to hear.
"Where?" you asked, glancing at him in confusion.
He only gave you a knowing look.
There was something mischievous in his eyes, something that told you he had already made up his mind.
Without another word, he took your hand and guided you through the dancing couples. You followed quickly, trying to keep your head down and your steps discreet so no one would notice the two of you slipping away.
At last, you reached the doors.
Jacaerys pulled one open, and the two of you slipped into the corridor. The door closed behind you, muffling the music and laughter of the feast.
You released a quiet sigh.
"We're going to be in trouble for this."
"I don't care," he replied simply.
His fingers intertwined with yours again as he began leading you down the corridor toward your chambers, a faint, mischievous smile lingering on his lips.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The kiss was sloppy and desperate. The two of you stumbled into your chambers, barely giving the door time to close before you reached for him.
Jacaerys met you halfway, pulling you into a breathless kiss filled with all the longing you had both been trying to suppress.
Your fingers tangled into his dark hair, holding him close as the kiss grew more desperate, neither of you willing to be the first to pull away.
He pulled your body flush against him. The warm of his body made the spot between your legs ache. You tug at his tunic but rather than allowing you to undress him, Jacaerys breaks from the kiss and turns you around, so now your back was facing him.
"Gods, you were teasing me all day... touching me." He said while nipping at your neck, kissing your skin with open-mouthed kisses. "I missed having you like this."
"Jacaerys I-..." You wanted to say something but you couldn't. The tension was just too much.
"Say it." He demanded. Jacaerys begins to tug at your laces, removing your gown with ease and allowing it to fall at your feet. You just whimpered when you felt the cold air hitting your bare skin.
"Tell me." Jacaerys asked again when his fingers made contact with your clothed clit over your small cloth.
"Oh." You whimpered and let your head fall on his shoulder. "I want you... So bad." He nipped at your neck harder than before. "I crave the feel of you, we've been aparat for too long." You started to move your hips when you felt his hand wandering over your clothed folds.
"I know darling, don't worry, I will take care of you." He murmured to your ear gently sucking at the skin. "Lie down on the bed."
You immediately obeyed him and made your way to the bed, almost running so eager to have him already with you. He took of his tunic standing above you, then his belt followed hitting the floor. "Take this off." He said to you pointing at your small cloth that was already wet in one place next to you core. That sight made him shiver.
The two of you took the last pieces of clothing and he lied down next to you. "Come here, darling." He gestured for you to sit on his lap. He wanted you to be on top? That was new.
When you sat down on his body your hand wandered behind you to grab his hard length but he immediately stopped you. "No, I meant, come here." He said smirking at you. Your face was filled with confusion when you realized he wanted you to sit on his face. But then, you knew Jacaerys loved tasting you. He preferred that more than his own pleasure.
You quickly crawled to him. Your core inches from his face. He smiled like a little kid on his name day when he saw presents. "Gods...I've missed you." he only muttered when he grabbed your waist and pushed you down on his face.
When you felt his tongue against your folds your whole body felt forward to grab the headboard to have something to hold while he was eating you out like a starved man.
He hummed against you when he kissed your folds spreading them aparat with his tongue. Your clit bumped into his nose when you tried to match his rythym.
"Oh Jacaerys." You moaned so loudly you were afraid someone near your chambers might hear. But the sounds he was making were driving you insane, only adding to this sensation.
He enjoyed being this close to your intimate part that was stealing his whimpers and grunts.
You slightly lift yourself up for him to catch his breath and he played with your cunt only with the tip of his tongue. This feeling was so delicate that it made you twitch.
But he wasn't satisfied. Jacaerys wanted to devour you. "I said sit, my love." He mumbled before lowering you back to his mouth, but slightly lower than before so he could tease your clit with his mouth.
Jacaerys sucked your clit into his mouth and released it with a soft sound while his gaze stayed on you. "You're close aren't you, sweetheart? I can feel you dripping on my face."
"So close, Jacaerys. Please-" He started to place open-mouthed kisses and then he allowed his tongue to lick at the same spots over and over again.
When you reached your peak you felt the pleasure buzzing in your whole body. High whimpers and whines left your lips. Jace still holds you, softly kissing you.
When you came down from your high you pushed yourself from his body to lie down next to him. He hugged you tightly and stroked your back. "You were amazing my love. It wasn't too much?" He asked with the softness in his voice.
"No, it was really new but perfect." You smiled brightly when you saw him breathing heavily still trying to catch his breath.
Jacaerys intervined your hands and pressed a kiss to your knuckles and to your ring when he found himself blushing at your praise.
You reached between your bodies and grabbed his hard leaking length and started to stroke him.
"You don't have to-" Jacaerys went to stop you but you only smiled sweetly.
"I need you inside me." You mumbled against his mouth.
"You sure?" He stroked your cheek gently. "I don't want you to be sore later."
"I don't care." You replied already laying on your back. "I just want you."
He looked at you like you were sent from the Gods to be his. You gave his weeping dick some merciful strokes when he buried his face in the crook of your neck slowly sinking into your warm.
He was in heaven when he looked deep into your eyes, every part of you connected. You clenched around his cock when he started to pick up a pace.
At first it was slow thrusts but you felt them deep inside you. You just enjoyed being this close together, happily looking at each other when your bodies moved.
But after a time he started to go faster and deeper, pining your tights into the mattress with his hands so you could feel every cure of him deep inside you.
"Jace- Oh, gods." Your whined softly when he pounded into you, his eyes never leaving yours.
You touched his shoulders and played with his hair as his thrusts were losing their pace as he felt it approaching. A groan left his mouth when you clenched your walls around him once again.
Skin slapping against skin with the same rythym he moved above you. There was no rush in the way your lips found each other, his tongue against yours. Only the feeling of his dick against your oversensitive walls was enough to make you come apart.
"I'm not gonna last long..." He confessed, his brows frowing while rolling his hips forward. "You feel so good, all mine."
"Let go for me, my love." You said against his lips, your hot breath tickling his face. "I know you need it."
Something inside him broke with the last thrust. He cried into the crook of your neck when he slowed down his pace, he felt his seed spilling inside you.
You couldn't help but falling over the edge the second time, your whole body shaking and twitching. The two of you hugged each other desperately still coming down from your peak.
Not ready to let go, Jace sighed and rolled down from you but not without pulling you with him and tucking you safely. You tangled one of your legs into his and hummed happily.
"I love you so much." He confessed. "I can't wait to marry you so we could be together all the time."
"I love you." You said and kissed his cheek sweetly. "Soon, my love. Soon we will be husband and wife."
He kissed your forehead breathing the scent of you before taking a towel from your nightstand and cleaning you up.
You were so overwhelmed by the love you felt for him that tears gathered in your eyes.
Of all the places you had been, of all the moments you had lived through, you had never felt more at peace than when you were beside him.
Jacaerys had been there through every chapter of your life.
Your childhood companion. Your best friend. Your betrothed. And, somehow, the love of your life.
You were the happiest with him.
"Perhaps we should take a bath..." Jacaerys offered before dropping the towel on the floor. "And maybe air out the room...?"
— ormund hightower x targaryen!wife
being of the blood of the dragon comes with expectations, and for one night ormund's wife decided to lie in his arms and share the weight of watching the women of her family pay the price of motherhood.
or
for ormund hightower is perharps the most devoted husband in westeros, absolutely worships his loved pregnant wife.
genre/content warnings: marriage of convenience, arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, slow burn romance, age gap, political marriage, hurt/comfort, fluff, pregnancy, childbirth anxiety, motherhood themes, family trauma, grief, mentions of maternal death, canon-typical misogyny, targaryen!reader, wife worship, protective husband ormund, whipped ormund hightower, rhaenyra's second mother figure, aemma's cousin!reader, found family, oldtown setting, pre-dance of the dragons, spoilers from fire & blood/house of the dragon
based on this
notes:
gifs by @ormundshightower. can be read as a standalone. inspired by the tragedy of the Dance of the Dragons. character is viserys and daemon's sister. she doesn't have a name, read as you like 😉. Aemma Arryn deserves better. Ormund Hightower is not an absolute dick.
~~
"I'm afraid," she murmured, sorrow threading softly through the words.
The fire crackled low within the hearth, its steady warmth broken only by the faint whistle of the wind slipping through the narrow windows. He remained with his back to her, his gaze lingering upon the broken seal of Lord Tyrell's letter. He could scarcely remember what it contained.
At length, he turned.
She reclined amidst a nest of cushions upon the daybed before the fire. The flames bathed her pale hair in molten gold, their light dancing across her lilac eyes. The laces of her gown had been loosened, her bodice opened in a manner no lady of her station would ever have dared before her lord husband. One of her hands cradled a warmed cushion against her aching breasts, while the other lay protectively over the gentle swell of her belly.
Heavy with his child
She looked every inch a goddess —the fairest creature the gods had ever fashioned— yet there lingered upon her features a melancholy that called to mind the beauty of a pentoshi painting, admired from afar yet forever touched by sorrow.
"Afraid of what?" he asked quietly, unable to tear his eyes from her. The most beautiful woman in all the known world, his wife, returned his gaze, grief clouding the violet eyes he had fallen asleep beside every night since they had spoken their vows before the Seven in the Starry Sept.
"My mother died in childbirth. Did you know that?" her fingers drifted almost absently across the curve of her stomach, as though she sought reassurance from the life growing beneath her palm.
"So did her sister, Daella. And her niece, Aemma... my beloved cousin. Queen Alyssa before them as well. It seems to be a burden laid upon the women of my blood".
She lowered her gaze to the child she carried, and when she spoke again, her voice had become more a whisper.
"We bring forth heirs..." Her hand drifted gently across the curve of her belly, a sorrowful smile touching her lips. "... and too often, we pay for them with our lives, never living long enough to see the child we bore draw its first breath".
For a moment, Ormund said nothing. He chose to leave the letters and messages of lords behind, deciding instead to remain beside his wife. He crossed the room and settled upon the daybed beside her, reaching for her hand and intertwining their fingers over the swell of her belly.
She turned her gaze back to him, small tears gathering in her eyes, her voice trembling.
"I was there. I was there every time."
She swallowed, her fingers tightening around his.
"Aemma and I grew up together in the Red Keep. We ran through its halls, hid from the guards within the Kingswood… Ser Harrold Westerling was my shield long before he became Rhaenyra's. I believe he lost half the hair on his head searching for me throughout the castle."
A sad smile touched her lips.
"I was a dreadful child. It still surprises me that my grandfather did not send me away in marriage simply to be rid of me. But I suppose losing his daughters made him and my grandmother cling to their granddaughters all the more."
She finished with a quiet, sorrowful breath.
"I was older than her. It was expected that I would be given to Viserys. Grandmother refused. I think she wished to keep Daella's line closer to home. Viserys was a good prince—handsome, young, and close enough to our age. Only five years stood between them. There was time to wait."
Her voice grew softer.
"If she had known what would come… I do not think she would have made the same choice."
Her voice broke, and Ormund took her hand in his. He brought it closer, breathing in the familiar scent of her skin before placing a single kiss upon her knuckles. She smiled at him with quiet gratitude.
"She was young. Too young."
She looked down at their joined hands.
"They consummated the marriage after only two years. My brother is a greedy creature. He speaks of me and Daemon as though we alone carry that flaw, yet he shares it as well."
Ormund felt her fingers tighten around his.
"He desired her. He could have waited. He could have listened to the maesters… but his hunger was greater."
A small discomfort crossed her features, and she shifted deeper among the cushions.
"She was so small. So young."
Her hand guided his toward the curve of her belly.
"I was there every time her womb carried a child, only for that child to be taken from her soon after."
Her breath trembled.
"Six children she lost. Two she carried to term, only to watch them return to the gods shortly after birth… and four who were born sleeping."
She let out a quiet, pained sound and rested further against the cushions, guiding both their hands to the place where their child moved beneath her skin.
As though listening to the sorrow of his mother.
As though reminding them both that this child was still here.
Ormund moved his hand, his thumb brushing gently against his wife's bare skin. He let out a soft, soothing murmur, lowering his face toward her belly before placing a tender kiss upon it.
A quiet laugh escaped her as she removed the warmed cushion from her breast and rested it upon the table beside her, freeing her hand to run her fingers gently through her husband's hair.
He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, never ceasing the gentle caress upon her exposed belly.
"Continue, my love. Our child is not done fussing yet."
He rested his chin against the side of her head and closed his eyes, savoring the familiar scent of her hair.
"I remained there. I watched my cousin in agony, watched the light slowly fade from her eyes. I watched her transform the little swaddling cloths we had sewn together into shrouds, so they might meet the dragon's flames."
Her voice trembled. Ormund moved his hand, gently stroking her hair as she continued.
"And I watched Rhaenyra come into this world. She had lost all hope by then, she would not even make the cloths herself. So I did. Even if they became shrouds, I could not bear the thought of my nephews and nieces return to the embrace of the gods without something to cover them."
A faint smile touched her lips through her tears.
"When Rhaenyra was born, I held her before Viserys. Before even Aemma."
Her voice softened.
"She was so small. So fragile. The maester kept saying he did not believe she would live to see the turning of the moon."
She swallowed.
"Rhaenyra is a young woman now. Soon to be wed. And that makes me wish I could return to that old maester and strike him myself."
A sad smile crossed her features.
"It was so beautiful, seeing my father hold her and weep. It was so beautiful. For a moment, I thought Aemma would finally have peace. I thought we would have peace."
She nestled closer to her husband, surrendering herself further to the comfort he offered.
"But Viserys was obsessed with having a son. He believed that from his seed would come another Aegon the Conqueror, reborn for him. The madness of dragon dreams. A gift my brother never possessed and refused to accept."
Her fingers tightened around his.
"I was forced to watch my cousin return to that same torment. More children. More cloths. More shrouds."
A tear slipped down her cheek.
"And I was there for Baelon. I was there when her belly grew too heavy for her to bear. When she could only sleep in a bath of warm water because my nephew would not let her rest."
Her voice broke.
"And I was there when the pains began."
She closed her eyes.
"I held her hand while my brother delighted himself at a tourney for a child who was killing the wife he claimed to love."
"My sweet Aemma."
The words barely left her lips.
"I saw him speak with the maester. I saw them whisper. And I saw him order me away."
Her breath caught.
"And when I refused… I felt him hold me back with his arms, so they could…"
The sob that followed tore through her.
"So they could cut her open. Like an animal. Tear his beloved heir from the womb of the woman he claimed to love while she screamed alone, held down by servants and guards."
Ormund pulled her closer, guiding her legs into his lap and resting her head against his chest. He never ceased the gentle caress upon their child, who still moved restlessly beneath his hand.
As though feeling the sorrow of his mother.
"My beloved Aemma was eleven years old when she married. Thirteen when she carried her first child. And fifteen years after that first birth, she died bringing forth a child who barely lived a day."
Another sob escaped her.
"A child who joined her upon the funeral pyre."
Her voice became almost inaudible.
"My cousin. The girl who grew beside me. Who played with me. Who slept beside me. Who climbed upon Moonfyre despite being terrified of dragons."
Another tear fell.
"Nineteen years of my life were spent loving her."
She closed her eyes.
"I shall never forgive my brother for that. Never."
"And I shall never forgive him for what came after."
Her voice trembled with grief.
"Rhaenyra was a girl. My little girl."
The tears continued to fall.
"I chose the gowns she would wear for her mother's funeral. I forced her from her bed to eat, to dress herself, to face each day. I cared for her as though she were my own, because her own father remained absent in his grief."
Her breath caught.
"Absent because he had killed her mother."
The sobs did not cease, but now they carried something sharper. Anger. As though the wound had not been opened years ago, but only moments before.
"And that fool of a brother of mine could not even wait a year before taking another woman to his bed."
She shook her head.
"I do not blame your cousin. Alicent bears no fault for Viserys being the greedy creature he is. The man who opened his wife's womb for an heir and, when she could not give him one, simply ensured he would have another child by another woman."
Her fingers tightened around Ormund's.
"I do not blame her. Though it pains me, it still reminds me of the sorrow in Rhaenyra's eyes when she watched her dearest friend take her mother's place before the court."
A soft sound escaped her when the child moved once more beneath her hand.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
A real laugh.
"I believe our child has inherited my spirit."
She looked at Ormund with a small smile.
"You complained so much about me after we married. Now you shall suffer for bringing a child like me into this world."
Ormund could not stop his smile at seeing her find laughter in the midst of such sorrow. He leaned forward and pressed another kiss upon her.
"Like you in what way?"
His eyes held amusement.
"Impulsive? Arrogant? With a particular inclination to disturb my peace?"
A look of offended disbelief crossed her features, and she lightly struck his chest.
His laughter filled the room as he caught her hand, bringing their lips together in a gentle kiss. When they parted, he kept their foreheads pressed together.
"Generally, my lord husband. Those are not the characteristics usually attributed to your wife."
The corner of her lips lifted.
"The common folk used to say I was merely Daemon with a little more common sense. Simply rebellious."
Ormund captured her lips once more in a brief kiss.
"Then you would be impulsive, arrogant, particularly inclined to disturb my peace, rebellious…"
A smile touched his face.
"…and entirely mine."
He stole another few kisses from her, each one earning a soft laugh.
"Do not concern yourself, my lady. My seed is strong. Our child shall be the pride of Hightower blood. My blood shall temper the wildness of yours."
She laughed then, a genuine sound that warmed the room.
Ormund could not help but smile as he watched her laugh amidst such sorrow. She was the woman he had loved all his life, though he had only met her when the gods decided to place her in his path. He simply had not known it until the day she became his.
"If you say so, my lord husband, then I shall believe you."
The laughter that followed held no sincerity in her words, and he knew it. He pulled her closer, joining their lips in a deeper kiss, one hand cradling her cheek with gentle affection.
When they parted, he brushed the silver strands of hair away from her face.
Her laughter softened into a small, melancholy smile as she turned her gaze back toward the fire.
"It hurts to remember it. This burden carried in my blood."
Her voice grew quieter.
"To watch my dearest friend die, leaving her little girl alone in this world. Only for my brother to father another child with another woman and barely remember the boy exists."
She looked into the flames.
"Poor Aegon. He suffered beneath the weight of his father's expectations, only to suffer further from the knowledge that he would never be the son Aemma had given him"
Ormund watched her carefully, feeling the unusual warmth of her skin beneath his hand as he caressed her belly. He rested his forehead against the side of her head, never ceasing the gentle touch upon their child.
"So I'm afraid, Ormund."
Her voice was quiet.
"I am so very afraid."
She did not cry anymore.
"But I fear bringing this child into the world and leaving him behind as so many women of my blood have done. I fear leaving this child without his mother's arms to hold him. I fear becoming another Aemma, my womb condemned by the will of the gods and my life taken by the hands of men."
Her fingers curled around his.
"I fear leaving you alone with our child."
For a moment, she only watched the fire.
"I want to live, Ormund."
The words were barely above a whisper.
"I am not afraid of the birth itself. Or even the pain or the own death. I am afraid of losing the battle."
Her hand rested over his.
"I want to hold my child in my arms. I want to see his face. To know whether he bears my features or yours."
A faint smile touched her lips.
"I want to take him to Moonfyre, even though I know you will complain. I want to take him into the sky, as my mother once did with me."
She turned her face toward his, their foreheads meeting as she rubbed the tips of their noses together in a tender gesture of affection.
"I do not wish for him to be our only child. My only child. I want to give you more, as many as I am able. Sons and daughters. Perfect mixtures of us both that I may watch grow and fill the chambers of this fortress. To raise them, care for them, and cradle them even when they are no longer children. I want to see my children prove that your blood cannot temper the fire of my wild Targaryen blood."
She finished with a teasing smile, causing Ormund to let out a warm laugh.
"So I am afraid, my love. Not of death itself, nor of the pain. I fear losing the chance to live the life I was meant to have. I do not know if it sounds foolish… but it is the truest thing I know."
Ormund joined their lips once more, this kiss deeper and filled with all the love he could not put into words. He parted from her only to press another kiss upon her forehead.
One upon her neck.
One upon the gentle valley between her breasts.
And finally, one upon the curve of her belly.
He lingered there, his lips pressed tenderly against the skin that carried their child, before closing his eyes and breathing in her familiar scent once more. He rose only to find her lips again, pulling her gently into his lap until she rested upon him. When they parted, he brushed his fingers through her silver hair.
"It is not foolish. If it is foolish, then we are both fools, my love."
A soft smile touched her lips as she ran her fingers affectionately through his hair, leaving it slightly more disheveled than before.
"I am afraid as well, you know?"
Ormund listened as she continued.
"We were apart for so long that, every night when you fall asleep, I find myself thinking of what I would do if I held you in my arms only to lose you."
His voice softened.
"I look upon your sleeping face and wonder how I would face the world without you. I would march upon King's Landing itself, even if the stench of that city was enough to make me wish for death."
She laughed again, her fingers once more moving through his hair before resting upon his cheeks.
"I would face your brother, the king. I would face that silver beast you speak of with such affection, as though she were merely a cat and not a dragon."
Another laugh escaped her, followed by a gentle kiss upon his cheek.
"I would stand before the Stranger himself and challenge him for your return. I would defy the Seven. That is what frightens me—the heresy you would make me commit if I ever lost you."
He caressed her back and brought their lips together in a soft kiss.
"It frightens me even to imagine you entering that chamber to give birth and leaving me behind with our child."
His voice faltered.
"I would never allow them to cut you open as they did your cousin. I would not survive losing you, my love. It terrifies me because I cannot bear the thought of a world without you."
"If that makes us fools, then we are fools. But I am the greatest fool of all, because I could not survive the loss of the woman I love, even with a child of hers left in my arms."
He kissed her once more, gently, before rising with her in his arms.
He carried her to their bed, where he began to remove the lighter garments she wore within their chambers, leaving her wrapped only in the softness of the night. Soon, she stood before him, beautiful and bare beneath the candlelight of their room.
"Would you sleep in your nightclothes, or will you allow your husband to rest beside your skin and borrow your warmth on this cold night?"
She looked at him with the solemn dignity of a queen, sitting naked upon their bed as though a mere subject stood before her.
"Do not worry, my love. I shall sleep without them. Will you join me? Your dragon has enough warmth to keep you from the cold tonight."
Ormund could not hold back his smile.
He loved her.
He gave no answer. Instead, he slowly undressed beneath her watchful gaze until he stood bare before his wife.
His dragon.
Ormund joined her beneath the blankets, drawing her close against him. The fire in the hearth had dwindled after their long conversation, reduced now to little more than a gentle glow. He leaned over her to extinguish the nearest candles before settling beside her once more, returning his hand to the gentle caress upon her belly.
"Sleep, my love. I shall keep watch over your sleep while you protect me from the cold."
~~
I did this crazy thing because I needed to get this part of the plot out of my head. I’m much more of a reader than a writer, so if this ends up being terrible, please forgive me.
FROM DARKNESS, LIGHT; FROM ASHES, FIRE
─── ormund hightower
summary: when the gods try to take ormund hightower away from you after the battle of tumbleton, you do everything in your power to bring him back to life again. (3k)
contents: fix it fic bc i'm a widow in mourning, witchy!reader, established relationship, angst, hurt/comfort, canon divergent obv, heavily inspired by got s6ep2, not proofread, cw for mentions of blood and gore and death, smut 18+ (MDNI), and spoilers for hotd s3 finale!!
The wretched stench reaches you before the ruins do — charred flesh, scorched wood, and warm, metallic blood. The sept dissolves into wreckage the further you ascend from its depths. Smoke rises from the collapsed stone where the walls used to be, revealing the leagues and leagues of death all around you.
Your dress skirts drag a path behind you as you walk through the carnage; the expensive fabric is now covered in a fine layer of dust and dirt, and stained black at the hem from blood that is not yours. Ash clings to your hair, your skin, and deep in the back of your throat. The curling smoke makes it near-impossible to breathe as it parts around your ankles the deeper you move into the field of death.
A hand closes suddenly around your ankle.
You look down to find a soldier — a boy, really, no older than fifteen— with his belly split wide beneath scorched chainmail, and dirt clinging to the socket where his right eye used to be. His fingers claw weakly at your hem. “Please,” he rasps, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. “Help me— gods, please—”
You pull your foot free from his grip and press on; for there is only so much mercy in this world, and you have already promised yours to another. To Ormund.
You find Gwayne and Daeron first. Both of them are bruised, bloodied, and covered in ash, but whole all the same. The younger boy helps his uncle slump against the broken remains of the wall behind him, while the auburn-haired man squints through the blood trickling into his left eye from a deep cut in his brow.
“Ormund,” you say in lieu of a greeting when you approach the two of them. His name comes out in rasps from the smoke hanging thick in the air. “Where is Ormund?”
Daeron looks over his shoulder at you, round cheeks dirty with soot, and shakes his head in wordless response.
Gwayne lifts his head to look at you. His porcelain skin is coated in a thin layer of gore; his auburn hair is stringy with sweat; his pale eyes are bloodshot and watery. A humorless laugh sputters rough from his dry mouth. “Ask your gods,” he spits. “You were so certain of them before, weren’t you?”
You do not flinch at his ire. You only nod.
“Yes, my lord,” you tell him in an even, gentle voice despite the massacre all around you. “I still am.”
You continue on through the remains of the day, until at last you reach the collapsed ruins of the eastern wall. A small glint of silver, half-buried in the rubble, catches the light bleeding through the smoky sky — Ormund’s pomander, you realize, cracked down the middle but still attached to its chain.
You rush towards it without thinking, dropping to your knees beside the fallen timber and stone before clawing at the wreckage with bare hands. “Help me,” you call in a ragged voice to the men limping slowly behind you. Gwayne winces through his own injuries as he and Daeron help you drag the broken beams aside until the man beneath it is revealed.
Ormund lies amid the rubble — one leg bent at too awkward an angle, dark red blood covering half of his face and turning to paste from the ash. The dirt beneath him turns a darker brown color from the pool of crimson underneath him, from a wound you cannot yet see.
But his chest still rises and falls with weak, shallow breaths under the scratched armor he wears. So you crouch at his side and take his dirty face in your palms and tap gently at his cheek in an attempt to wake him from his unconscious state. “Ormund,” you call to him, voice splintering. “Ormund, wake up, c’mon—”
His eyes are slow to open.
His lashes flutter across his cheeks before he blinks slowly awake. He squints at the blinding light overhead as his pale gaze comes slowly into focus — more confused than truly aching, too far deep in shock for the pain to hit him truly. When his eyes finally settle on you, concern twists his stained face.
“You’re hurt…” he rasps through a dry throat when he sees the blood splattered across your face. Because even on the verge of death, he is still more worried about you.
You catch his blood-stained fingers twitching feebly at his side, wanting so desperately to reach but being far too weak to do so. You take his hand in yours instead, and reassure him with a smile. “It’s not my blood.”
That seems to soothe him, if only for a moment. Until his gaze drops down the length of his body, at least, and he sees the damage down to him. He cannot feel the pain from the wounds in his sides exactly, but he can feel the warm blood slowly weeping from them, and the way it wets the ground beneath him. The scent clings to his nose and the very back of his throat — the inherent stench of death.
A low, guttural groan sounds in the back of his throat as he tips his heavy head back against the ground, chiseled jaw clenching tight. “Am I...” he attempts to ask, then swallows hard through the invisible hand choking him. “Am I going to die?”
His weary eyes flit back to yours. Even as the life slips slowly from the soft blue of them, you can see the hope glinting faintly in his gaze — waiting for you to tell him no; waiting for you to work one of your miracles, just like you always have.
You only give him a weak smile in return. “Yes, my love,” you coo with a slow nod. “You are going to die.”
You feel Gwayne and Daeron go very still behind you.
Ormund’s breath catches beneath his heavy chestplate, as his features crumple with a boyish sort of grief — the grief of a man who’s followed your every word like spoken scripture, only to be abandoned by you in the very last of his moments.
“But you— You said—” he stammers out, choking on his own blood as his eyes dart wildly between yours. “You said that we would… You promised me this war—”
“I promised you victory,” you tell him, smoothing a thumb over the blood and ash on his cheek; as gentle as The Mother, as firm as The Crone. “And I still do.”
His breath trembles through his weak body. Blood rises heavy up and throat and sits thick on his tongue, splattering warm across his chin when he coughs. You cradle his face in your hands as he shudders slowly into death, leaning close enough into him that your foreheads nearly touch — close enough that you may be the very last thing in the world he sees before the darkness takes him.
“Sleep now, my love,” you whisper gently to him. “I’ll see you when you wake.”
You press your mouth to his, tasting the copper and smoke stained on his lips while Ormund goes limp in your hands. His blood stains your mouth when you part from his suddenly still form, turning over your shoulder to face the men standing behind you — their dirty features twisted with similar looks of horror.
The softness you’d had moments ago slips now into a sterner look.
“Help me with him,” you command.
And no one dares refuse.
You drag Ormund back to the sept, laying his limp body onto a cold, concrete altar in the depths of its crypt. The stale air there is thick with ghosts and time gone by. The wet, dark cobbles around you glow with the weak candlelight Gwayne fixes onto the walls. Shadows dance in the corners, swallowing the edges of the ancient chamber. Every sound — every drip of water, every scrape of shoe on stone — echoes back twice over.
Ormund’s body is slack and already cooling by the time you get to work on him. Your fingers move with a practiced grace as you unbuckle his ruined armor — piece by shattered piece. His smallclothes follow; you tug the stiff and bloodied fabric from his skin, made a much tougher feat from his heavy and unmoving weight. And when he lies bare before you on the stone bier, you take a cloth and a basin of water Daeron had fetched from the cistern and wash him clean.
The ash and blood fade beneath your hand to reveal the pale, broken canvas of his golden skin underneath it. His chest is bruised a sickly green-purple. He sports a number of gashes score deep along his ribcage from where a sword had cut so mercilessly through him. And his leg, bent wrong at the knee, snaps back into place with one brutal snapping sound beneath your steady hands.
Only when he is clean — washed truly from dirt and sin alike, and left glittering beneath the torchlight — do you take a small knife to a lock of his dark, matted curls. You toss the tendril into the brazier burning low in the corner, and let the orange flame hiss beneath it. Then you draw the same blade across your palm, letting the blood well and drip into the fire beside the offering.
Daeron and Gwayne watch silently from the corner of the dark crypt as you return to Ormund’s body and begin to chant. “We ask the gods to shine their light, and lead a soul out of darkness,” you say in High Valyrian, the foreign language sounding low and thick in your throat. “We beg the gods to share their fire, and light a candle that has gone out. From darkness, light. From ashes, fire. From death, life."
Gwayne shakes his head as he watches with a jaw clenched tight. “This is madness,” He mutters to Daeron. “Chanting over a corpse like some Essosi hedge-witch—”
The boy snaps his head in the older man’s direction, still too deep in his boyhood for his glare to be as intimidating as he means. “You haven’t seen her do the things I’ve seen,” Daeron scolds, still gentle in his way even in his defense of you. “Do not mock her. Not now.”
You pay no mind to the bickering as you focus completely on the pale-blue body before you. Your palms rest flat over Ormund’s marred skin as you inhale a deep breath through your nose, grounding yourself upon him as though you were trying to draw something from the very marrow of his bones. And then you wait.
The chamber falls silent, except for the low crackle of the torchlight. The minutes that pass seem to last an eternity as you wait for Ormund to warm again beneath your palms. He does not.
No answer comes from the darkness. There is only a suffocating silence, mocking you with everything it refuses to give back. And for the first time, you feel your faith begin to splinter with doubt.
Your eyes burn with unshed tears when the grief you hadn’t let yourself feel before finally hits you. You turn to face the men behind you; the older one smiling cynically, the younger one heavy with a dwindling grief. “I— I’m sorry,” is all you can manage out before you turn sharply on your heel and head back towards the stairwell you entered from.
Your skirts drag heavy and blood-soaked behind you as you plan to return to the wreckage, and give yourself to the dust.
“Well…” Gwayne hums from behind you in a biting monotone that sears straight through your chest. “Even the great prophetess has her limits, it seems—”
A sharp gasp cuts through the quiet chamber like Valyrian steel.
You freeze mid-step. Your head snaps hard behind you, where you find Ormund’s nude body trembling on the cold, concrete altar. His eyes fly open, wide and wild in the torchlight. His broad chest heaves with violent, rasping breaths as his lungs drag desperately for air.
“Ormund!” His name tears suddenly through your throat as you rush back to him, nearly tripping over your skirts as you go. Your hands fly to his face, his chest, his scarred ribs — anywhere you can reach to prove to yourself that he’s real, that he’s alive — while Daeron scrambles for the velvet emerald cape discarded by the armor to throw hastily over his uncle’s bare body.
Gwayne remains frozen by the stairwell with his mouth parted in shock, the color long drained from his pale face.
Ormund's eyes dart around the dark chamber in half-frantic confusion before finally settling on you. He rises off the cold stone, naked chest still heaving with shallow breaths. “Wha—" His voice comes out hoarse until he swallows thick through his throat. “What’s happened to me?"
You let out a broken, disbelieving laugh and let the warm tears spill down your ashen cheeks as you cradle his warming face between both hands.
“I brought you back.”
Ormund is still weak from the death ebbing slowly from his body when you carry him to the least ruined chamber in the eastern wing; the living quarters where the clergy used to sleep. It had survived the worst of the flame, it would seem, though the smoky scent of dragonfire remains. Ormund leans the bulk of his weight against you, with his arm thrown heavy around your shoulder, as you lay him down on the narrow bed pressed against the wall.
No one speaks a word of what had happened in the crypt. Not now, at least. There will be plenty enough time for that in the morning, for the questions and for the reckoning of what comes after. But tonight, there is only quiet. And stillness. And the promise of another day after this one.
But his body, Ormund finds, is not quite sure how to be alive again.
He shivers in the cotton sheets while sweat beads along his brow. He’s cold and burning all at once, like his blood cannot decide whether it belongs in a grave or in the world above it. It rushes like freezing ice or a white-hot flame up and down his being. The very marrow of him is still humming with whatever it was you’d poured from yourself back into him. His pulse hammers hard in his neck while the adrenaline surges through him — with nowhere to truly settle, now that the danger has long passed and there is nothing left for him to fight.
But it finds somewhere to go even still; in his stiffening cock that aches and throbs between his thighs despite himself — leaving him whining and rutting against the blankets twisted around his hips.
He catches your hand when you reach down to check his forehead for fever. He peers up at you with glassy, blue eyes as he smears his mouth to your fingers in a not-quite kiss. “Please,” he rasps against your knuckles. “I need— I need something, my love. Please…”
You shake your head, torn between the ache in your chest and the ache written plainly across his face. “You’re hurt, Ormund. I don’t want to make it worse—”
“You won’t,” he swears and urges you closer with what little strength has returned to his healing body. “You’re the one who brought me back… You couldn’t hurt me if you tried…”
And you could not refuse him — in the same way you were designed by the gods to bring him back to life, you were not fashioned to deny him of anything.
So you settle over his lap with your bare chest pressed flush against his, with your beating hearts as close as you can muster, and give his adrenaline somewhere else to go.
Your clit rubs against the coarse thatch of brunette hair at the base of his stomach as you glide gently over his scruffy thighs, careful to avoid the poultice clinging to the cuts on his ribcage. Ormund’s cock sits nestled within your velvety walls, jerking faintly within your honeyed depth while his newfound life continues to buzz through his veins. He’s made profoundly sensitive accordingly — so much so that he feels a coil tensing in his stomach already; so much so that the obvious pain in his limbs from the battle feels negligible in comparison.
He wouldn’t care if you split every wound of his open again, as long as he got to cum inside of you now.
His wide hands dig into your hips, far rougher than he realizes with his slowly building strength, as he tries to rock your hips harder against his — never mind the stinging in his ribcage, or the throbbing in his knee. “Please,” he pants hopelessly against your mouth, his broad nose knocking against the side of yours. “I need it so bad, my love, please—”
Your fingers thread through his wild curls as you shake your head against his. “I don’t want to hurt you,” you pant, lips smudging against his parted mouth.
“Hurt me,” Ormund begs, eyes wide and pleading. “The gods gave me back to you once already… I do not fear what you’ll do with me now…”
His words knock loose something tight in your being. You begin to grind over his lap with a bit more purpose than before, with the intention of milking an orgasm from his body drop by merciless drop.
“Yes…” Ormund slurs within a sigh when your cunt clenches tight around him. His calloused palms smooth along the canvas of your sweat-slick back — one between your shoulder blades and the other to the small of your spine — to keep you pressed wholly against his battered body. Though the pain only seems to add to his pleasure, which blooms in the pit of his tightening stomach now. He smears wet kisses along the skin of your neck as he buries his pitiful whines there.
“Don’t stop…” he pleads. “Don’t stop, and I’ll give you all of it, I promise…”
“Now,” you command in a whisper, lips brushing the shell of his ear — because you cannot stand to hurt him any more than you surely must have already. “Cum now. Cum inside me. Give me all of it—”
Ormund shudders beneath you, not unlike the way he had when he died in your arms.
Except now, he grumbles a groan of pleasure like thunder in his chest and digs his fingers hard into your soft skin. He holds his breath and tenses for a flicker of a moment; and you feel the very depths of your stomach blooming with warmth on his next trembling exhale, as his sensitive cock twitches within your pulsing cunt.
You pet him through every wave of his orgasm, until he settles finally just against you with his face hidden completely in your neck. His panted breaths fan warm along your skin — the very proof of his life — while you find it suddenly very difficult to stomach that you had nearly seen the very last of his breaths not so long ago.
“Are you hurt?” you ask him, and sigh hard through your nose when you feel him leaking slowly out of you.
Ormund feels a dull ache in his ribs most of all, and a panging in his knee as it sets awkwardly into the correct position, but he shakes his head against your shoulder until the words to respond catch up to him. “No,” he huffs. “I’m— I’m alright.”
He feels your hand tighten in his hair not a moment later. You urge him back from your neck and force his bleary eyes to meet your suddenly hardened ones, still heavy with pleasure but stern all the same.
“If you die on me again, Ormund Hightower, I will kill you,” you warn him in an unwavering deadpan that makes it difficult to tell how much you surely jest.
A weak, breathless laugh rattles out of him then, more felt against your own chest pressed against his than truly heard. “Then let it be by your own hand,” he pleads in a low voice. “And no other’s.”
summary: gwayne comes to daemon before the battle at tumbleton to barter for the life of his nephew and gets you in return, the last daughter of an unremarkable house fighting for the black army, who's in want of a wealthy husband. (4k)
characters: gwayne hightower / fem!reader, daemon targaryen, ser roderick, mentions of daeron targaryen and ormund hightower
contents: enemies to lovers, arranged marraige, angst, hurt/comfort, not proofread soz cw for canon typical violence, coercion, allusions to smut 18+ (MDNI), and spoilers for hotd s3 finale!! (gif creds)
The morning hangs heavy with the promise of death. It sits thick in Gwayne’s throat and lungs the whole walk to the Black Army’s encampment. He carries with him nothing but a small hunting knife pressed to Lord Corlys’s back and a fear he cannot quite keep out of his gaze, darting wildly every which way as Daemon’s army cages him on all sides — a Winter Wolf on his left, a small Tully boy on his right, and a stranger looming on horseback; with armor fitted close to fit a woman’s frame, and with a face much too pretty for the throes of war.
“Prince Daemon,” Gwayne greets with a curt nod, still winded from the walk over as his chest heaves beneath his armor. “I’m Ser Gwayne Hightower… Well met.”
“Fuck me,” Ser Roderick laughs; a rough, ugly bark as he looks the small, auburn-haired man up and down. “I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s knife.”
“Daemon, I must say—” Your voice follows, soft and musical and carrying easily over the distant murmur of armed men. It’s the kind of voice that might’ve belonged to a septa or a singer, if it weren’t for the ice running beneath it. “—When you said we were meeting with a Hightower, I expected someone taller than the sigil at least.”
The laughter doubles and strangles Gwayne accordingly, who is completely and utterly out of his element now. He swallows hard through a tightening throat and draws a slow breath through his nose, trying once again to steady himself — because it was not for himself that he was out here in the first place. It was for Daeron, and for the dozen other boys just like him that Ormund had lined along the front ranks to take the war’s first bite.
So Gwayne presses on, forcing an evenness into his voice that he doesn’t exactly feel beneath the death glares all around him. “My cousin, Ormund, has taken leave of his senses. As I’m sure you’re aware. He’d rather die than admit defeat—”
“And you?” Daemon lilts lazily, resting his arms along the hilt of his sword.
Gwayne’s eyes cut across the men arrayed before him, still only a fraction of the true Black host. “Well, I’m not blind… I know we will not survive the day if you attack. So… As a token of good faith… I return your Hand.”
He drops Corlys’s shackles with a heavy clinking sound, but does not take the blade from his side. The silence that follows seems to last for an eternity, until your pretty voice breaks it at last.
“Can he be a Hand with only four fingers?” you joke, tilting your head towards the old lord’s bandaged fist.
The laughter returns again. Gwayne’s icy blue eyes flits once more to you in a quick, assessing pass; he does not mean for his gaze to linger upon you, but he can’t quite manage to look away. Your armor catches in what little light breaks through the clouds overhead, carved with the intricate detailing of your house. And beneath all that heavy steel is your much softer face — beautiful and unbothered by the promise of war simmering in the heavy summer air.
There is something very wrong about you, Gwayne knows; something he can’t quite decide to be afraid of or intrigued by. A bit of both, perhaps.
“I’ve come to sue for peace,” Gwayne announces, louder now, forcing the words out over the laughter. ‘To plead with you at the behest of Daeron Targaryen.”
The amusement in Daemon’s pale eyes flickers at once, a distant warmth running cold as his thin mouth curls into a sharp grin. “The war will end when all the traitors’ heads are mounted on spikes about the King’s Gate,” the older man answers. “And not before.”
“Listen to Daeron’s entreaty,” Gwayne pleads, eyes growing wide behind the silken auburn tendrils swaying over his brows. “Divide the realm. Let the Queen rule over the Crownlands, the North, the Vale, all the lands watered by the Trident… And let Daeron rule from Oldtown—"
“Oh, gods…” Roderick groans in disgust from his left.
“He’s boring me, Daemon,” you tell the silver-haired man standing on foot before you, voice flat with a theatrical ennui that borders on girlish. “Just kill him already.”
“Do you hear that?” Daemon laughs as he turns back to Gwayne. “You’re boring her… And trust me, Ser, you do not want to see how she gets when she’s bored—”
“You jest?” Gwayne spits as his composure splinters all at once. The words seem to spill from his mouth before he can stop them, as he approaches the older man on instinct alone. “You would rather callously cast aside the lives of thousands—”
He does not get another word out before Daemon’s hand closes suddenly around his throat. The world tilts sideways as the man drags him downward in his fist. His metal glove digs hard into Gwayne’s milky white neck, cutting off just enough of his air supply to keep him conscious, though Daemon does not so much as blink at the show of strength.
“No one will rule but Rhaenyra,” Daemon tells him in a casual voice, even as Gwayne’s hands scrabble uselessly for purchase at his wrist. “The ordained Queen of the Andals, of the First Men, of beggars and thieves and cowards, like you. A new Valyria will rise from the ashes of her usurper half-brothers. And of the Hightowers of Oldtown.”
Gwayne can hardly hear him over the thunder of his pulse in his skull as black spots begin to speckle in his vision, like so many drops of ink spreading through water.
“But…” Daemon trails off. His grip on Gwayne’s neck does not loosen, but something in his eyes does. The cold burn of rage melts away into a distant look of calculation. “Since you came under the banner of peace… Perhaps I’ll give you a choice…”
Daemon turns slowly to you, peering up at you from behind the wisps of white hair blowing across his face. Gwayne’s watery, unfocused eyes follow in turn and find you watching the whole ordeal with your head tilted gently to one side. There is no horror in your face, nor an ounce of pity either.
“You said you wanted to live in a pretty castle, didn’t you?” Daemon calls to you, with a sort of fondness creeping into his voice while Gwayne turns purple under his fist. “To twirl around in pretty silk dresses, with a pretty silk husband?”
You had said it half in jest a few months past, in a hall far too to the north for anyone to remember its existence, except for when they needed its sword. You were the last living heir to a name older than most in the realm, ruling alone with more soldiers under your command than servants, when Daemon had come with his dragon asking for whatever men you could spare.
You’d given him what he asked, and when he’d wondered in turn what you wanted for it, you answered him evenly. “A castle… And a few dresses… And perhaps a husband to warm my bed— all the pretty, useless shit people like you worry about.”
You hadn’t expected to be repaid so soon, and certainly not on the battlefield on the very eve of war, with a dead man crumpling to his feet before you.
“What of it?” you say with an arched brow.
“Here’s your pretty husband,” Daemon nods his silver head down toward the man gasping in his grip. “Right here… If you want him, of course.”
Gwayne’s bleary eyes flit back to you. Through the black in his vision, he finds you studying the whole of him as if he were livestock to be appraised at market. He comes to the rather humiliating realization that he wants very badly for you to say yes — both with a primal despair of wanting to live and with the distant desperation of wanting your approval.
You scrunch the bridge of his nose. “He’s a bit puny, isn’t he?”
“A bit?” Ser Rodrick scoffs.
“Well, what he lacks in height and muscle, he makes up for twice over in wealth,” Daemon tells you. “Far wealthier than you’re like to find anywhere else, to be sure… What do you say?”
You consider for a long moment, then, despite watching Gwayne slowly slip from consciousness. He can no longer tell if it takes you one minute or one hour to decide, which you finally do with one lazy bounce of your shoulder.
“Alright.”
Daemon’s fingers loosen at once. Warm, summer air rushes back into Gwayne’s body as he crumples to his knees onto the dried grass below. The oxygen burns in his throat, his shoulders heaving as he retches. It takes a long moment for the world to come back into focus. And when it finally does, Daemon’s voice finds him again as he looms a long shadow over the kneeling man.
“Do you hear that? I will spare your life — and that of your precious nephew’s, should he bend the knee to the rightful Queen — and you will live out the rest of your days as lord husband to the new Lady of Oldtown… How does that sound?”
It sounds nothing like what Gwyane had walked out here to discuss, to be sure. He’d only meant to save Daeron’s life, and somehow bartered his own for a marriage to a woman he had known for the length of one terribly humiliating conversation. But he is still breathing, at least, and his nephew is too. And for now, that’s enough.
He nods wordlessly in response, and feels an aching in his throat when he does so.
“Thank her,” Daemon scolds like a parent would their child. When Gwayne’s bowed hands snap in his direction to make sure he’d heard him right, he feels the man take a sudden fistful of his auburn hair, wrenching him towards you again. “That was not rhetorical, Ser Gwayne— Thank your new lady wife for saving you. It’s only fair.”
Gwayne swallows hard through a raw throat and peers up at you with bleary eyes from where he kneels on the ground before you. “Thank...” he attempts to speak, but the word comes out strangled. “Thank you...”
“My lady,” Daemon reminds him.
Gwayne coughs. “M-My lady…”
You look down at him from where you idle on horseback. A small smile hints at the corner of your mouth as you hum in satisfaction. “Mm… You’re welcome, lord husband.”
You turn on your horse without so much as a backward glance, gathering the reins in your fist and looking instead toward the gates of Tumbleton — where Ormund’s men prepare their archers for the first wave of battle. “Now…” you say, grinning over your shoulder at your house’s men gathered just behind you. Your voice carries across the length of the plain. “Let’s go win this fucking war!”
The ranks roar a wordless answer in response — a ragged, joyous, bloodthirsty sound as swords beat against their shields. Gwayne hears the battlecry swell all around him, and wonders if his death would’ve been a kinder fate than what is sure to await him when the fight is done.
The wedding was done by evenfall, while smoke rose from the ashes of Tumbleton; the air still thick with the scent of blood and rot.
You exchanged vows while your armor was still splattered with the blood of the Green Army and your hair was still matted with sweat. There had been no sept, no godswood, no seven blessings, no ribbon tied around clasped hands. There was only a shaded tent, a Tumbleton septon kept alive for the very purpose of ceremony, and a scrap of parchment to sign your names — though Gwayne’s hand was still a little sore from the heavy chains wrapped around them.
No feast follows. No song, no celebration, no bedding. Because too many people had died on both sides — Ormund among them, burnt and buried in ash. And though Daeron breathes still, safe and unbloodied by sword, Gwayne wears the cost of that safety in the shackles around his wrist and waist. He was lord now, and a husband, and he did not ask to be.
He only wanted his nephew to live to see sixteen.
“So… That’s it then,” Gwayne said on an exhaled breath while a worse-for-wear Daemon shoved the old septon out by his neck. His pretty face was softened by the candlelight of the war tent, even despite the soot streaked across his face and the flaming tendrils clinging to his forehead with sweat. “Husband and wife, are we?”
“Seems that way,” you said beneath the quiet glugging of the ale you poured. The watered wine spilled slightly over the maps scattered there when you turned briefly to flash him a smile over your shoulder. “Congratulations, my lord.”
Gwayne felt a tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, right before a sharp breath escaped him in a sad sort of laugh. “Aren’t you concerned?” he said, pale eyes fixed on your armored form. “I’m not sure how a marriage such as this can be held up by law…”
“Oh, I’m not worried,” you assured him with a shake of your head.
“No?”
“No…” you insisted and turned back around to face him, sporting an old goblet in your bloodied fist. “Because I know you have no interest in being killed— or your nephew, besides… It’s righteous of you, really, so… You’re not going anywhere, Ser Gwayne.”
Your lips curled into a slow, sharp grin as you brought the cup to your mouth, chugging the whole of it until the soft purple wine started to drip down to your chin.
Gwayne still could not yet decide what you had planned for him — if you meant to love him truly or kill him the second you arrived at Oldtown. And a distant, disgusting part of him could not wait to find out.
Oldtown, as you’ve come to find it, smells nothing like the wet cobbles, and horse dung, and rotted wood of the half-forgotten manse you grew up in. Here, everything smells of salt and lemon trees and sun-warmed stone. It is everything you’d asked Daemon for — a large castle, enough silk to drown in, hands that tended to your every want, and a husband to warm your bed. Though you still spend most of your days in the fighting yard, tearing and sweating through whatever fine silk you’d dressed in that day.
Gwayne is still getting used to the presence of you and your men in his ancestral home, and his newfound position within it. Daeron, too, spends many weeks wary of the very sight of you — the reason for the death of his uncle, and simultaneously, the reason for his freedom. You do not ask for his forgiveness; you just put a sparring sword in his hand and ask him to give you all the brunt of the anger you know he keeps hidden.
You and your men put the sweet boy on his back more often than not, but he keeps coming back for more anyway. And somewhere in that routine, gratitude creeps in where the resentment used to live, and Daeron comes slowly around.
“Well… You’ve made a fine swordsman out of him,” Gwayne sighs without turning from the window overlooking the courtyard, where his nephew continues to spar with the northern knights. He hears you waltz by somewhere behind him, your pretty silk gown rustling at your ankles and clinging at the sweaty small of your back. “Ormund would never let the boy train this hard…”
“Daeron has good enough instincts, it seems,” you answer, tugging lazily at the lace in your bodice. “Which I find rather surprising, considering the company he grew up with…”
Gwayne finds himself smiling at the jab, far wider than he realizes. You’ve never run short of witty, merciless quips, he’s found throughout his time with you; and he finds himself taking a strange liking to the way you so effortlessly cut him down.
“And what is that supposed to mean exactly?” he says as he turns away from the window.
Whatever quip had been sitting on his tongue then, turns to ash in his throat at the sight of you — with your gown abandoned in a pile on the cobbles, and you slouched at your vanity stool in nothing but the thin slip beneath it. The fabric rises from your knee, revealing the soft canvas of your thighs. You’ve slid one arm free from the thin sleeves to bare a shoulder painted a darker shade from the fresh bruises blooming there.
Your skin is littered with scars from battles past, and he struggles to look away from any of it. His chest stings with the thought of you ever being hurt, then warms twice over at the sight of your breast threatening to spill over from where the slip had gone askew.
“You needn’t look so scandalized, husband,” you laugh as you reach for the clay pot of healing ointment, which never strays too far from your side. “Surely, you’ve seen worse than a woman’s shift… Handsome as you are.”
Gwayne’s face flushes at the compliment, and he hates how boyish he feels.
He clears his throat and averts his gaze, folding his clammy palms behind his back. “I only find myself surprised, I guess, at how… little you seem to mind it, is all.”
“Mind what? The bruises?” you scoff, dabbing the ointment along your shoulder and hissing at how tender the skin has gone. “I’ve had far worse from far better fights, I assure you. Maybe one day I’ll show you the scar on my—”
“Modesty,” Gwayne blurts before you can finish. “I meant modesty…”
“Oh…” you hum, face screwing faintly as you work the earthy salve in slow circles. “I never had much use for modesty, I suppose… A keep with more soldiers than servants doesn’t have much of it, in truth…”
You reach back then, trying hopelessly to work the balm into the worst of the bruise along your shoulder blade, but the angle is not so forgiving. You huff and twist and achieve nothing but a fresher ache for the trouble.
Gwayne exhales a sympathetic sigh from across the room. “Here…” he huffs as he crosses the distance between you, reaching out an expectant hand when he looms just behind your chair.
You consider arguing for a moment, if only out of habit, but place the clay pot into his pale palm regardless. “Try not to enjoy it too much,” you joke with a small grin tugging at your mouth.
“I make no promises, my lady,” he quips in a low deadpan.
But even his sarcasm cannot mask the tenderness he holds in his hands when they find your shoulder, working the ointment in with a care you didn’t know he was capable of — a care you didn’t know you were deserving of. The pad of his thumb smooths slowly over the worst of the bruise, and you feel something soften in your chest.
“You’re better at this than I would’ve guessed,” you tell him, if only to fill the suffocating silence pressing hard on either side of you.
“I’ve had ample practice with bruises of my own,” Gwayne confesses, lifting his eyes to peer at you through the smudged looking glass. “I didn’t come into this marriage entirely unmarked, if you recall…”
“Mm… I do recall,” you croon lowly, as though amused by the memory. Your head tips back to grin up at him with a fond reminiscence. “You were very purple. And very sore… For weeks… It was delicious…”
Gwayne shakes his head. “Well, you’ll forgive me if I don’t find the memory as amusing as you do…”
“I find everything amusing,” you scoff.
“I know you do,” he huffs a not-quite laugh. “Honestly, it’s among the things I’ve come to… appreciate about you, I suppose.”
Your eyes narrow in suspicion of his compliment. “Careful, Ser Gwayne… A lady could get ideas, hearing you talk like that…”
“Really?” the man hums, still working gently at your bruised skin. “And what ideas are those, I wonder?”
You do not answer him with words. Instead, you rise slowly from the creaking vanity stool until you’re stood just before him. Then you reach for the remaining sleeve of your slip and trail it down your arm until you’re free of it; until the thin fabric falls to your feet in a forgotten piece of cotton; until you’re stood utterly bare before him — made of warm skin, soft curves, and faded scars. There’s one at your sternum, a longer one at your hip, and a darker one along your ribcage.
Gwayne’s breath catches audibly in his throat. The composure he’s spent weeks holding onto — full of dry wit and careful distance and a week’s worth of telling himself this was a political arrangement and nothing more — seems to abandon him all at once. His glassy eyes drift over your naked form, and he feels some warm, boyish feelings sparkling somewhere deep in his chest.
It takes everything in you not to cower — not because you are ashamed at his staring, you’ve never been ashamed of anything, but because you have never once been looked at with so much reverence.
“Do you get the hint now, Ser Gwayne?” you quip drily as you close the scant distance between you. Your palms splay over the chest of his emerald coat and drift slowly upward until they settle cold along his warm neck, dragging him down with a little more force than necessary.
You kiss him then like you’ve kissed him a thousand times over, like you’ve kissed a thousand men a thousand times over. There is little reservation in the way you slot your lips against his, or in the way you lick into his mouth and sigh hard through your nose at the taste of him — like mint and wine and whatever fruit he’d been snaking on before you found him here.
His mouth is far softer than your own, you realize, a far gentler touch than you think you’ve ever felt before. He spreads one wide hand along your back, pressing your bare chest flush against his clothed one, while his other trails down down down the ladder of your spine.
Your breath nearly catches when his calloused palm settles warm along the plush of your ass; you lose it completely when he grabs a fistful of the skin to pull you closer.
You rise onto the tip of your toes, curling your arms around his neck while your noses knock under the weight of your searing kiss — which breaks only when Gwayne’s knee slots between your thighs, and when the rough fabric of his trousers brushes the most sensitive part of you.
His rosy mouth curls into a slow grin at the pretty sound you make for him then.
“Yes. To answer your question…” the man quips through panted breaths, with the tip of his nose brushing the bridge of yours. “I believe I am starting to get the hint, my lady.”
Summary: After months away fighting in this civil war. After seeing things were lost, Gwayne decides to go back him to his wife in Oldtown.
Tags: Gwayne Hightower x Wife!Reader, Mentions of war, missing one another, yearning, mentions of blood and dirt, husband and wife reunited, no use of y/n
A/N: I really wanted to write for Gwayne since he has bewitched me. I just wanted him back home safe in Oldtown so yay reunion. lol Hopefully you all enjoy and I'm sorry I haven't been able to write as much as i'm used to.
Word Count: 2k
The first thing you noticed was the hour. Oldtown slept beneath a moonless sky, the great city hushed save for the distant tolling of a bell somewhere beyond the walls. The Hightower rose pale against the darkness, its beacon burning above the rooftops like a solitary star.
You had been awake for some time. Sleep had become a fickle thing since your husband had gone off to war to fight for the Greens and against Rhaenyra’s hosts.
Some nights you managed it. Others, you lay upon your side with one hand beneath your cheek and stared into the darkness, remembering the weight of Gwayne’s arm across your waist.
Tonight was one of the latter. You turned beneath the blankets, pulling them closer around yourself. It had been months. Months since you had last felt his arms around you. Months since you’d heard his laugh echo through these chambers. Months since he’d kissed you farewell and promised, with that infuriating confidence of his, that he would return to you.
“I’ll be home before you have time to miss me.”
You had nearly laughed when he’d said it. Now, you though you might have killed for the sound of his voice.
You closed your eyes trying to go back to sleep. Then came the sound. Three knocks. They were not loud, nor were they the sharp pounding of a servant at the door.
Three measured knocks. You frowned, who would be knocking at this hour?
You pushed yourself upright, gathering the loose folds of your nightgown around your legs.
Another knock. You crossed the chamber and opened the door. And then you forgot how to breathe. For a heartbeat, you thought you were dreaming.
There in the corridor before you stood Gwayne. Your Gwayne.
He was thinner. Gods, he was thinner.
His auburn hair was longer than when he left, tangled by rain and travel. The months have not been kind to him, giving him a harder, older appearance. His cloak was filthy, his boots covered with mud, and there was a fresh cut along his cheek.
But his yes—his eyes were exactly as you remembered. They found yours and everything in his face broke.
“My wife.” His words came out barely above a whisper.
Your hands flew to your mouth. “Gwayne? Is it really you?”
He swallowed and he stepped forward. You did not wait for him to say another word. You threw yourself into his arms. He caught you with a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, his arms closing around you so tightly that your feet nearly left the floor.
You buried your face against his shoulder. He smelled of horses, smoke, rain, leather, and the road. It was the most beautiful scent you had ever known.
“You’re home,” you whispered.
“I am home.” He repeated in that gravelly voice of his you loved so much.
Your fingers twisted into the back of his cloak. “You said you’d be home before I would have time to miss you.”
The strain in his voice you could tell he regretted saying those words to you. “I was wrong.”
You pulled back enough to look at him. His eyes were starting to water. That frightened you more than the blood. Rarely did he show this kind of feeling.
“What happened?” you asked cautiously.
Gwayne’s jaw tightened and for a moment, he said nothing. Then his forehead came down against yours. “Everything.”
Your heart sank instantly. You reached up and touched the cut upon his cheek. “You are hurt.”
“Nothing worth fretting over. I have been worst.” He admitted.
“Gwayne….”
He gave you the faintest smile at the sound of his name. “There she is. The wife who worries.”
You frowned, “You must mean the wife who has spent the last few months wondering if her husband was ever going to come back to me.”
His smile vanished then. He caught your hand and pressed his lips against your knuckles.
“I truly am sorry for this.” He spoke.
You nodded, “Yes as you should be. You should have written or have sent some type of word to let me know that you were alive.”
“I tried.” He replied.
“You should have—”
“I missed you.” He interrupted.
The words stopped you cold. His thumb brushed over the ring he gave you all those years ago. “I missed you every gods forsaken day since I left you here.”
Your anger dissolved so quickly it almost hurt. You touched his face, lightly brushing your thumb along his jaw. “I missed you too.”
He closed his eyes. For several breaths, neither of you moved. Then he whispered, “I thought I would never see you again.”
You felt your throat tighten. “What happened?”
Gwayne stepped inside and shut the door behind him. He removed his dirty cloak and let it fall carelessly upon the floor. You had never seen him do such a thing. Gwayne Hightower was a man who could be particular about the polishing of his boots and of his sword. Tonight though, he seemed barely aware that he had feet.
“Ser Criston. He was a good man, but I do not know what took hold of him in the end.”
You stared at him urging him to go on.
“He means to find the Tully host.”
“In the Riverlands?” you asked.
“Where else would you find them?” His laugh was bitter after he said that.
“We’ve been marching through mud and rain, half starved, with hardly enough men to fill a lord’s hall by the end. Every road led us to an ambush against smaller parties on their way to join their Lord Paramount. But they finally caught on to our tactics and returned what we started.”
He dragged a hand over his face. “We were sent onward when we should have withdrawn.”
“By Ser Criston?”
All Gwayne could do was nod, “Yes by Ser Criston.”
There was something in the way he said the name be it resignation, disgust, or fear. Gwayne sat heavily upon the edge of your bed.
“I looked at the men marching beside me,” he said quietly, “Good men. Men with wives. Sons. Daughters. Men who had already lost brothers.”
He stared at his hands, “And I thought, For What? For a war between a brother and sister?”
You came to sit beside him then and he looked at you. “I knew if I kept going with him, I would die.”
Your heart stopped but he continued. “And I realized….” He reached for your hand. “I did not want to any longer.”
You gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “Because of the war?”
His gaze softened. “No, because of you.”
Your eyes burned then trying not to let the tears fall that have been threatening the moment you laid your eyes upon him again.
He lifted your hand to his mouth and placed a kiss upon each knuckle. “I have spent months trying to convince myself that honor was worth more than everything else.”
His voice broke slightly then. “I do not believe that anymore.”
You leaned toward him. “And you came home.”
“I came home.” Echoing your words.
“To me.”
“Always.” He spoke softly.
You kissed him finally. It was not graceful. It was not the sort of kiss poets wrote about. It was desperate. Months of loneliness poured into it. His hands came around your waist, pulling you into his lap as though he feared you might disappear as if this were a dream. You cupped his face between your hands. He kissed you again, slower this time as if savoring the moment.
His thumb brushed your cheek. “You are real,” he murmured.
You laughed softly through the tears that finally broke. “I should hope so.”
“I dreamt of you.” He whispered.
“Often?” you asked.
“Every night.”
Your breath caught. He rested his forehead against your shoulder. “Sometimes I would wake in the mud and reach for you.”
His fingers slipped beneath the loose sleeve of your nightgown, touching the bare skin of your arm. “And then I’d remember how far away you truly were.”
You ran your fingers through his auburn hair. “I did the same if I’m being honest.”
His eyes darkened instantly at your admission. “You did?”
You blushed from the heat of his gaze alone. “Sometimes.”
A slow wicked grin appeared on his face. “Did you?”
“Do not look so pleased with yourself.” Swatting your husband’s arm.
“I have been away at war for months. Surely, I am entitled to a little vanity. Especially when my wife has admitted she longed for me after all these months.”
“You are entitled to nothing.” You teased.
“Not even a kiss?”
You pretended to consider it. “Hmm perhaps one.”
And so, he kissed you more than once. You could not help but smile against his mouth. “That was more than one.”
“I am a soldier. I have poor counting skills.” He jested.
“You were never poor at counting.”
His eyebrow rose. “Oh?”
You felt heat rise into your cheeks again. “Do not make me regret welcoming you home.”
His arms tightened around you as if not wanting to let you go. “I have regretted many things these past months.” His voice softened. “Coming home is not one of them regardless at what they may say about me.”
You kissed his forehead. He rested his head against your shoulder again. For a long while, neither of you spoke. You simply held him. Your husband. Alive and home in your arms.
Eventually, you whispered, “Will you stay?”
He lifted his head, “I am not going anywhere.”
“You simply cannot promise that.”
His hand settled over your heart then. “I can promise you this. Tonight, I am here and the day after I will be here.”
“And what about the day after that?” you asked and he couldn’t help but smile. “You are becoming demanding.”
“I think it is the least of what I deserve. I have waited a very long time for you to come back to me.” You said
“I know.’ He spoke. He kissed the corner of your mouth. “And I intend to make up for every loss moment.”
Your breath caught once again. There was something warm in his eyes now,something that had not been there when he’d first entered the room. You knew that look. You had missed that look almost as much as you’d miss him.
“Gwayne…”
“Yes, my love?”
“You are simply filthy.”
He glanced down at himself then. “Ah. Yes, seems that I am.”
“You smell like your horse, and you tracked mud all over the floor.”
He looked down at himself and the trail of mud that led to your shared bed.
“I am going to call for the servants to bring you a bath.”
“Yes, my lady.” He answered.
“And then we are going to sleep.”
He smiled, “Yes, my love.”
“And?”
He leaned closer. “And what my love?”
“I believe you know what I desire.”
His smile became slow and wicked from your admission. “I believe I do.”
You pushed lightly against his chest.
“We must get you your bath.”
He caught your wrist before you could move away to call for the servants.
“Will you join me?” he asked.
You stared at him. “Gwayne.”
“I have spent months sleeping beneath the stars and in the mud, eating hard bread, and being shot at by men who would very much like me dead.” He kissed your palm. “I think I’ve earned a bath with my wife.”
“You are shameless Gwayne Hightower.”
“Yes, but I have missed you.” He spoke.
You softened then, “I have missed you too.” Placing another kiss upon his lips.
He stood, ushering you to call for a bath with a wicked grin. There was no chance you two would be getting much sleep tonight.
For the first time since he had left Oldtown, you saw something resembling peace settle across his face. And when he kissed you again, you understood something.
War might have taken months from you. It might have taken friends, certainty, and whatever faith Gwayne once placed in men like Ser Criston. But it had not taken this.
It had not taken him.
And when the door finally closed behind you both from the servants setting up for this long overdue bath, the Hightower’s beacon continued to burn above Oldtown.
A light in the darkness.
A promise that, for tonight at least, Gwayne Hightower was home.
─ pairing: Gwayne Hightower x Footly!reader
─ summary: with war at your gates and the end near, you spend what you are certain is your final night on earth in the arms of the kind and handsome knight who has made his home in your chambers.
─ content: 18+ MDNI | explicit content | loss of virginity | no actual plot, just smut| oral f receiving | fingering | we are at war people | light angst | fluff | existential dread| no finale spoilers
─ a/n: if I thought I was going to die, I would want to spend my last moment with Gwayne too. thank you as always.
Gif credit @/alysmond
You stared at the ceiling. Dark beams crossed overhead, their shapes familiar from daylight but now reduced to black geometry against the grey plaster. A candle stub had guttered out on the ledge near the door, leaving only the thin seam of moonlight that crept through the shutter slats. Somewhere beyond the walls, a man called out a watch change, his voice carrying through stone before dissolving into nothing.
It had been nine weeks since the soldiers had arrived and your rooms, your beautiful rooms with the carved bedposts and the tapestry of the hunting scene and the window that looked out over the market square, had been commandeered. You had been given this chamber in the old solar, a repurposed storage space that someone had attempted to make comfortable for you. It was not.
You pressed your palms against your eyes. Sleep would not come. It had not come properly in days, not since the rumors of battle had begun circulating through the castle like smoke from a damp fire. Servants whispered in corridors. Soldiers sharpened blades in the courtyard below, the grinding sound carrying up through the walls and into your bones.
The shift you wore to bed, white cotton with a ribbon at the neckline, had twisted around your waist. You straightened it with sharp, irritated movements, then reached for the robe draped over the chair.
The corridor outside your door was black. You stood for a moment until your eyes adjusted. Nothing. The sconces along the wall had been extinguished hours ago, part of the conservation measures implemented since the siege preparations began. Oil could not be wasted. You placed your hand against the rough stone wall and began to walk. The robe billowed slightly around your ankles as you moved, the shift underneath fluttering against your calves. You knew these corridors, you had walked them since childhood, had played hide-and-seek in the corners with your siblings, the group of you running laughing through the halls. Your feet remembered the way even when your eyes could not see.
The door to your old chamber stood open. Not particularly wide. A hand's width of amber light spilled from the gap, cutting across the dark corridor. Your heart quickened and you told yourself you should turn back. But if you were to die tomorrow, you wanted to see the view of your city from your bedchamber window one last time. You pushed the door wider. It swung silently on hinges that had evidently recently been oiled. The room felt warm, candles flickered gently in the breeze, the scent of lavender clung to the air.
Gwayne did not hear you enter. His attention was fixed on the view beyond, auburn hair catching the light from the candles behind him, burnishing it to copper. His hands rested on the stone windowsill, shoulders holding the tension of a man expecting the morning to bring an end to things.
You cleared your throat softly. He turned. His eyes found you in the doorway and his expression shifted, the surprise giving way to recognition, then something a bit softer. "My lady, you should be abed." He was still in his doublet, the collar loosened, unclasped at his throat. "As should you," you responded. You hesitated at the threshold. "May I join you?" "Of course." He stepped aside at the window, making room.
You stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind you. Tumbleton lay below like a scattered collection of shapes, the angular roofs, the square bulk of the market hall, and beyond the walls, stretching to the dark horizon, the fields held their secret burden of soldiers and campfires, an army waiting for dawn.
"These were my rooms once," you said. Your voice sounded strange in the space, too intimate for the size of the chamber. "Before all this. I just wished to see the view once more." Gwayne's gaze returned to the window. "It is a magnificent view."
"There will be a battle tomorrow it seems." Ypur voice was quiet. He nodded. "Yes, it would appear so." The silence between you filled with the distant sounds of the castle settling in on itself. You watched a campfire flicker on the horizon and thought of the men gathered around it, sharpening swords, writing letters, praying.
"I am sorry," Gwayne said, "for the chaos brought to your home. The destruction done to your people." You turned to look at him. His profile was stark against the window's frame, jaw clenched, brow furrowed. He meant it. "It is not your fault," you said, offering a reassuring smile. He exhaled. "If it is any consolation to you, my lady, the men will all surely die tomorrow." His voice carried no self-pity. You found no comfort in the idea of anyone's death, certainly not in his. "What a shame, for something so terrible to happen to such a gallant knight."
He smiled. It transformed his face, the tension in his jaw eased, the corners of his eyes crinkled, and for a moment he looked less like a man facing his end and more like the kind of knight from the stories you had read as a girl. The kind who rode in on white horses and saved maidens and lived forever.
You looked away. The campfires on the horizon blurred slightly and you blinked, refusing the moisture that threatened. You would not weep. Gwayne had been kind to you over the past weeks, kinder than anyone else in this castle full of strangers. He had spoken to you in corridors, asked after your comfort, behaved as a guest in your home rather than a conqueror.
The impulse moved through you before you could consider any consequence. You turned toward him, rose onto your toes, and pressed your lips to his. It was brief, a heartbeat of contact. You pulled back immediately, your face burning, hands trembling at your sides.
"I apologize." The words tumbled out too fast. "I was bold, I know, I should not have. I just, if this is to be my last day on earth, I—" You swallowed. "I did not want to die without having ever kissed a man."
Gwayne's brows lowered. He looked at you again, his blue eyes searching your face, and you saw warmth there, deep and steady. His fingers came to your chin, tilting your face toward his. "Then you should at least have a proper kiss."
His mouth found yours, his lips moving against yours slowly, with tenderness. His hand slid from your chin to the curve of your jaw, his thumb brushing your cheekbone, and you leaned into him. Your hands found the front of his doublet, fingers curling into the emerald fabric as you kissed him back. He tasted of wine and honey. His other hand settled on your waist, warm through the thin fabric of your robe, as he drew you closer. Your bodies met, your chest against his, and you made a small sound into his mouth, a whimper that surprised you both.
Your fingers found the clasps of his doublet, already loosened, and you pulled. The ties came undone, your palms sliding over the linen shirt beneath, feeling the heat of his body through the thin fabric. He pulled back just long enough to shrug the doublet off entirely. It fell to the floor in a rustle of green. His hands went to the belt of your robe and untied it with efficient fingers. It fell open, revealing the white shift beneath. His gaze dropped, taking in the thin cotton clinging to your body, the shape of your breasts visible through the fabric.
"Are you certain?" Gwayne's voice was rougher now. "Is this what you want?" You nodded. The word yes seemed inadequate, too small for the enormity of what you were asking, what you were offering. You reached for the hem of your shift and pulled it over your head in one motion, letting it fall beside the robe. The cool air touched your skin and you fought the urge to cover yourself from embarrassment and chill. You stood before him in nothing but your slippers, his eyes tracing the length of your body.
"You are beautiful." The words were simple, unadorned. He pulled off his own undershirt, and your breath caught. He was slender, sculpted by years in armor. A thin scar ran along his left side, pale against his fair skin, and you reached out and touched it before you could stop yourself. His muscles jumped beneath your fingertips. He caught your hand, pressed his lips to your knuckles, and then bent and scooped you into his arms as though you weighed nothing. You gasped, your hands flying to his shoulders, and he laughed, a low, warm sound that vibrated through his chest and into yours, and carried you across the room to the bed.
Gwayne lowered himself beside you. His hand came up to your face, brushing a curl back from your temple, tucking it behind your ear. "Tell me if anything is wrong," he said. "Tell me if I should stop." "I will tell you nothing of the sort."
His mouth found yours again, and his hands began to explore. They wandered the curve of your shoulder, the dip of your waist, the flare of your hip. He touched you as if he were memorizing the geography of your body. His mouth followed his hands, kissing the same path down from your throat. You arched into him, your fingers tangling in his hair, and he groaned against your skin. The vibration traveled through you, settling low in your belly.
He took your breast in his hand, weighing it, his thumb brushing the nipple. You gasped, your back arching off the mattress. His tongue circled the tightened peak, wet and warm, and then he sucked it into his mouth. You felt his mouth curve into a smile. "Sensitive," he murmured against your skin. He released your breast with a soft pop and turned his attention to the other, his hand taking over where his mouth had been, rolling the wet nipple between his fingers. You were making sounds, breathless little noises that you barely recognized as your own.
His free hand traveled down your stomach, his fingers tracing the line of your hip, and you tensed. He paused, his mouth still at your breast, and looked up at you. "Relax," he murmured against your skin. "Let me." You forced your thighs to unclench, and his hand slid between them. His fingers found the wetness there, the evidence of your arousal slicking your inner thighs. "You are so wet," he breathed. "Gods, you are perfect."
His fingers parted your folds, and the cool air touched the wet heat of your cunt. You shuddered. His fingers explored, finding the swollen bud at the top, circling it with a featherlight touch that made your hips buck off the bed. He rubbed in slow, tight circles, and you cried out, your hand flying to your mouth to muffle the sound. "No, let me hear you.""Please," you heard yourself say, the word coming out ragged, unlike any word you had ever produced. "Please, I—"
His finger slipped inside. Your hips rolled against his hand, seeking more as you moaned, and he gave it, a second finger joining the first, the stretch of it foreign and welcome. He curled them, pressing upward against a spot inside you that made your vision blur. He kissed his way down your stomach while his hand worked between your legs. His tongue traced the line of your hip, dipped into the hollow of your navel, and then his mouth was on you.
The first stroke of his tongue across your clit shattered something in you. Your hips jerked off the bed and his free hand pressed down on your stomach, holding you in place while his mouth worked. His tongue was hot and wet and relentless, circling that swollen bud, lapping at it with broad flat strokes that made your thighs shake on either side of his head. "Ahh, ahhh, Gwayne, I, oh gods—"
His fingers inside you curled again, found that spot, pressed it, while his mouth sucked gently. The coil in your belly snapped. You came with a sound you had never made before, a high keening cry that echoed off the stone walls. Your body seized, every muscle clenching, your cunt clamping down on his fingers in rhythmic pulses while wave after wave of pleasure crashed through you. His mouth stayed on you through it, his tongue gentle now, lapping softly as you rode the aftershocks, and his fingers slowed inside you, easing you down.
When you opened your eyes Gwayne was above you, propped on one elbow, his blue eyes soft and dark. His chin was glistening. "You are beautiful when you come."
You reached for him. Your hands found the laces of his breeches and he let you fumble with them, watching your face with that same soft dark expression. When you freed him, you gasped. His cock was hard and flushed, the head of it slick with his own arousal. You had never seen a man in this state before, so you had nothing to compare it to, but his was beautiful. "Does it please you?" he asked, a flash of arrogance, confidence, beneath the warmth. You would have laughed if you were not so desperately, overwhelmingly ready. "I'm sure it will," you murmured. He gave you a wolfish grin and kissed you, positioning himself between your legs. His forehead rested against yours. "This will hurt, but only for a moment," he whispered. "You will let me know if it grows to be too much?" "Yes," you whispered. "I do not care. I want you. Please, Gwayne."
The pressure was immense. The stretch of him, broad, insistent, splitting you open around his girth, was unlike anything you had imagined. There was sharp pain, a brief tearing sensation that made you cry out against his shoulder. He froze, his entire body rigid above you, every muscle locked. "I am sorry," his voice was ragged, barely controlled. "I am sorry. Are you—" "I am fine," your voice shook, and you wrapped your legs around his waist as he slid the rest of the way inside you.
You both moaned. He was so deep, impossibly deep, hips flush against yours, his cock buried to the root inside your tight slick channel. His hand found yours, fingers lacing together, pressing your hand into the mattress beside your head. "Breathe. Let your body adjust." You breathed. In and out, shuddering, your cunt fluttering around him in involuntary pulses. The pain faded, replaced by a deep aching fullness. Then he shifted his hips, just slightly, a small roll, and the head of his cock pressed against that spot inside you and pleasure blazed through the discomfort. "Oh," you moaned. "Please, move."
He did. Slow at first, drawing back until only the tip of him remained inside you, then pressing forward in a long stroke that seated him fully. His hips met yours with a soft fleshy smack and you gasped, your fingers tightening on his. "That is it," he murmured, his voice hot against your ear. "That is it. You take me so well. So tight, so wet. Gods, you feel—"He picked up the pace. The slap of skin on skin grew louder, your hips began to move with his, an instinct you did not know you possessed, meeting each thrust with a roll of your own that drove him deeper. "Yes," you gasped. "Yes, yes, right there, Gwayne—" "Here?" He adjusted the angle and the head of his cock dragged across that spot inside you with every stroke and your vision went white. "There, please don't stop—"
He did not stop. His thrusts grew harder, faster, the control fraying at the edges. His hand released yours and gripped your hip, holding you steady as he drove into you. The bed creaked, the headboard knocking against the stone wall in a rhythm that would have been mortifying if you had the capacity for mortification. You were lost to the sensation of him inside you, the fullness, the friction, the obscene wet heat of your cunt swallowing his cock with every thrust.
"You are perfect," his voice was wrecked, barely recognizable. His hand slid between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit, and that was the end. The coil in your belly, which had been winding tighter with every thrust, every stroke, every wet slap of his hips against yours, snapped. You came with a wail, your back arching off the bed, your cunt clenching around him in rhythmic pulses that pulled him deeper. He followed you over the edge with a groan that was almost a growl. His hips stuttered, lost their rhythm. The warmth of his release flooded you, hot and thick, until you were shaking, tears leaking from the corners of your eyes, your nails raking down his back.
He collapsed beside you, his cock slipping free with a wet obscene sound that made you both exhale shakily. His arm came around you, drew you against his chest, as you lay there in the aftermath, your sweat-slicked body pressed against his, his heart hammering against your ear.
Dawn came through the window. You stirred, reaching for the warmth beside you, and found only cool sheets. The only evidence of his presence was the rumpled sheets and the ache between your thighs. The sounds of horses and men drifted up through the glass. Somewhere along those walls, you knew Gwayne was preparing to face his end.
Pairing: Daeron Targaryen x Betrothed!Reader, technically Daeron Targaryen x Sex Worker!OC
Summary:
Before Daeron has ever met the Martell woman he is expected to marry, he tells Nera, a sex worker he has been seeing for some time, that he is going to have a wife. Somehow he already knows about the Water Gardens, your father, your seven sisters, and which scraps came from Daella or Egg, despite insisting that the marriage can only be a misfortune for you. As wine loosens his tongue, pity gives way to a much more shameful comfort: once the vows are said, someone will simply exist, you will stay. When wanting even that much becomes unbearable, Daeron turns to the older methods he knows for making himself quiet: wine, sex, and exhaustion.
Word Count: 15.7k (😐)
Warnings: 18+, Explicit sexual content/smut. Sex work/prostitution. Pre relationship. Heavy alcohol use and intoxication, sex while intoxicated. Dubious/compromised consent. Dissociation during sex, sex as a coping mechanism, alcohol as a coping mechanism. Self-destructive sexual behavior. Morally gray handling of consent, references to previous dubious sexual encounters.
A/N: Daeron is being very normal about a woman he has never met. I wanted to explore the ways in which he might engage in sex before the reader becomes his wife and some aspects about his relationship with his body and the use he makes of sexual pleasure, but somewhere along the way writing him fucking someone started needing his drunken rambles about how eight daughters is a lot of daughters. Hope you like this!
This is another installment of the Where I am good and loved collection/series, but like all pieces it can be read as a standalone.
Title is from the quote "It’s strange, I felt less lonely when I didn’t know you."
The prince is already drinking when Nera comes back from washing her hands.
That is hardly worth noticing.
He has taken the chair beside the bed rather than the bed itself, one boot hooked through the lower rung, the other planted crookedly on the floor. His coat has made it as far as the mattress. She finds it folded badly across the foot, one sleeve hanging down to brush the boards. He must have tried to be neat with it. Daeron often leaves evidence of an intention a little short of its accomplishment.
He has poured for her too.
Not much. He knows she will take a cup if the wine is good and leave the rest to him. Tonight it is good enough that she drinks before she has finished drying her hands.
Daeron raises his own cup when she takes hers. The movement comes a fraction late, as if he had noticed her only after she was already drinking.
He is drunk. Visibly so.
Not badly, Nera has seen him worse often enough to have stopped measuring it by whether his speech slurs or his feet obey him. Tonight his eyes follow properly when she crosses the room, his fingers close cleanly around the stem. There is color sitting high across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, and his mouth has gone soft at the corners. Every now and then something reaches his face a little after it ought to: amusement after the joke, irritation after the thing that caused it. His thoughts seem to travel an extra distance before arriving.
Nothing unusual.
She has known him long enough for there to be a great many things about Prince Daeron that no longer qualify as unusual.
There are worse men to find waiting in a room.
Though, there are easier ones too.
He pays without making her coax the money out of him and sometimes leaves enough behind that she wonders whether he has forgotten the value of it. He can be funny when he is not trying to be, and exhausting when he is. Some nights he talks until she begins to suspect that somewhere along the way he has confused the price of a woman with the fee owed a septon. Other nights he arrives with his face already turned inward and seems to resent every word that requires him to come back out.
She prefers him somewhere between the two.
He is strange. Generous. Usually clean. Rarely cruel to her, although there are nights when he is so intent upon being charming that she wants to put a pillow over his face until he stops. He is pleasanter when he forgets to be pleasant. She likes him better when he is tired enough to leave the prince outside.
She likes him, more or less. That is all.
Nera had been younger once, and young women could make stories out of almost anything if they were lonely enough. A man came twice and preference became affection. He came four times and affection acquired intentions. She had learned eventually that men returned for reasons so dull they barely deserved naming. They knew the stairs, they knew the room, they knew which women did not talk too much, which did, where the basin stood, what a particular body would permit without lengthy discussion. Familiarity saved effort. Habit was cheaper than feeling even when it cost more coin.
A prince did not cease being a man because somebody put a dragon on his clothes.
Daeron comes back because Daeron comes back. She no longer needs it to mean more.
His cup is empty when she glances at him again.
Nera reaches for the decanter while passing, pours without asking, and puts the wine back into his hand. He does not thank her. Not from discourtesy, his fingers simply close around the cup as though it had always been there and the interruption between one mouthful and the next had required no human agency at all.
She notices because she notices bodies for a living. She does not attach anything to it.
There have been other nights when she has put wine into that hand.
Sometimes while his other hand was on her waist. Sometimes when neither hand seemed interested in doing much of anything.
Once, a long while ago now, she had stopped.
She has tried since to remember what precisely made her do it and never managed to settle on one thing.
He had been drunk enough that she had taken his boots off for him because he had sat looking at the first buckle as if it had personally betrayed him. That had not frightened her. She had had men in worse condition insist upon much more complicated things.
For a while he had been responsive. Quieter than usual, but there were nights when quiet suited him. His eyes had closed, his head had turned into the pillow. She had spoken to him once and received an answer; later she said something else and got a noise that might have been agreement.
Then, somewhere in between one movement and the next, his body had changed under her.
Not gone limp. That would have been easy.
But…still. Too still.
There had been misery in his face, she thought afterward. Or perhaps only exhaustion. He had looked half asleep and unpleasantly awake at once. His mouth had tightened around something he was not saying. Whatever it was, she found herself stopping before she had decided to.
For several breaths Daeron had not noticed.
Then his eyes opened.
“Why did you stop?”
There had been irritation in it, dulled by wine but unmistakable. Not anger exactly. More the annoyance of a man whose sleep has been interrupted.
Nera had looked down at him. “You looked-…”
Nothing came after it.
Unwell did not cover it. Nor tired. Miserable came closer, but miserable men bought sex every night and no one closed the whore houses for it. Gone would have been the word if gone were something a person could look while still watching her.
Daeron's face had changed while she searched. His eyes sharpened first.
“I didn't ask you to stop.”
She had not moved.
His jaw worked once. A flush had risen beneath the drunken color already there, sudden and ugly. Embarrassment, she had thought then. Perhaps it was. He reached toward the table without looking at it.
“Wine.”
Nera had put the cup into his hand.
He drank lying down, swallowed too quickly, coughed once and waved away the hand she offered before she could touch his shoulder. Then he drank again and held the cup out for her to take.
She had waited.
Daeron closed his eyes.
“I said I didn't ask you to stop.”
So she had continued.
The next time he became quiet beneath her hands, she remembered.
There had been no reason not to. Or none that seemed better than the reason he had already given her.
Men wanted strange things. More often, they wanted ordinary things for strange reasons, and Nera had never required anybody to explain those either. A man could look unhappy and still want to be touched, he could be frightened and want it, angry and want it. He could turn his face into the pillow because he liked the feeling better that way. He could give her every choice because choosing bored him. None of that was remarkable by itself.
Daeron enjoyed sex often enough that she knew perfectly well what that looked like too.
There were nights when he arrived hungry for it, when he kissed before she had finished shutting the door. Nights when his hands were impatient and his laughter came without having to be dragged through three layers of cleverness first. He could be greedy for attention. Greedy for pleasure. Sometimes almost boyishly delighted when his own body surprised him by being a pleasant place to inhabit.
There were other nights when the pleasure appeared incidental.
On those nights he came restless and left exhausted. He drank more. He wanted fewer questions. Sometimes he gave up decisions one after another until the only thing required of him was to remain where she put him. Nera had understood, without needing a name for it, that whatever he bought on those nights included tiredness.
That hardly made him unique.
People paid for what worked.
And Daeron had made one thing clear enough: looking distressed was not the same as asking her to stop.
She had learned him accordingly.
Tonight he is nowhere near that drunk. Tonight he sits in her chair, warmer and looser than when he arrived, and watches her pull the first pin from her hair.
She sets it in the little dish beside the mirror.
“Did you know I'm going to be married?”
Nera's hand stops with the second pin halfway out.
She meets his eyes in the glass. “No.”
Daeron takes a drink.
For a moment he looks faintly pleased with himself for having produced information she did not possess. Or perhaps only pleased that he has managed to say it aloud somewhere no one is likely to ask him to behave properly about it. The expression slips away before she can decide.
She pulls the pin free and sets it beside the first.
When several seconds pass and he offers nothing more, she asks, “When?”
Daeron looks into his cup as though the date might be floating there.
“Soon,” He thinks about that, his thumb rubbing once over the stem. “Soon enough.”
It sounds less like an answer than something he has been told repeatedly until he learned to repeat it himself.
“Congratulations.”
His eyes come up at once.
That, apparently, is wrong.
Not offensively wrong. He does not bristle. For half a second he simply looks at her with such open uncertainty that Nera nearly feels foolish for having said it. Then his face rearranges itself.
“Yes,” He murmurs. He turns the cup between his fingers, considers the word he has been given and adds, “Yes. Quite.”
The second agreement sounds less convincing than the first.
He drinks before she can decide whether he is mocking himself, her, or the custom of congratulating men for marriages they did not arrange.
Nera removes another pin.
“A Martell,” He says. She waits. Daeron wets his lips. “A Martell woman.”
Nera glances over her shoulder.
He frowns faintly into the wine, apparently aware that Martell had already supplied the relevant information.
“The eldest daughter of Prince Mors.”
There is more certainty there. Something properly learned and stored.
“Mors Martell?”
“Yes. That Mors Martell.”
The mild impatience is ridiculous when she has no idea how many Mors Martells there are supposed to be, but she lets him have it.
Daeron takes another swallow.
“She was raised at the Water Gardens.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” His answer comes quickly, and then again, as though confirming it to himself. “The Water Gardens.”
He shifts in the chair, fingers tugging once at the collar already loose at his throat.
“They were built for a Targaryen woman. Did you know that?”
Nera did not, and shakes her head.
“King Daeron's sister. Daenerys.” He says the name with slightly too much care, each syllable placed down individually. “She married a Martell, the Prince of Dorne. He built them for her.”
Daeron hears himself over-enunciating. His mouth twists, irritated by the betrayal.
Nera turns from the mirror, one side of her hair loose over her shoulder. There is something faintly absurd in hearing him lecture on old royal marriages while sitting in his shirtsleeves in a room he has paid to occupy for the night.
“And now you're marrying a woman raised there.”
His thumb stops against the cup.
“Yes.”
No joke follows.
That interests her.
The Water Gardens mean very little to Nera beyond the sort of images everybody north of Dorne gathers from songs and travelers: pools, heat, children under orange trees. To Daeron, apparently, they have acquired ancestry. One Targaryen bride sent south into a Martell marriage, then you, a Martell bride sent north into a Targaryen one a couple of generations later.
She cannot tell whether the connection comforts him or troubles Daeron.
Perhaps neither. His mood has been shifting too quickly to hold its shape. One moment he speaks of the marriage as though it were a mildly interesting accident that has happened to him, the next there is something careful in his voice. Something almost expectant, though he drinks before Nera has time to decide whether she imagined it.
“You've met her, then.”
“No.”
The answer comes immediately.
Daeron drinks.
Nera waits for the obvious rest of it, but nothing.
“You haven't?”
He looks up, mildly affronted. “No.”
She raises her brows. His eyes drop again.
There is hardly any wine left in the cup. He tips it, watches what remains slide along the bottom, then reaches for the decanter himself.
“Daella told me about the Water Gardens.” He says.
Nera has not asked.
He pours carefully. Too carefully. The wine touches the lip of the cup and wavers there before settling back.
“And Egg heard-…”
Daeron stops.
His forehead creases with the effort of catching a thought already moving away from him.
“Something.”
Nera waits.
“From someone.” He finishes, less confidently.
He drinks, and the silence stretches.
There it is.
He has heard himself.
Not quite embarrassment. He is too drunk to manage embarrassment with much elegance. But the knowledge has reached him that he knew where you grew up, knew the history of the place, could name the source of one scrap and had nearly begun explaining the provenance of another before remembering that no one had asked him to account for any of it.
He has been collecting things.
No, Nera corrects herself. Collecting is too tidy for Daeron. It suggests intention, a man holding out his hand and deciding what he means to keep.
Hoarding is nearer.
Something heard from Princess Daella. Something Prince Aegon repeated. A name dropped at supper. An old marriage remembered only because another one has suddenly made it relevant. Little scraps taken in without acknowledgment and kept somewhere in that wine-soaked head until he could produce them all in a room where he had supposedly come for something else.
About you, though he has never met you.
Nera realizes she has been looking at him too long.
Daeron catches her.
“What?”
She only shakes her head and turns back toward the mirror.
The answer clearly dissatisfies him. His eyes stay on her reflection for another moment, narrowed slightly, but whatever question he might have asked loses its way before reaching his mouth. He drinks instead.
Nera removes the last pin.
Her hair falls fully around her shoulders, and she combs her fingers through the places where the metal has caught it. Behind her, Daeron says nothing.
For perhaps a minute she expects him to begin again.
He does not.
Good. Nera has no particular interest in his betrothed.
You are far away, unknown, and almost certainly unaware that your future husband is sitting half-undressed in a paid room discussing the architecture of your childhood home. If the match is like most marriages made between people with titles, it will happen regardless of whether either of you has found the proper feeling for it.
She wonders, briefly, what you have been told about him.
Not about Nera, not about tonight.
About Daeron.
The wine, the whore houses, the stories that follow princes when they make themselves interesting often enough. Perhaps they have softened it for you. Perhaps they have not. A woman sent north to marry a man generally had somebody willing to tell her what sort of man waited there.
Nera hopes so, though she cannot have said exactly why.
Daeron finishes his cup while she lifts her own again.
Marriage, in her experience, does very little to a man's nature.
She has watched husbands climb these stairs for years. Some arrived with wedding rings still new enough to shine. Some took them off before entering and tucked them carefully into purses or boots, as though the wife ceased to exist once the metal disappeared. Others never bothered. A wedding could change the hour a man left, how much discretion he expected, whether he complained about the expense.
It did not make him someone else.
She does wonder whether Daeron will continue coming after he marries you.
The thought carries no particular sting.
If he comes, he comes. If he does not, somebody else will want the room.
Perhaps marriage will make him cautious. Perhaps it will make no difference at all. Perhaps you will object and he will discover, to his surprise, that objections can matter.
Nera does not know enough about you to guess.
Nor, apparently, does Daeron.
That thought almost makes her look at him again.
She doesn't. Instead she drains the last of her wine and crosses to the bed.
His coat is still lying across the coverlet. She picks it up, folds the dangling sleeve back into place, and carries it to the chair near the wall where it will not end up crushed beneath somebody's knee.
One of his boots is directly in her way.
Nera nudges it aside with her foot.
“Sorry.” Daeron says from behind her.
He makes no attempt to retrieve it.
She looks over her shoulder.
His mouth twitches. There he is.
She leaves the boot where it lands.
The room has begun to settle into something she knows better.
Nera takes off her earrings, setting them one at a time beside the pins. One catches at the lobe and she has to worry it loose with a fingernail. When she glances toward Daeron, he is watching, but there is no particular urgency in it.
They have done this too often for every fastening to become an invitation.
She turns her back and reaches for the hooks of her dress.
Usually, by now, he would do one of several things. Come over and offer to help, then make a worse job of it than she could have managed alone. Stay where he is and watch. Make some unnecessary observation about the dress that somehow becomes a complaint about his father, the weather, or the state of the realm. On very drunk nights, simply wait for Nera to solve the problem herself.
Tonight he stays in the chair.
The first hook comes free.
Then another.
Daeron pours more wine.
She hears the small liquid sound behind her, then the muted knock of glass against the table.
The third hook sticks. Nera works a fingernail beneath it.
No Martells. No Water Gardens. No marriage.
Whatever urge had taken him appears finally to have spent itself.
Good.
She has heard stranger things in this room. Men speak before sex because silence makes them nervous. They speak afterward because leaving requires getting dressed and words fill the delay. They confess things to women they pay because payment has a beginning and an end, and there is comfort in knowing exactly when a confidence will cease to matter.
Perhaps that is all Daeron has been doing.
He had news, and he told someone.
Nera frees the stubborn hook.
The dress loosens incrementally across her back.
Behind her, Daeron shifts in his chair. Leather creaks. He says nothing.
This is the part she prefers with him: the moment when whatever he has brought through the door begins to lose its claim on the room. His jokes usually stop. The prince does too, if she is lucky. There is only clothing and lamplight, the bed, the basin, the familiar sequence of movements neither of them needs explained.
Conversation sheds itself with the clothes.
Soon he will either come to her or wait until she crosses the room.
Nera rolls one shoulder, easing the loosened fabric away from her skin.
Daeron takes another drink.
The silence has lasted long enough that she is thinking about whether she ought to trim the wick in the lamp before they begin.
“She has sisters.”
Nera's fingers stop.
For a moment she genuinely has no idea who he means.
“Who?”
The silence behind her is so pronounced that she turns.
Daeron is staring at her.
He looks almost offended, but there is no performance in it. For one drunken second he simply cannot understand how she has lost the thread of a conversation that, from his side of the room, has apparently never ended.
“My wife.”
The words come easily.
Too easily, perhaps.
Nera watches them reach him only after he has said them.
His gaze drops toward the cup.
“Betrothed.” He corrects. The correction is quieter and arrives late enough that the first word has already had its time in the room.
He takes another drink.
Then, as if correcting the title has corrected nothing else, he adds, “Seven of them.”
“Seven sisters?”
“Yes. Seven,” He nods once, solemn with wine. “Eight daughters altogether.”
He considers that for a moment, his eyes dropping somewhere past the floor.
“There are six of us,” He says eventually. “Six is already…” His hand makes a small, useless turn around the cup while he searches for the end of the thought. “A lot.”
Nera cannot help it. A smile pulls at one corner of her mouth.
Daeron sees.
“What?”
The question is suspicious rather than sharp.
“Nothing,” She turns back toward the hooks, but the smile remains. Behind her, there is a small disgruntled sound. Nera laughs under her breath. “I only wondered when eight daughters became your particular concern.”
That silences him.
For a beat she thinks she has pushed too far.
Then Daeron mutters, “Seven sisters is a great many sisters.”
There is enough wounded dignity in the pronouncement that she laughs properly this time.
He leans farther back into the chair, watching her with the resigned irritation of a man enduring an injustice he cannot quite articulate.
“I am glad this interests you.”
“It does now.”
“You're very welcome.”
The answer comes dryly, but a little too slowly to be polished. Wine has softened the edges off the delivery.
Nera frees another hook.
After a few breaths Daeron says, quieter, “She's the eldest.”
The humor passes without either of them dismissing it.
“I gathered.”
“Of eight.”
“Yes.”
He rubs his thumb back and forth over the stem of the cup. His brow has creased again.
“That must be different.”
Nera glances back. “From what?”
Daeron gives a vague little movement of his shoulder.
“This.”
The room, perhaps. Summerhall. Himself. His family. He does not seem entirely sure which.
“There are six of us,” He repeats. “And that's already…” He exhales through his nose and abandons the sentence. Perhaps he has become aware he has already said his thoughts on the matter. “There are always people everywhere.”
It is the closest he comes to explaining.
Then he starts talking again before Nera can answer.
One of your sisters may be coming north with you. He thinks it is one of the younger girls. Not the youngest. Or perhaps that part is wrong. Daella had said something about two sisters; Daella says things as though everybody had been standing beside her when she learned them. Egg heard that Prince Mors meant to bring several of his daughters. Or perhaps Egg heard that from Aemon.
Daeron stops halfway through trying to remember who told whom what.
He drinks.
The information has begun to loosen with him. Names become uncertain. Sources overlap. He repeats one thing before realizing he has already said it.
But the facts themselves have remained.
“She must be used to noise.” He says after a while.
Nera has returned to her dress. “Who?”
This time Daeron makes an exasperated sound.
She looks back and finds him glaring without much force.
“Yes, yes,” She says, relenting. “Your betrothed.”
That mollifies him, though he tries not to show it.
“She grew up with seven sisters.”
“So you've mentioned.”
“I know.”
He sounds aggrieved that she keeps treating this as repetition when, in his mind, he is apparently advancing an argument.
“Seven,” He says once more, softer. “It must be noisy.”
“Probably.”
“Summerhall isn't,” His thumb circles the cup again. “Not like that.”
Something about his voice has changed.
The amusement goes out of Nera before she means it to, and she looks at him more carefully.
Daeron is staring somewhere toward the curtained window, his face gone vague around whatever he is seeing there.
Nera says, “Perhaps she'll like the quiet.”
He looks at her.
For an instant there is something terribly young in the expression. Not happiness. Nothing so simple. Only the startled attention of someone who had not considered that the answer might be kind.
“Perhaps,” He says. Too quickly. He lowers his eyes almost at once. “Or hate it.”
There.
Nera understands a little more of the sisters now. Not enough to make a story of it, but enough.
He has not only learned that there are seven of them, he has tried to hear them.
A crowded house. You accustomed to sisters moving in and out of rooms, to voices over meals, to the kind of noise that means people belong there. He has wondered what Summerhall will sound like to you after that. Whether it will feel peaceful or merely empty. Who you might bring north. What you will miss once you arrive.
More imagining than Nera would have expected from a man who announced his marriage like a peculiar fact somebody had only just informed him of.
She does not point this out.
Daeron is tolerable partly because she has learned which observations would make him intolerable.
Nera frees the last hook.
Her dress loosens against her arms.
“What is she like?”
The question comes without much thought.
It is the natural thing to ask after listening to him talk about you for this long.
Daeron stops.
Not dramatically, the cup simply ceases moving in his hand.
His lips part, then close again.
Nera waits.
For all the things he has hoarded -the father, the sisters, the Water Gardens, the old marriage, the journey north, the sister who may or may not accompany you- there is suddenly nowhere left for him to go.
Nothing among the scraps has become an answer.
His eyes lift to Nera's face.
For a moment they look clearer than the rest of him.
“I haven't met her.”
“I know.”
Nera means only that he already told her.
The words come softer anyway. Daeron hears that too.
His gaze falls.
He does not reach for another fact this time. Does not tell her something Princess Daella said or something Prince Aegon overheard. He sits with the empty place where you ought to be.
Then his hand rises.
The cup is already in it.
He drinks as though only just remembering what the cup is for, and Nera turns back to the dress hanging loose around her shoulders.
For a while neither of them speaks.
The question had not seemed cruel when she asked it. What is she like? It was the sort of ordinary thing one asked after listening to a man talk for half an hour about where his future wife had grown up, how many sisters she had, who might accompany her north, and what some prince had built for a Targaryen bride generations ago. Nera had expected another answer dragged out of whatever little store of facts Daeron had assembled. Instead she had found the one empty place in it.
He sits with the cup held too close to his mouth and watches the wine rather than her. The flush across his cheeks has deepened. Nera cannot tell whether that is the drink or embarrassment; with Daeron, one often becomes the other before there is time to separate them. He rubs his thumb slowly along the stem, stops, takes another mouthful, then seems to forget what he meant to do with the hand afterward.
Nera eases one shoulder free of her dress and leaves him alone with the silence.
“Mother hated pity.” He says eventually.
She looks back.
Daeron does not lift his head. The words appear to have been addressed as much to the wine as to her.
“The word?” Nera asks.
“The word,” He considers it, forehead drawing faintly together. “The thing too, I think.”
He pauses again. The memory is clearly there, but not the exact language, and Nera watches him worry at it with the stubborn seriousness drink sometimes gives him.
“She said it made people ugly.”
His mouth twists almost immediately.
“No. That's not-…” He waves one hand, irritated with himself. “That pity was an ugly way to look at someone. Something like that.”
There is no joke attached to the admission, nothing to make the dead princess smaller or Daeron less earnest for remembering her. Nera has heard men speak of their mothers after enough wine; most of them become either saints or monsters by the third cup. Daeron rarely speaks of his at all. When he does, the usual tricks seem to desert him. He cannot quite make Princess Dyanna Dayne ridiculous, even for his own protection.
He drinks again, and the cup is halfway down when he says,
“I pity her. My…betrothed,” Nera's hands stop at the loosened fabric. Daeron sees her look and shuts his eyes for an instant. “I know.”
The answer is almost impatient, but the impatience is with himself rather than her. He has heard the contradiction. Apparently he does not intend to solve it.
Nera sits on the edge of the bed and begins working one stocking down her calf. “Why?”
For several seconds Daeron simply stares at her, as though she has asked why fire burns.
Then his attention slips away.
“She has to come here,” The first answer is so ordinary that Nera almost shrugs. Daeron makes a vague motion with the cup, wine shivering against the rim before he steadies his hand. “Leave all that.”
The gesture encompasses nothing visible. Dorne is hundreds of leagues away; the Water Gardens exist in this room only because he has spent the evening putting them there. Seven sisters, eight daughters, voices he has never heard. He has filled the space with them so thoroughly that Nera almost understands the direction of his hand.
“For Summerhall.” She says. If it is an attempt at reassurance, even she isn’t sure.
“Yes.”
The word does not satisfy him.
He scratches at the side of his thumb with one fingernail, drinks, then tries again. “Her sisters. Her father. Whatever she does there. Whoever she knows. All of it.”
Another swallow. He is drinking more quickly now, not yet enough to make his speech truly slur but enough that certain words begin arriving twice, or after the thought that should have contained them.
“She has to leave it and come north. Come here. For-…” His hand moves again. “This.”
This time Nera looks at him long enough that he notices.
He does not clarify.
Perhaps he means Summerhall. Perhaps marriage. Perhaps the particular chair he is sitting in, the wine in his hand, himself at the center of whatever future has been arranged for a woman who does not yet know his face.
Nera pulls the stocking over her heel. “Women marry away from home all the time.”
Daeron's head comes up more sharply than the amount of wine in him should permit.
“Yes, Nera. I am aware,” The irritation is immediate and real, but it spends itself almost as quickly. He looks away first, dragging one hand across his mouth. “I know.”
Nera leaves it there.
There is something in him that cannot bear having what he has made singular returned to the ordinary. Women leave their families to marry every day, noble daughters are sent across kingdoms because fathers have agreed to it. None of that explains the sour little crease between Daeron's brows.
He rubs his palm against his knee, catches sight of the wet shine the wine has left across his knuckles, and stares at it as if somebody else put it there.
“She has to marry me.”
The sentence is quieter than everything before it.
No gesture now. No broad this into which he can pour castle, duty, distance and himself all at once.
“She has to marry me.” He says again, and the second me comes out almost sober.
Nera has seen that happen before. Drink loosens most things in him, but occasionally a thought cuts through it so cleanly that he seems less drunk for one sentence than he did before the first cup. It never lasts. Usually he pours wine over the opening as soon as he realizes it exists.
He does so now.
Nera rolls the stocking between her hands before setting it aside and watches him only from the corner of her eye. He has reached a conclusion. She can see that much. Whether it is true appears to matter less than the fact that it is firm enough to stand on.
A woman he has never met must be miserable to marry him. That he can understand.
He cannot tell Nera what you are like. He cannot know whether Summerhall will feel quiet or empty to you, whether you will miss your sisters every morning or be relieved to escape seven other women under the same roof, whether you will think him amusing, tiresome, disgusting, pitiable, or merely strange. He does not know whether the stories sent south have frightened you or whether anyone has bothered to tell you much at all.
But he can decide that this is a misfortune.
There is relief of a sort in certainty, even an ugly one.
Daeron turns the cup slowly between both hands, looking at the wine as though the answer has sunk there with the dregs.
“Mother would have told me not to say that.”
Nera lifts her head. “Your mother?”
He nods.
Something almost like a smile moves at one corner of his mouth and fails before it can become anything.
“She would have corrected me.”
“For pitying her?”
Daeron looks at Nera as if the question has complicated something he had thought simple. He considers, then gives a small, helpless shrug.
“For being cruel, probably.”
“To her?”
His brow furrows.
“To someone.”
The answer seems to amuse him faintly only because he knows it is inadequate. He drinks rather than repair it.
Nera does not know what Princess Dyanna used to correct in her eldest son. She can imagine plenty. Daeron has always had a particular talent for turning knives inward and then looking surprised when somebody else bleeds from standing too close. Perhaps his mother had known that before the rest of them did.
Whatever memory has come to him, he does not offer it. His gaze goes distant for a while, not the heavy vacancy Nera has seen in bed with him, only the ordinary absence of a man remembering someone who cannot answer back.
She pulls off her other stocking and sets it beside the first.
The silence lengthens enough that she thinks his mother has gone wherever dead mothers go when their sons stop speaking of them.
Then Daeron asks, “Would my mother have liked her?”
Nera stills.
The question is so far removed from the room that for a moment she wonders whether she heard him properly.
Daeron is looking into his cup.
“My wife,” He adds, after the silence makes him think she needs clarification. His mouth tightens almost at once. “Betrothed.”
The correction has grown wearier each time he makes it tonight, as though the true word keeps arriving first and he is becoming tired of chasing after it.
He finally looks at Nera. “Would my mother have liked her?”
There is no cleverness in the question. No drunken grin acknowledging its absurdity. He seems, for one strange second, to expect that she might possess an answer.
“I never knew your mother.”
Daeron blinks.
The obviousness of this works its way slowly across his face.
“No,” His gaze drops. “No, you didn't.”
A breath leaves him that almost becomes a laugh, though nothing in his expression is amused.
Nera does not know what else to give him. She knows the name Dyanna Dayne because everyone knows the names of dead princesses. She knows that Maekar had loved his wife because even people who never come close to courts hear stories about royal grief. She does not know whether Princess Dyanna laughed loudly, held grudges, liked clever girls, disliked Martells, tolerated fools, or would have taken one look at the woman chosen for Daeron and approved.
The person who knew her is sitting three paces away.
“You did.” Nera says.
Daeron's fingers stop moving against the cup.
He does not seem offended this time by being given his own question back.
For a while he genuinely thinks.
The wine has made thought slow but not impossible; she can almost see him feeling his way through memory, discarding whatever answers are too convenient.
“She would,” He says eventually. Nera waits. Daeron glances up, seemingly dissatisfied by the certainty he has just produced, and weakens it. “I think.”
Something gentler passes over his face before he can hide it.
“She liked people.”
He frowns at once.
“That sounds stupid.”
Nera does not rescue him from it.
“She did,” Daeron insists, quieter. “She would have tried.”
The last word seems to matter more than the rest.
Nera shifts the dress higher against her chest where it has begun to slip. “Then perhaps she would have liked her.”
Daeron looks at her.
For an instant nothing happens.
Then she sees the next thought arrive.
It changes him before he speaks. His mouth closes. His eyes fall back to the cup. Whatever softness had survived the memory of his mother tightens into something less forgiving.
“Perhaps she'd have pitied her too.”
The words are barely louder than the room.
He hears them.
Nera knows because his fingers close suddenly around the stem.
“No,” Daeron shakes his head once. “No. She wouldn't.”
The denial comes faster the second time, almost offended on his mother's behalf.
“She didn't.”
Nothing after it.
Not she didn't believe in pity. Not she never pitied anyone. Only the blunt little defense of a dead woman who has been made to do something in his imagination she would not have done in life.
Nera watches his thumb whiten against the cup.
He should leave the thought alone.
Daeron rarely leaves anything alone once it has found the soft part.
“Maybe she'd have made an exception.”
There is no humor in it.
Nera looks at him and, for the first time tonight, genuinely has nothing to say.
She could tell him he is being ridiculous. Perhaps he is. She could tell him his mother would never have looked at her own son and decided marriage to him was a special category of suffering. But Nera did not know Dyanna, and Daeron has always been too quick to hear when comfort is counterfeit. Anything she offered would be a story made from a dead woman she never met.
So she lets the silence stay.
Daeron appears to be waiting inside it.
Nera cannot tell whether he wants disagreement, absolution, or merely some noise that will prevent him from hearing himself.
None comes.
He drinks.
She returns to the hooks of her dress.
For a while the room settles again into small sounds: fabric giving under her fingers, glass touching Daeron's mouth, the crackle from the lamp near the bed. The conversation might reasonably die there. Nera would prefer it to. Dead mothers are beyond what she was paid for, and Daeron seems to know it too; he watches her hands instead of speaking, face gone tired beneath the color of the wine.
Then he says, “She'll have her own rooms.”
Nera pauses with one hook caught under her nail.
The sentence is so practical that she wonders whether she has missed several thoughts between one mouthful and the next.
“Your betrothed?”
“Yes.”
Daeron nods, almost relieved that she has followed him.
“Her own rooms. Whatever rooms she wants, I suppose. Summerhall has enough of them.”
He glances vaguely toward the wall as if he can see the castle through plaster and distance.
“She can have her women there. Her things. Sisters, if they stay. One of them is meant to come north, I think. Perhaps two. Daella said-…”
He stops himself with a grimace.
Nera's mouth moves before she can prevent it.
Daeron sees.
“Don't.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“I was not.”
He gives her a tired look that says he does not believe her, but the little exchange does not quite become banter. His attention has already slipped back to the rooms he has apparently furnished in his head.
“She can do as she likes,” He says, more slowly. “With them, I mean.”
Nera gives a small nod.
Daeron looks down at his hands.
“I needn't be there.”
A beat passes.
“Much.”
There it is.
Nera rests one hand against the mattress and studies him.
Daeron either does not notice the qualification or is pretending very hard not to.
“You mean to avoid her?”
His head comes up at once.
“No,” The answer is much too quick. He hears that as clearly as Nera does. “I didn't say that.”
“No.”
“It would be absurd.”
Daeron shifts in the chair and nearly knocks his knee against the small table beside him. He catches himself, frowns at the furniture as though it has moved maliciously, then straightens.
“We'll live in the same castle. There are meals. People will expect-…”
He stops, mouth tightening.
The excuses have begun assembling themselves faster than he can make them convincing.
“People expect husbands to appear occasionally.”
Nera says nothing.
Daeron knows exactly how that sounded.
“And she is my-…” He closes his eyes. “Betrothed.”
The correction comes with a tired little exhale.
Nera has begun to suspect the word wife has settled somewhere in him already and that betrothed is merely the thing he remembers to call you afterward.
“I needn't bother her often.” He says.
Often.
Nera lets the word sit untouched.
Daeron stares at his wine.
After a little while, he adds, “It would be strange never to speak to one's wife.”
There it is again.
This time he either does not notice or does not have the energy to repair it.
Nera does not point it out.
“Perhaps she reads,” Daeron continues after another drink. “Or writes letters. Seven sisters, she must write constantly unless they all despise one another, which seems possible.”
The corner of Nera's mouth twitches.
Daeron catches it.
“I wasn't joking.”
“That is why it was funny.”
He looks briefly wounded by this and then too tired to defend himself.
The wine has begun showing more plainly now. Not in the shape of his words so much as their order. He starts somewhere, doubles back, repeats a fact he has already established, forgets whether Nera knows something and explains it again. The careful little structure he maintains when sober -or less drunk- is loosening at the seams.
“I could sit somewhere,” He says, almost a mumble, almost a request for permission. Nera's amusement fades. Daeron has not looked up. “Not in the way.”
He wipes a bead of wine from his lower lip with the side of his thumb.
“If she were doing something. I wouldn't-…” He trails off, frowning at the space between his boots. “I wouldn't have to say much.”
The picture arrives all at once for Nera, though Daeron seems not to realize he has shown it to her.
No marriage bed, no children, no wife waiting on him at supper with a smile. No fantasies of obedience or possession like the ones men usually reveal when they speak too long about women who cannot hear them.
A room that belongs to you.
Letters open somewhere on a table. Perhaps one of the seven sisters occupying a chair. Whatever pieces of Dorne you manage to carry north arranged around you until Summerhall becomes livable.
And Daeron somewhere at the edge of it, apparently satisfied if he can take up a little space without being sent away.
He looks embarrassed enough by the image that Nera does not tell him she has seen it.
“I wouldn't stay long,” He says. The word lands differently from the others. Daeron notices too. His mouth tightens slightly, but he continues. “Only enough to be a nuisance.”
Nera watches him over the rim of her cup.
“Perhaps she won't mind.” She attempts.
She means the nuisance, perhaps the visits, perhaps nothing in particular. It is an ordinary kindness, no larger than the earlier suggestion that you might like the quiet.
Daeron receives it as though she has placed something fragile in his hands.
His eyes lift.
For a moment Nera sees precisely how drunk he is because his face does not protect him quickly enough. There is something there that looks almost like wanting and something immediately behind it trying to stamp the wanting out.
He looks away.
“At first.” He says.
Barely audible.
The words seem to surprise him once spoken.
His shoulders draw in by a fraction. His thumb begins moving again along the cup.
Nera understands enough not to mistake them.
He is not imagining that you will come to like him. Nothing in his posture contains that kind of confidence. Daeron does not look like a man imagining affection growing with familiarity.
Quite the reverse.
He looks like a man who has granted himself one brief interval before familiarity does its work.
At first.
Before you know which nights he drinks until he can barely stand. Before you learn how much easier he is when he has decided to make himself entertaining. Before whatever stories came south become ordinary household knowledge. Before he becomes exhausting rather than merely peculiar.
Perhaps, for a little while, you will not mind when he appears. Perhaps ignorance will purchase him a chair in the room.
It is not much of a future.
Nera has heard men ask the Gods for kingdoms with less hunger than Daeron seems to have invested in that small and fleeting future.
He drains the cup.
“She'll know soon enough.” There is no theatrical misery in the sentence. He says it as though explaining weather.
Nera reaches for the decanter before he does. She pours into her own cup first this time, then fills his.
Daeron watches the wine rise.
“You'll have time,” She says. It is so ordinary that Nera nearly forgets it the moment she has spoken.
Daeron does not.
“Time.”
He takes the cup but does not drink.
For several seconds his fingers simply rest around the stem.
Nera can almost see the word changing shape for him.
She had meant time to become accustomed. Time to learn one another's habits. The ordinary stretch of days that follows a wedding when two strangers stop being entirely strange.
Daeron seems to hear something else.
His eyes move toward nowhere in particular. Summerhall again, perhaps. Rooms. Meals. A door he will know is yours. Things carried north and left on tables because they belong there. Not one evening, not a paid room whose purpose ends when the candles burn down, not a woman who may decide there will be no next time.
Marriage.
The word has permanence built into it before affection ever enters.
“She has to stay.” Daeron says it almost absently.
Then something in him eases.
Not enough that another person might necessarily notice. Nera does because she has watched his body for years now in all the small ways that matter to her work. His shoulders drop a fraction. The restless movement of his thumb stops. His grip on the cup becomes suddenly still.
His eyes lose something too.
The anxious attention that has been jumping from her face to his wine to the room beyond them seems to fall away for one strange breath. He looks younger for it. More tired.
Relieved. Only a little. Enough.
Nera sees it. Daeron looks at her and he knows she has.
The relief disappears so quickly that it leaves the shame naked behind it.
“She has to stay.” He repeats.
The sentence has changed in his mouth.
The first time it had been almost soothing. The second carries all the pity he had been insisting upon earlier.
Poor woman.
She has to stay.
Nera hears both versions now, and from the look on Daeron's face, so does he.
For a moment neither of them moves.
A man taking comfort in the fact that his wife cannot easily leave him is not remarkable to Nera. She has heard worse from men with half his titles and twice his certainty. Men who speak of wives as acquisitions before the wedding feast is cold, who count obedience among a woman's virtues because obedience saves them the indignity of being refused. Husbands have sat on this same bed and laughed about the things marriage permits them to demand.
There is nothing novel in power making a man feel safe.
What is strange is Daeron's horror at finding himself comforted by a piece of power most husbands would never think to question.
He looks at Nera as if waiting.
She cannot tell for what.
Perhaps disgust. Perhaps contradiction. Perhaps for her to laugh and make the confession smaller than it has become. Perhaps some part of him wants her to tell him that he is wrong, that there is no permanence here, that the thought he has just spoken is too ugly to survive being said aloud.
Nera does none of those things.
What would she challenge? Marriage is marriage. Once the vows are said, you will be his wife. Barring death or some intervention of Gods or Kings, you will live where the marriage places you. That is the world as both of them know it. Daeron has not invented the structure simply because he is ashamed of benefiting from it.
So Nera shifts the loosened fabric higher on her chest and leaves the sentence where he put it.
Something in Daeron sinks.
Not exactly disappointment, more the look of a man who threw something ugly onto the floor expecting somebody else to kick it back at him and has instead been forced to look at it where it lies.
He takes a long drink.
“She'll hate it here.”
The retreat is almost clumsy, but Nera recognizes it anyway.
Back to Summerhall. Back to Dorne. Back to a future in which everything has already been decided against him and therefore nothing can surprise him.
“You don't know that.”
Daeron lets out a short breath.
“No,” His mouth twists around the admission. “No, apparently I know very little.”
He looks toward the cup again.
For a second she expects him to produce another fact about the Water Gardens merely to prove otherwise.
He doesn't.
“Perhaps she'll hate me first.”
There is the ghost of a joke in it, but no real expectation that Nera will laugh.
She doesn't.
Daeron drinks.
The wine has been moving through him steadily since Nera returned from the basin, and now it is beginning to show in ways he cannot entirely disguise. His movements remain deliberate, but deliberation itself has become visible. He places the cup rather than setting it down. When he reaches for the decanter, his hand corrects its path halfway there. The next swallow is larger than the last.
Nera watches his throat move.
He has spoken aloud a want tonight. She is not sure Daeron knows that is what happened.
He has called it pity, then rooms, then being a nuisance, then time.
Now stay.
The word appears to have frightened him more than any of the others.
He drinks again.
When he lowers the cup, his hand misses the table edge by the width of two fingers.
Glass strikes wood awkwardly.
Nera reaches out before she thinks and catches his wrist.
Daeron goes still.
Her fingers are around the pulse beneath his skin.
For one moment he looks down at the contact instead of at her face.
Nera remembers other nights. Wine handed into the same hand. His body quiet beneath hers. The sharp irritation when she stopped and made him notice himself.
She releases him.
Daeron draws the cup back, not quickly, but enough to put his hand wholly in his own keeping again.
“She can't just go,” His voice is quieter. Nera settles her hand in her lap. Daeron is staring at the table. “Not once it's done.”
A breath.
“She can't decide-…”
The sentence catches.
He closes his mouth, then opens it again as though there were several possible endings and none of them bear saying.
Nera waits.
“She can't just go.”
The second attempt comes almost without drunkenness.
That same terrible clarity.
His eyes lift to hers.
Nera understands more now than she did when he first said stay.
Not everything, but enough.
Most people in Daeron's life have reasons to be there that have nothing to do with him. Family, rank, employment, money. A room like this has an end built into its beginning. Nera stays because he pays her to stay; eventually one of them opens the door.
The woman he is going to marry will be different in one blunt, undeniable respect.
There will be another day.
Even if you dislike him. Even if you keep your own rooms and fill them so thoroughly with your own life that Daeron becomes no more than the occasional inconvenience crossing their threshold. Even if every visit ends with relief when he leaves.
There will still be a threshold he may, sometimes, cross.
Nera sees now why the thought has settled into him like warmth. And she sees that he despises the warmth for being there.
Daeron is still looking at her.
For one strange second she thinks he wants her to tell him that nothing is permanent.
That wives run away. That marriages can fail. That women disappear. That vows do not make people stay in all the ways that matter.
She could tell him any of those things and none would answer what he has actually said.
Once the marriage happens, there will simply be someone in the architecture of his future who is not there because he hired her for an evening.
Perhaps that is all he wants.
No.
Nera has listened to him too long tonight to believe that.
It is all he presently permits himself to want.
Daeron lifts the cup. Empty.
He looks into it as if surprised.
Nera waits for him to reach for the decanter.
He does not.
Instead he sets the cup down with exaggerated care. His palm remains against the tabletop for several seconds afterward, fingers spread against the wood.
Then he stands.
The chair legs scrape hard enough against the floor to make Nera straighten.
Daeron sways once. He catches the back of the chair and closes his eyes, waiting until whatever movement the room has taken upon itself settles again.
When he opens them, he looks at her.
Nera knows that look.
Not because it is seductive, it isn't.
There are nights when Daeron looks at her and she knows immediately that he wants her. Those nights have heat in them. Appetite. A particular alertness in the eyes and hands.
This is different, but she has seen this version too.
The restless man deciding he has talked enough. The prince who has reached some place inside his own head he does not intend to remain.
Whatever was exposed in him a moment ago begins shutting down behind his face.
He crosses the room.
No mention of his mother. No more Water Gardens. No sisters. No rooms waiting at Summerhall, no imagined chair placed carefully out of the way, no woman who may not mind him at first.
Daeron does not say wife again.
Or betrothed.
Or stay.
Nera has just enough time to put her cup aside before he reaches her.
His hand comes to her jaw with more certainty than anything he has done for the past several minutes. His thumb settles below her ear. For a heartbeat he simply holds her there, breathing wine between them.
Then he kisses her.
There is no clever line before it. No attempt to charm her into what both of them already know he paid for. No laughter.
Only after Daeron presses closer does she understand that he has not changed the subject. He has ended it.
Nera answers the kiss because answering it is easier than anything they have been doing for the better part of an hour.
There is nothing particularly unkind in that. It is simply familiar. She knows what Daeron wants when his hand comes around her jaw and his mouth finds hers, or knows enough that she no longer has to wonder what answer he expects from her. Dead mothers and Dornish brides are beyond the ordinary terms of their arrangement. This is not.
His mouth tastes strongly of wine, and for the first few breaths he kisses her with enough purpose that the conversation begins to recede almost at once. His other hand catches at the loosened back of her dress, finds fabric where he expected skin, and tugs with an impatience made clumsy by drink. Nera reaches behind herself and finishes the work he has started badly, letting the dress slip from one shoulder and then the other. Daeron helps shove it down her arms, gets the fabric caught around one wrist, and abandons the problem for her waist as soon as she steps free of it.
There is nothing hesitant in him now, which makes the change feel ordinary enough.
He came here to fuck. Whatever strange road he took getting to it, they have finally arrived.
Nera steps backward and Daeron follows until the backs of his knees meet the bed. He sits harder than he means to, a breath escaping him that nearly becomes a laugh, and catches himself with one hand against the mattress while she stands between his knees.
“Graceful.” She murmurs.
Daeron looks up at her, eyes bright and softened by the wine. “I have other virtues.”
“Do you?”
His mouth twists, but he does not bother finding the next answer. Usually he might. On another night she could regret giving him so much as a syllable to work with. Tonight his hands return to her instead, moving over her hips and beneath the loosened linen with the hurried familiarity of someone who already knows what is underneath.
Nera pushes his coat farther aside, then works at the remaining fastenings of his clothes while he kisses whatever skin comes within reach. His fingers are less precise than they would be sober, but not aimless. When he wants her nearer, he pulls her nearer; when something feels good enough to catch his attention, the attention comes with it.
That is useful enough.
She gets his shirt over his head. His undershirt follows. Daeron lifts his arms when she tells him to and lets the linen fall where it falls, then looks down as Nera drops to her knees between his legs.
The shift in him is immediate.
His hand comes to her hair, not forcing, only gathering it away from her face as she opens his breeches. By the time she takes him into her mouth, whatever faint abstraction had lingered after the conversation has been replaced by the much simpler demand of sensation.
Daeron exhales sharply, head tipping back.
There is no question that he likes this.
Nera knows men well enough not to confuse an erection with enthusiasm, but she does not need to. Daeron's body does not have to speak for him yet. His fingers tighten in her hair and then loosen when he remembers himself. His hips shift toward her before he checks the movement. When she changes the pressure of her mouth, he makes a low sound that has nothing performative in it, and when she pulls back long enough to look up, his eyes are already on her.
“Again.” He says.
Clear enough.
Nera lowers her head.
It has always been possible for Daeron to enjoy sex. Sometimes extravagantly so. There are nights when he arrives already laughing at something that happened elsewhere, kisses her against the door before she has even asked for payment, becomes impatient if she takes too long undressing, and spends the next hour behaving as though pleasure were something liable to be confiscated if he does not consume enough of it first. He can be greedy when he wants to be, chasing what feels good with a concentration that leaves surprisingly little room for irony.
Tonight is not quite one of those nights, but he is here for now, and Nera knows the difference.
She has one hand braced against his thigh while the other keeps him steady. The muscles beneath her palm tighten when she takes him deeper. Daeron's breath roughens, his head comes forward again, and his gaze finds her face before closing briefly when pleasure becomes large enough to make watching unnecessary.
This much needs no interpretation.
When Nera pulls back, Daeron's eyes open and he makes a dissatisfied sound that nearly makes her smile.
There he is.
The room becomes easier once there is something immediate for both of them to do. Clothing gathers around the bed. Daeron's remaining boot ends up kicked partly underneath it. Nera's dress lies where she stepped out of it. The lamp burns at her shoulder and the wine waits on the table.
The marriage does not.
There is no Martell woman behind Daeron's closed eyes, no imagined face replacing Nera's. Men do that too, and Nera would know the signs well enough: a wrong name, a request for hair arranged some particular way, eyes kept shut while a woman becomes useful chiefly because she resembles somebody else.
Daeron does not turn Nera into anyone. If anything, he seems intent upon removing people from the matter altogether.
He has spent too much of the evening making one unseen woman increasingly solid inside his own head. Now what he wants from Nera is simpler: mouth, heat, pressure, breath, something immediate enough that thought has no room to grow teeth.
Nera has been paid for stranger purposes.
She keeps going.
Daeron is still watching when it pleases him to watch, still reaching when he wants more. At one point he pushes the hair that has fallen over her cheek aside so he can see her, then swears under his breath when she does something particularly effective and closes his eyes anyway.
His body is becoming busier while the rest of him grows quieter.
That, too, is familiar.
On restless nights Daeron often seems dissatisfied if he leaves with too much strength remaining. He likes to spend it. Nera learned that before she ever bothered asking why. If he arrives pacing, he generally wants to leave with legs that feel heavier than they did coming in. Sometimes pleasure is clearly the point. Sometimes pleasure merely helps.
Tonight, tiredness appears to be part of what he is buying.
Nera lets him have enough of the first before she stops.
Daeron looks down at her, breathing hard, and for a moment there is a clear flash of irritation at the interruption. Then she rises. His hand catches her waist before she is fully upright and pulls her between his knees.
He kisses her again.
The urgency has a different texture now than it did at the beginning. Not greater. More directed, as though the fact of continuing matters more than what precisely comes next.
Nera does not bother naming the difference.
She climbs onto the bed with him, and Daeron follows.
For a while they remain on their sides, kissing, hands moving with the fluent lack of ceremony that comes from repetition. He knows where she likes to be touched because she has corrected him before. She knows which parts of him are more responsive after wine and which become numb first. There is no romance in competence, but there is ease.
When she rolls him onto his back, he lets her. When she shifts astride him, his hands settle on her hips.
Nera lowers herself onto him slowly enough to watch his face. Daeron's eyes close and his fingers tighten hard against her skin. She pauses until the first strain leaves his mouth, then begins to move.
His hips answer hers.
For several minutes there is nothing particularly strange in any of it. Daeron watches her when he opens his eyes. He changes angle when something feels better. When Nera shifts her weight in a way that catches him unexpectedly, he gives one short, startled laugh against her shoulder, almost boyish in its lack of defense.
The sound nearly makes the whole evening ordinary.
Then his gaze slips past her.
The table.
Nera follows it without needing to turn her head completely. The wine is where she left it.
Still moving slowly above him, she reaches back and puts the cup in his hand.
Daeron drinks without breaking the rhythm between them, one hand still spread over her hip while the other lifts the wine. The gesture is so familiar that neither of them gives it ceremony.
He drinks too much for one swallow.
Nera waits until he lowers the cup, takes it from him, and sets it within reach again before continuing.
Later the sequence repeats without either of them speaking. This time Daeron's hand begins moving toward the table before his eyes open, and Nera sees it soon enough to place the cup into his fingers.
Wine. Sex. Movement. Breath.
The narrowing works.
Daeron becomes quieter, though at first the quiet feels like nothing more than the ordinary consequence of exertion. His breathing has grown too rough for conversation to be worth the trouble, and Nera has no need to fill the room simply because he has stopped doing so himself. She has had enough of his talking tonight.
His responses remain clear in other ways. When she changes pace, he reacts. When she touches him in a way he likes, his hips follow. When she moves his hand somewhere useful, sometimes his fingers close and do what she expects.
Sometimes they simply stay where she puts them.
Nera notices because noticing is part of the work.
She does not immediately care.
Daeron has surrendered choices to her before. Sometimes he plainly enjoys it. There are nights when being told where to lie, where to put his hands, how she wants him seems to free enough of him that he becomes more attentive rather than less.
So when Nera slows and asks, “What do you want?” she only needs to decide what they are doing next.
Daeron's eyes open halfway.
“Whatever you like.”
Nera waits perhaps a second.
The answer is not unusual.
She chooses something she knows works.
Daeron lets her arrange him without complaint, and when she begins again his body responds so strongly that any reason to question the choice disappears into the reaction itself. He swears under his breath, fingers twisting into the sheet as his hips move toward her rather than waiting.
Nera keeps going.
For a while pleasure itself seems to make him more present. He reaches for her, pulls her down, kisses her with enough interest that she has to turn her head to breathe. When she shifts to something else, he follows readily.
Then the intensity settles.
Daeron's eyes close again.
Nera changes the rhythm.
“Like that?”
“Yes.”
She continues.
A little later she begins, “Or do you want-…”
“Yes.”
Nera's hand pauses.
He has not heard the question.
The realization is irritating before it is troubling. Daeron lies with his face turned slightly toward the pillow, eyes still closed, breath coming hard through parted lips. He does not seem aware that anything has gone wrong.
Nera waits just long enough for him to notice the pause.
He opens his eyes, not fully.
“You know what you're doing.” He says.
The words are tired rather than flattering. That is the answer he meant to give.
Nera looks at him for another moment.
She does know what she is doing. That is part of what he pays for.
So she chooses.
No second question, no need to make him sit up inside himself and produce a preference he has already told her he does not care to produce.
The sex resumes, and Daeron follows whatever she sets without complaint.
For a time that is all.
Nera notices that he has begun allowing her to move him rather than moving with her. She changes their position and he goes where she puts him. She pushes one of his knees higher and it remains there. She catches his wrist, places his hand at her waist, and his fingers close only after a delay.
His body keeps answering, which makes most of the rest easy to ignore.
His breathing changes when something feels good. His muscles tighten. His hips still move toward certain sensations even if he no longer bothers adjusting for them afterward.
Pleasure continues to reach him.
What changes is what he does with it.
Earlier, when something felt particularly good, Daeron chased it. Now pleasure seems to occupy him for the length of the sensation and then pass through. He does not reach for more. He takes whatever Nera gives him and waits for whatever comes after.
The effort appears to matter more.
Nera lets him roll them again when he shows enough initiative to do so. Above her, he works harder. His arm begins trembling beside her head. Sweat gathers at his temples and darkens his hair. His breathing becomes rougher, and with every minute his body looks less capable of carrying thought anywhere useful.
This appears to suit him.
Nera knows how to make the work easier.
She doesn't.
Daeron seems to want the effort itself, so she lets him spend what remains.
The next time his arm gives enough that she has to move them, he lets himself be put back onto the mattress with hardly any reaction beyond the physical adjustment required. Nera climbs over him again and he accepts her weight, eyes already closing.
For a while she does not look at his face at all. There is no reason to.
She has a living body beneath her, responsive enough, cooperative, still capable of pleasure. Daeron initiated. Daeron told her to choose. Years ago he told her what not to mistake for refusal.
Those facts are there whether she thinks about them or not.
Nera works.
Then his hair falls into his face.
One wet strand has plastered itself across his forehead and nearly into his eye. Nera pushes it back without thinking, fingertips passing over his temple as she sweeps it away.
Daeron's eyes open all at once.
His breath catches so abruptly that Nera feels the change through both of them, and the hand that had gone loose against her side closes hard around her waist.
He looks directly at her.
For one second the difference is unmistakable.
There he is.
Nera stills.
The thought that follows is less welcome.
If that is him returning, then he had been somewhere else.
Daeron seems to take stock of her face, the room, the body beneath and around him. Recognition arrives quickly. So does embarrassment.
He turns his head away from her fingers.
“Wine.”
The word brings back another room so briefly that Nera almost misses it.
Daeron against a pillow. Her hands stopping because something about his face looked wrong.
Wine.
His hand begins reaching toward the table.
Nera is slower this time. Not much. Long enough to look at him.
Daeron reaches farther, so she gives him the cup.
He drinks as though two seconds had become an inconvenience. His breathing is too hard for the amount he tries to swallow, and wine slips from the corner of his mouth toward his jaw.
Nera's hand starts up automatically, but she stops it. Daeron does not notice, or does not care.
He drinks again and hands the cup back.
Nera sets it down.
Daeron reaches for her.
The kiss is hard enough to end whatever thought had begun between them. His hand finds her hip, and he shifts them with more purpose than he has shown in several minutes, drawing her closer and restoring the rhythm himself.
Nera follows.
That, more than anything she could ask him, tells her what she needs to know for the moment.
He wants the encounter to continue.
The fact that he wants it for reasons Nera is beginning to dislike does not make her particularly eager to stop and investigate those reasons. She has already investigated more of Prince Daeron Targaryen tonight than she wanted.
So they keep going.
The difference is that Nera notices more now that she has seen him come back.
His eyes close again after some time. His hand loosens. When she changes position, he accepts it without much interest in whether the new one is better. His body remains responsive enough that there is no clean point where everything turns from wanted into unwanted.
There is only less Daeron in each response.
Nera does not make a study of it. She has work to finish.
What bothers her most at first is the inconvenience of having noticed at all.
He has always been strange in bed on certain nights. He has always drunk. He has always had moods in which preference seemed like an irritation he wished somebody else would carry for him. Years ago, when Nera stopped because she thought he looked wrong, he had been perfectly clear.
I didn't ask you to stop.
She accepted the correction then.
It is easier to continue accepting it now.
Daeron's body grows progressively more exhausted beneath her. His thighs have begun to tremble. Sweat shines across his chest. His breathing is harsh enough that when he does make a sound, it is difficult to tell whether he intended it.
Nera slows once because the strain looks unpleasant.
Daeron immediately moves against her, asking without words for the pace back.
She gives it to him.
The breath that leaves him sounds almost relieved.
That is when Nera begins to understand that feeling good is no longer the thing he is chasing most intently.
He wants the work, the fatigue, the point at which muscle refuses another repetition and the body becomes too cumbersome for whatever mind is trapped inside it.
Pleasure helps because it is loud. Wine helps because it dulls the edges. Being moved helps because a body being told what to do does not have to choose.
Nera has known all of those facts separately for some time, she has simply never bothered putting them together.
Daeron's eyes are closed again. Nera cannot remember how long they have been that way.
That bothers her enough to interrupt once.
“Daeron?”
His name feels odd in her mouth. She almost never uses it.
His eyes open after a beat and find her. Recognition is immediate, as is the faint irritation.
Nera dislikes that she can recognize it now.
“Still want this?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation. He means it, and Nera believes him.
Daeron reaches for her hip and deliberately pulls her back into the movement she interrupted, his own body answering with enough purpose to make the question feel almost unnecessary after the fact.
Nera does not ask another.
He wants her to keep going.
She does.
The problem, insofar as there is one, is no longer whether he wants continuation. The problem is that he appears increasingly indifferent to everything except what continuation eventually does to him.
Nera does not care enough to solve that problem for him tonight.
Stopping would mean making him present again. Another conversation, another look like the one he gave her years ago when she mistook whatever was happening inside him for a request he had not made. Perhaps he would be embarrassed. Perhaps angry. Perhaps simply leave.
More immediately, Nera wants to be finished.
Daeron plainly does too.
So she begins taking them there.
She keeps the pace that spends him fastest. When his hand slides from her waist and lands uselessly against the mattress, she leaves it there. When she changes the angle and his body reacts hard enough to pull a broken sound from him, she does not wait to see whether he wants more of the same.
She already knows what will get them to the end.
His body is still aroused and responsive. There is no uncertainty about that. What has changed, it seems, is the direction of his hunger.
Earlier, pleasure made him greedy, now it happens to him and passes. What he pursues is the collapse behind it.
Nera sees that clearly enough and feels no revelation attached to the knowledge. It is simply another fact about him, uglier than most and perhaps more useful.
She slows slightly when his breathing becomes ragged.
Daeron's brow tightens though his eyes stay closed.
“Don't,” Nera keeps moving, but the pace has altered. Daeron swallows. “Don't stop.”
Quiet. Clear. No confusion in it.
Nera looks at him for a moment and then obeys.
That is the simplest part of the whole night. He told her not to stop, so she doesn't.
The old words sit easily beside the new ones.
I didn't ask you to stop.
Whatever else is wrong with this, Daeron has at least been consistent about that.
Nera lets the pace build again.
His body is nearing its limit. She can see it in the tremor running through his thighs and stomach, in the way each breath comes less controlled than the last, in the muscles tightening involuntarily whenever sensation becomes too large to remain background.
His eyes remain shut.
For an instant, when pleasure crests hard enough, he surfaces simply because his body gives him no choice. His mouth tightens and his hips move with a final urgency that belongs as much to reflex as intention.
Then the tension breaks.
His whole body locks beneath her, shuddering with the involuntary force of release before the effort suddenly goes out of him.
There is nothing graceful in it, nothing like the laughing pleasure Nera has seen from him on better nights, when climax made him reach for more rather than fall away from whatever had brought him there.
His fingers release the sheet. His head turns toward the pillow, and his breathing remains harsh for several moments before beginning slowly to lengthen.
Nera waits until she is sure he is finished moving and shifts away.
Daeron does not object.
His eyes stay closed.
The room smells of wine, sweat, hot wax and sex. Somewhere beyond the wall somebody laughs and another voice answers. The world outside the bed has continued perfectly well without either of them.
Nera reaches for the cloth beside the basin.
Her hand passes near the table and, for one automatic second, angles toward the wine instead.
She stops.
Daeron has not asked.
Nera looks at him.
His face has gone loose with exhaustion. Not peaceful, simply spent enough that whatever had been driving him has finally lost the strength to keep driving.
The sight calls up another night, then another, none of them important enough individually to deserve contemplation: a face turned into a pillow while she made the choices, a hand reaching for wine without eyes opening, Daeron arriving restless and leaving barely capable of dressing himself.
Nera has seen him like this before. That is enough.
She does not need to sit beside him and decide how many times, or which nights, or whether every silence meant the same thing. There were nights he wanted sex with uncomplicated appetite; she knows because she was there. There were nights when he wanted something else from it as well.
Apparently this was one of them.
Perhaps she has helped him do this more often than she realized. The thought lands without demanding guilt. He pays her. He comes back. He has told her what he wants when she stops.
Nera knows what to give him when he has no interest in choosing. She knows which kind of exertion leaves him weak enough to sleep, and when a reaching hand means wine before his mouth bothers making the request. Above all, she knows that Daeron would rather she continue through his misery than make him explain it.
Tonight has not made a different man out of him. It has only made the pattern easier to see.
Nera lowers her hand without giving him the wine and reaches for the cloth instead.
Daeron breathes on, too tired now to resist whatever quiet the body has finally forced upon him.
For a little while after Nera moves away from him, Daeron does nothing at all.
His breathing is still too rough for sleep, each breath lifting his chest sharply before letting it fall again, the rhythm gradually losing the urgency it had a few minutes before. Sweat cools along his throat and beneath the dark hair stuck to his forehead. One hand lies open on the sheet where it fell when his grip finally gave out; the other rests awkwardly against his stomach, as though he meant to move it somewhere more comfortable and forgot halfway through.
Nera sits on the edge of the bed long enough to wipe herself clean. There is no reason to hurry now.
The room has gone very still around them, though not with the earlier kind of stillness, when Daeron sat turning a cup between his hands and every pause threatened to produce another sister, another Water Garden, another dead princess. This silence contains nothing Nera is waiting for him to say.
His eyes remain closed. His fingers no longer worry at anything. Whatever restlessness had kept finding its way into his hands all evening appears finally to have been spent out of them.
Nera rinses the cloth in the basin and wrings it once. Behind her, Daeron shifts only enough to make the mattress move. His breathing catches briefly and settles again.
She glances over her shoulder.
He has not opened his eyes.
Nera washes herself properly, dries her hands on the least damp part of the cloth, and begins looking for her clothes. Her dress is crumpled beside the bed where it fell earlier. One stocking lies neatly enough near the footboard; the other has somehow found its way underneath Daeron's discarded shirt.
She bends to retrieve it and finds his boot still in the middle of the floor, the same one she kicked aside before they began. Nera nudges it out of her path again.
Daeron makes a small sound at that, though whether he heard the boot scrape or merely dislikes the bed shifting beneath him she cannot tell.
She straightens with the stocking in hand. Part of her dress has caught beneath his calf.
“Move your leg.”
Nothing.
Nera looks at him. “Move.”
Daeron's brow creases faintly.
“Am I in the way?” The words come so slowly that she almost laughs.
“Yes.”
He appears to consider this accusation without opening his eyes, then shifts his leg perhaps two inches. Nera tugs at the dress. It remains trapped.
She pulls harder.
Daeron opens one eye.
“You are remarkably demanding after the fact.”
There is hardly enough strength in the line to make it wit. It arrives more as habit, the remains of Daeron's usual instinct to put something between himself and being inconvenienced.
“You are lying on my clothes.”
“Mm.”
He lifts his leg properly this time, and Nera frees the dress before he can change his mind. The moment the fabric is gone, Daeron lets the leg fall again and closes his eye.
There. Enough of him remains to be troublesome.
Nera leaves him to it.
She dresses without ceremony, drawing the stockings back over skin still warm from the bed and shaking out the worst of the creases in her dress before stepping into it. The room looks different now that the work of the night is over. There are always a few minutes afterward when everything has to remember what it was before bodies began knocking it out of place: the basin carried too near the bed, clothes over chairs meant to be sat in, cups abandoned wherever a hand last needed them.
Nera puts things back because she will want them where they belong tomorrow. That is all.
When she turns toward the bed again, Daeron has begun to shiver, barely more than a tightening through his shoulders and then another. His skin is cooling quickly now that he is no longer moving. The flush of exertion has faded from his chest, though the wine remains high across his cheeks.
There is a blanket bunched near his hip, and Daeron seems to become aware of it at roughly the same moment Nera does. Without opening his eyes, he reaches down. His fingers search badly along the sheet until they catch an edge and pull.
The blanket slides crookedly across his stomach and one thigh before snagging beneath the other leg.
Daeron stops.
For several seconds Nera expects him to free it. He would have to shift his weight.
Apparently that is too much to ask.
He leaves himself half covered, one leg still bare from the knee down and most of one shoulder exposed where the blanket has twisted across him. Nera watches just long enough to be certain he is finished trying, then turns away.
If he wakes cold, he can discover blankets again.
She begins fastening the back of her dress as far as she can reach without the mirror.
The wine is still on the table. Daeron's cup sits less than an arm's length from the bed, perhaps closer than the blanket he failed to arrange properly. Nera moves it farther from the edge before he knocks it over in his sleep.
Daeron's eyelids flicker at the small sound of glass against wood.
For a moment she thinks he might reach for it, but he doesn't.
The cup remains where she put it.
That is unusual enough for Nera to notice and ordinary enough, given the state of him, that she does nothing with the observation. He has finally reached whatever point he was trying to reach. Another drink would require lifting his head, and apparently even wine has become more trouble than it is worth.
Nera crosses to the mirror.
Her hair is a mess. Several strands are still damp along her neck, and there is no point attempting to restore the arrangement she wore earlier. She finds the pins in the little dish where she left them and begins gathering enough of her hair to keep it out of her face.
In the mirror, Daeron lies behind her.
Earlier he had occupied the reflection almost constantly, sitting in the chair with the cup, watching her take her hair down, appearing faintly affronted whenever she failed to follow some conversation he had apparently continued entirely inside his own head.
Now he barely changes from one glance to the next: half covered, one leg bare, head turned toward the pillow, the wine beside him untouched. His breathing is slower each time Nera looks.
She finds one earring on the table and the other near the leg of the chair. The second has somehow rolled beneath the edge of Daeron's coat. She retrieves it, wipes it with the corner of the cloth, and puts both back on.
Behind her, Daeron says nothing.
Nera puts another pin into her hair and, when nothing follows, another. After several minutes she begins to think he has fallen asleep.
That would not be unusual.
There have been other nights when Daeron has paid for the room and then continued using it long after he had any need of Nera. The first few times, she assumed he was simply too drunk to stand.
Sometimes he was.
Other times he would lie much as he does now, spent enough to sleep for an hour or two with a heaviness she rarely saw in him otherwise. Then something would wake him: a sound from the corridor, the wine wearing thin, whatever happened inside his head once his body had gathered enough strength to become troublesome again.
He would dress, usually badly, and leave.
Sometimes he went back to Summerhall. Sometimes, Nera suspected, he went somewhere else and started the whole business over again. Another tavern. Another bed. Another cup. Perhaps another woman if the night was long enough and Daeron sufficiently determined to outlast himself.
She never asked.
Men paid for rooms by the hour. What they did with the hours after leaving hers was their own affair.
Now she understands one part of the habit a little better.
He sleeps after.
Not always, but enough.
His body can sometimes be worked into surrender when the rest of him will not agree to it.
Nera finds the last hook at the back of her dress and wrestles it closed, then looks at him again in the mirror. The thought that he may sleep there for some time creates a practical question.
“Are you sleeping here?”
Daeron does not answer immediately.
Nera waits with one hand still lifted to her hair until a sound comes from the bed.
“What?”
“I asked if you're sleeping here.”
Another pause.
“For a while.”
The words are muffled into the pillow.
Nera nods to herself. That is answer enough.
She has no objection. He has paid, more than paid, and it is not the first time she has left him asleep after everything else is done. She has never found the experience particularly intimate. A man snoring in a rented bed is still a client, whatever poets might think of shared pillows.
She returns to her hair. Daeron's eyes do not open again.
Minutes pass while Nera takes down one pin because it pulls too tightly at her scalp and tries another place. She rinses the cup she used herself but leaves Daeron's where it is. His shirt comes off the floor and onto the back of the chair where he might find it without searching, his coat joining it a moment later.
That much, she has to admit, is self-interest. A half-awake prince hunting for his clothes is considerably more irritating than a sleeping one.
The room resumes its usual shape one object at a time: basin back near the wall, dress fastened, pins gathered. The boots can remain Daeron's problem.
The lamp burns lower.
Outside, someone laughs in another room and is shushed. A door closes farther down the corridor. Footsteps pass and fade.
Daeron sleeps through all of it. Or seems to.
His face has gone slack in the mirror. Not peaceful; Nera will not give him that word. There is too much wine in him and too much effort behind the exhaustion for peace to have much to do with it.
He simply looks emptied out.
Manageable, perhaps. The body has finally become heavy enough that whatever usually keeps him moving cannot lift it.
His fingers stir once against the blanket while Nera happens to be looking into the glass. They curl and loosen again. His lips move, though no sound reaches her.
She puts another pin into her hair.
A little later something else comes from the bed, low enough that she cannot understand it.
Nera glances at him in the mirror.
“What?”
For a moment she thinks he has already slipped too far under to answer.
Then Daeron murmurs, “Her sister.”
Nera's hand stops halfway to the next pin.
He has not moved. His eyes remain closed, his face turned partly into the pillow.
“What about her?”
Daeron breathes in slowly.
“One of them is coming.”
The words are soft enough that Nera waits a moment afterward to make certain there is nothing else. There isn't.
For several seconds she simply looks at his reflection.
His wife.
The thought arrives so naturally that Nera nearly misses it.
Then she catches herself.
Betrothed.
Gods, now he has her doing it.
The amusement that comes with that is small and private and gone almost immediately, because she had thought the subject dead. Not merely paused, but gone.
Daeron has spent the better part of the night drinking himself stupid, talking until talk exposed more than he wanted exposed, then using her body until he was too exhausted to pull a blanket properly over his own legs. He has not mentioned the Martell woman once since crossing the room to kiss her.
And now, at the edge of sleep, there is a sister.
One of them is coming. Another scrap.
Nera reaches for the next pin.
“You said.”
Daeron's brow moves faintly.
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
He makes a quiet sound that may mean he accepts this information, or perhaps he has already forgotten the exchange.
Nera waits.
Nothing follows.
She returns to her hair.
Behind her, Daeron breathes evenly for several moments before mumbling something else into the pillow. Nera cannot make out a word of it and this time does not bother asking.
Whatever it is can remain his.
She finishes pinning her hair.
The mirror gives her the whole room at once: the low lamp, the discarded boot, the coat she has put over the chair, the cup of wine standing untouched beside the bed, and Daeron behind it all.
Half naked and badly covered, one leg left outside the blanket because pulling it in would require more effort than he has left. Drunk. Spent. Nearly asleep in a whore's bed.
The prince who had spent the evening building a future out of scraps has finally exhausted himself into silence.
Almost.
The last clear thing he managed to say was another fact about the woman he is going to marry.
Nera looks at him once more in the glass, lowers her hands from her hair, and lets him sleep.
Thank you so much for reading, please let me know your thoughts!
summary: gwayne visits the honey inn when he returns home from the war, where he pays for your company by the hour, and where ormund finds something he'd much rather keep. and with the city about to fall or hold to the black army, every hightower intends to find a use for you before it does. (8k)
contents: sex worker!reader, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, love triangle, hurt/comfort, angst, jealousy, bi!gwayne, protective!gwayne, possessive!ormund, cw for manipulation, coercion, smut 18+ (MDNI) unprotected sex, exhibitionism/voyeurism, sub!gwayne, dom!ormund, dubcon
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
gif creds: vhagar-balerion-meraxes
Gwayne’s arrival from the slaughter of war is announced, not by a knock, but by the low groaning of an old door thrown open on its hinges — as though he had forgotten such courtesies existed after so long on the road. You turn upon your vanity stool to find the man swaying in the doorframe, backlit by the torches burning low on their sconces. And, for a flicker of a moment, you do not recognize him at all.
He wears the road all over. Mud caked to the knee and smeared dark across his porcelain skin. Blood gone the color of rust-brown stained on the collar of his quilted gambeson, though whether it is his own or some stranger’s you could not say — and you do not think he could give you an answer if you asked. His long auburn hair hangs over his forehead, dark and clinging to his skin from the sweat along his brow.
He longs to fill his lungs with the familiar, floral scent of your apartment at The Honey Inn, but cannot seem to escape the smell of copper and horse and dirty earth that’s been clinging to every inch of him on the unforgiving road.
“Well… Look at what the storm’s dragged in…” you croon at the sight of him, rising slowly from your chair. You flash the man a smile in turn, because there’s something distinctly heavy in the moment that seems to beg for a bit of lightness to cut through it. “It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten whether I should curtsy… Or kneel.”
Gwayne gives you nothing in response.
For the first time since you met — late in your adolescence, when he needed something to prove and you needed coin to make; when everything between you was all warm cheeks and trembling hands — Gwayne is at a loss for a clever word, and unmoved by the slyness of your grin. He closes the distance between you instead, flinging the door shut behind him with a careless hand and staggering with each uneven step.
You meet him in the center of the expansive apartment — paid for, in part, by his Hightower coin alone. You hold him tentatively by the forearms, and feel the worn wool crack stiff with dried mud. “Gwayne…” you murmur gently to him, all the mockery long gone from your voice. You search his empty face with worried eyes. “Look at me— Are you hurt?”
He does not answer that either. Instead, his trembling hands lift to find your waist. The callouses along his palms snag briefly in the soft silk of your robe. He finds himself very suddenly overcome by the familiarity of having you in his arms again; a nostalgia that rises in his throat and strangles him. His dirty chin quivers as he leans further into you, burying his face in the crook of your shoulder and knotting his fists hard into your dress.
You feel the trembling start in his shoulders before you feel something warm and wet smear along your collarbone. The man weeps over you with great, shuddering snivels that he hides into your neck. It is the most vulnerable you’ve ever seen him, you think, even more so than the day you met — when all the other highborn boys teased him for his lack of experience, saying that he must not have the appetite for women, and sent him scrambling here to prove himself.
He found you instead; a girl of his age, new to both Oldtown and the Honey Inn. A girl who saw right through him and refused to take his coin, or anything else he offered that night; but embellished enough stories that made all the taunting whispers about him finally stop. It was a small kindness, though one that threatened to undo him entirely.
He’s warmed your bed ever since, both as client and something less easily named. You hold him now the same way you did that first night, asking nothing of him and expecting even less.
You draw him a bath once his breaths come more easily to him. You peel the ruined gambeson and sweat-stiff small clothes from his pale skin, and make no comment about how thin he’s grown as you lower him into the steaming water. The water runs brown, then dusty rose, and then finally clear as you work a soft cloth over his skin. Across his shoulders, down his spine, and over the frail skin of his hairless chest.
“You needn’t—” Gwayne attempts to speak, his very first words since he crossed your threshold, though his voice comes out cracked and low with disuse. He feels half smothered beneath the foreign tenderness you offer him, but he does not flinch under your touch. He never has. “You needn’t do this for me, you know?”
“I know…” you nod and smooth the cloth along the milky-white column of his throat when he tips his chin to look at you, kneeling just outside the tub. “But I want to.”
When the warm water cools, you towel him dry and dress him in clothes a size too big for his frame — softly worn trousers and a loose linen tunic; souvenirs from previous patrons, washed by your own hands. Gwayne tries not to think about who might have shared your bed while he laid shivering in the mud. It was much easier to imagine you as his and only his, though he’s never quite found the courage to ask that of you.
“I’m sorry,” he says from where he lies within your silken sheets, wrapped in the sweet scent of your perfume and the particular stench of sweat that clings to the walls of the establishment. He doesn’t ask if you’ve taken clients today; he doesn’t want to know the answer — but the hour is early enough that he lets himself believe his body is the only one your hands have touched so far.
“For what?” you scoff, sliding beneath the cool sheets to join him. The feather mattress dips slightly under your weight until your legs tangle with his scruffy ones out of habit. “For tracking half the Kingsroad across my good Naathi rug? Because Mistress Aleena will absolutely dock you for it— whether you bought it or not.”
Gwayne exhales hard through his nose in place of a laugh, pink lips curling into a tired grin. “For all of it,” he says, pale eyes as dull and empty as his voice. “For… coming here like a beggar, for… crying on you like a child. For—”
“Gwayne,” you sigh, splaying a free hand over the newfound hollow of his jaw. “You have nothing to apologize for. Not tonight, not ever if I have any say on the matter. Do you understand?”
Gwayne’s eyes soften around the edges as they flit back and forth between your steady gaze. His chapped lips part but cannot seem to summon an answer for you. Your soft grin widens into a more devilish thing as your hand trails down the curve of his jaw, past his sternum still flushed from the bath, and over the soft trail of auburn hair above the hem of his trousers.
“I said…” Your fingers creep beneath the fabric to find the dense patch of coarse hair there. “Do you understand?”
The words of a response die on his tongue when your palm squeezes gently at his cock, soft like velvet and achingly sensitive under your touch. A broken sigh spills from his parted mouth as he tips his head back, damp auburn hair wild on the pillow. He twitches slowly stiff in your hand, dribbling pearls of pre-cum at the soft pink tip that you use to lubricate each slow stroke.
He only vaguely feels the tip of your nose nudging the side of his, right before you press a tender kiss to his chapped mouth. He exhales hard through his nose as your lips slot effortlessly together, breath fanning warm along your cupid’s bow. His hips buck up into your hand with a sort of desperation you haven’t seen from him in quite some time, and your mouth curls into a smile pressed against his.
The distant creaking of the fourth step in the hall — an old plank that’s had a way of warning you of every approaching patron since you first took this room — shatters the moment entirely. Your head tilts upward against Gwayne’s when the heavy oak door swings open without a pretense of a knock, as if the man on the other side didn’t know that closed doors in a house like these only ever meant one thing.
Gwayne makes a weak, wounded sound in his throat when your hand slows around his cock. “Why’d you stop?” he mutters against your mouth, heavy eyes fluttering open to find you glancing off towards the door.
“It seems like we have company…” you croon with a smile.
Gwayne’s brows lower in confusion right before his head turns against the pillow. The screwed look drains into something far closer to dread when his eyes fall on his cousin looming in the doorway — standing a head taller and twice as broad through the shoulders. He reaches for the silver pomander chained perpetually to his scabbard and lifts it to his nose. His nostrils flare as he inhales the earthy incense, trying hopelessly to escape the stench of sex clinging to the walls of the Honey Inn.
You knew Ormund Hightower mostly by reputation rather than appearance. He’s handsome in the manner that most Hightower men were handsome, and chiseled cold in a manner that suggests all the unkind stories Gwayne’s told you about the man over the years were likely unembellished.
“So… This is where you’ve run off to,” Ormund says in a melodic voice as he strolls further inside. He scans the room with pale, attentive eyes — the tub running low by the window, the discarded clothes just beside it, and his cousin freshly home from war and spending his return in a whore’s bed. A thin smile curls at the corner of his mouth accordingly: “I confess, I do find myself surprised, cousin… I hadn’t realized you possessed the… appetite for this sort of thing…”
Gwayne goes rigid underneath you while his cock softens once more in your fist. An age-old humiliation flickers behind his eyes — the same look you remember seeing on him all those years ago.
“It’ll cost you extra if you mean to join us, my lord,” you call to the older man, with an ease about you that suggests you’re utterly unbothered by an audience. Your head tilts to your shoulder as you study the man, eyes raking slowly over his broad form. “Though I’d wager you have more than enough coin for it… And the face for it, too, no doubt…”
Ormund’s chest burns with a strange mixture of offense and pride. His strong, shaven chin lifts slightly upward as he drops the pomander back on its chain, giving you the whole of his attention now. “My faith does not permit such… indulgences,” he says in a smooth voice. “As I’m sure you very well know.”
“Mm… Well, if the Seven are half as kind as everyone insists, they wouldn’t begrudge a man for having a little fun now and then,” you answer without missing a beat. “Could do wonders for you, my lord— You look dreadfully tense.”
Ormund’s pale eyes do not stray from your squinted stare. There’s something almost involuntary in it, in the way his gaze snags and catches with yours — even when your hand starts moving again under the blankets and Gwayne’s pale form tenses beneath your touch.
“Well…” Ormund hums, trying hard not to choke on his embarrassment. “You’re a bold thing, aren’t you? For a woman who sells herself by the hour.”
“And you’re a bold thing for walking into a lady’s room uninvited, my lord,” you quip and watch him falter at the volley. You turn back to Gwayne with a huff, and swing your leg to straddle his thigh as you call back to the older man, “You can watch if you like. Or wait your turn in the hall— Either way, I’m afraid I’m with a patron at present.”
Gwayne’s eyes you with a wide, worried gaze as you coax him hard again with your hand. You swipe your thumb over the bulbous tip and gather the pearly beads drooling there, before lining him at the entrance of your cunt. His pale hands settle on either side of your waist, clenching hard at the delicate fabric of your robe. Any words of protest that might’ve risen onto his tongue dissolve into a broken moan when you pierce yourself with him, slow and without concern for the man still standing across the room.
Ormund lingers there for a while longer than he’d like to admit. He tells himself that the sour feeling curling in his stomach is disgust — decent and godly disgust that any devout man ought to feel at such a display. He, admittedly, has always been good at telling himself things.
But still, his feet do not move. And the longer he watches your hips move slowly on top of Gwayne’s — the sight of it only partially shielded by your robe and the sheets gathered at your thighs — the harder it becomes to name the thing coiled in his chest. A curiosity, perhaps, of what your hips would feel like in his hands; of what it would feel like to be nestled in your cunt—
Ormund despises himself the moment the thought surfaces, for how long the dreadful image lingers in the back of his head before he can shake it away.
He turns on his heel and storms towards the door with a mixture of jealousy and disgust and distant intrigue rising into his throat like bile. He pulls the heavy oak shut behind him with a resounding thud that fills the quiet room.
Gwayne shakes his head against the pillow when he’s finally gone. His pale eyes are still wide with alarm but glassy with a lingering pleasure too, as you continue grinding your hips over his lap. Your velvety cunt squeezes him with each pass, threatening to milk his orgasm from him entirely.
“You should not have done that,” he confesses breathlessly, and wears the warning etched across his pretty features.
“Done what?” you respond through panted breaths, bracing yourself on his soft chest. “Defended you? Dreadfully sorry, my lord— next time I’ll let him have the last word—”
“That’s not—” He inhales sharply and grabs hard at your waist to stop your movements, so that he might concentrate on something other than your warm, drooling cunt for more than a second. Gwayne peers up at you with a suddenly solemn look. “He’ll want it now. My cousin— What he saw now in this room. He’ll want it now simply because it’s mine.”
You arch a brow in a playful look. “So I’m yours now, am I?” you joke.
Gwayne exhales hard through his nose when you fail to heed his warning with any real seriousness, chest deflating under your touch. Your smile only widens at the half-hearted glare he gives you then.
“You don’t know him the way I do,” he mutters.
“No. I don’t,” you agree, planting your palms on either side of his head as you lean down over him again. The plush of your breasts threatens to spill over the low neckline of your robe; you smile when you catch Gwayne’s unabashed staring. “And I’d very much like to keep it that way… Which is a pity because I might’ve made an exception for that face of his… A shame, really, that the Gods wasted such a pretty face on such an unpleasant man…”
Gwayne’s mouth lifts into a crooked smile despite himself. “You’re going to be the death of one of us, you know that?” he tells you, close enough now that your noses brush with every word. “Though I can’t be entirely sure which…”
“Mm…” you hum, and feel Gwayne’s chest rumble with a groan when you roll your hips over his again. “I do hope it’s the more tiresome cousin then.”
You kiss him before Gwayne can argue the point. And this time, he does not pull away — and he does not for a long while after.
Gwayne makes himself at home in your bed the way he has since boyhood. He returns not quite a week later, when word of Criston Cole’s death reaches Oldtown — his handsome head struck from his shoulder and mounted on a pike by the Winter Wolves, no more than a three-day ride from the Reach now. He tells you this with his heavy head laid in your lap, staring distantly at the crackling hearth across the room, and blinking back burning tears before they can stain your pretty silk dress.
His auburn hair slides like silk between your fingers as you run your hands through it, with the same unthinking tenderness you’ve shown him a thousand nights before this one, though he feels far less deserving of it now.
“You needn’t perform this for me, you know?” he mutters, rubbing his cheek along your covered thigh while his thumb smooths absently over your knee. “I know what I am to you…”
“Oh, really?” you say with a smile evident in your voice, though he cannot see it from where he lies. “And who might that be?”
Gwayne turns his head to peer up at you. A weary half-smile hints at the very edges of his mouth as he answers, “A man who’s paid twice over for the privilege of your company over the years…”
You flinch at his words before you can properly catch yourself. It had been years since Gwayne last put coin in your palm for anything; longer since, perhaps, than he’s stopped truly needing to. He’s filled your larder more times than you could count, dressed you in silks finer than half the highborn ladies at court, and furnished this very room with the good Myrish looking glass and the featherbed you share now — all without once being asked.
So it stings a little now, to hear him speak of you still in the language of ledger — as though even after everything, he still cannot quite let himself believe he might simply be loved and not owed.
“Yes…” you sigh, combing your fingers from his temple to the side of his neck. “You’ve paid me a great deal of coin to take care of you… But no one pays me extra to love you. And I find that I very much do.”
The words threaten to undo him completely. He has not grown any more accustomed to tenderness since the war ended than he was before it began. He was not raised to think himself particularly deserving of love; not with a family that whispered often of his peculiar appetite and a cousin who made a sport of his shame at every turn. And then you came along and never once made him feel like the freak everyone at court had long decided that he must be. You are, he thinks, the closest thing to a miracle he’s ever been given.
“Where will you go?” he wonders suddenly aloud, auburn brows pinching low in curiosity. “When Rhaenyra’s army arrives, I mean?”
You shrug, and the thin sleeve of your nightgown slips from your shoulder. “The crypts with everyone else, I expect—”
“What if we left?” he blurts before he can properly weigh the words in his head. His eyes dart wildly across your face, aglow now with a prophecy he can see so vividly in his head. “Daeron has Tessarion. And surely the three of us are not so heavy a burden for a dragon to bear. We could be gone from the city before anyone thought to look for us— and already leagues away before they could try.”
“And do what, exactly?” you wonder with a warm laugh. “Comb my hair by firelight and pray the open road pays half so well as Oldtown? I have a trade here, Gwayne, one that will long outlast this useless war. And one that does not travel well.”
“You wouldn’t need a trade,” Gwayne scoffs. The mattress dips under his weight as he sits up ahead of you, drawing his knees to his chest and resting his forearms across them. His face is very suddenly close to yours now, and very suddenly solemn. “I’d take care of you.”
“So I’d go around being your whore then? Is that it?”
His face screws in a pained sort of look. “You wouldn’t be my whore. You’d be my lady.”
The promise steals the words of a clever response from your mouth. You’ve heard enough of them fall from enough men over the years to fill a maester’s ledger — vows made drunk with sex and unmade sober when it was done; declarations of earnest men who meant well but were misled by their own wanting. You’ve learned the sound of deceit well enough over the years to recognize that this was not one of them.
Gwayne was, perhaps, the first man of any real means to offer you true courtesy that was not only spent with his coin; and you would like nothing more than to return the favor, to be his lady. But you learned long ago, the hard way a girl born into nothing usually learns such things, that some fates are simply not written for women like you.
A strange feeling settles heavy in your chest accordingly. It weighs down the edges of your tender smile as you reach to smooth a piece of silken auburn hair back from his temple, if only to buy yourself half a moment before you answer him.
“I cannot leave,” you mutter gently to him. “The road is not… gentle to women, whatever protection you mean to offer me… What if we were separated? What if you grew bored of me? What if I became a burden to you—?”
“Never,” Gwayne protests, words sharp with hurt.
You meet his frown with a much softer look in return. “Whatever’s coming for this city is no kinder than whatever’s waiting for me out there…”
Gwayne’s face falls. His taut look of offense softens slowly, through a thick swallow in his throat — the kindling hope of the fleeting moment folds in on itself like a flower at last light.
“But I do want you to go, Gwayne,” you whisper, bringing both hands to cradle his flushed cheeks. “You’ve never been happy in this city, not truly, not since I’ve known you. Take the boy and go somewhere it’s safe. You deserve that much, if nothing else."
He shakes his head between your palms, though not quite in protest. “Who will take care of you with me gone, hm?” he asks with a sad sort of grin.
“I take care of me," you answer with narrowed eyes. “I always have. Long before I found you, and long after I expect.”
Gwayne falls quiet for a moment thereafter. It takes him a while to find the words to speak again, and when he does, the words go as distant as his forlorn gaze. “I’m not certain I could manage it regardless… Ormund watches everything— every-one. He always has… He’d know I meant to slip away before I’d so much as breathed a word of it to Daeron…”
Your thumb stills on the warm apple of his cheek. “All you’d need as a distraction,” you shrug. “Something shiny enough… And perhaps close enough to his own doorstep that he’d have no choice but to look at that instead of you…”
Gwayne catches the change in your voice before he catches the true meaning underneath it. His brows lower in a dubious look. “…Do you have something in mind?”
You give him a slow, sly, and devilish smile in response. “Oh, I have a great many things in mind…” you coo to him. “Do try to keep up, my lord…”
The plan comes together slowly after that, whispered low against the pillows with the candles burning down to near nothing. You outline the basics of it, and Gwayne fills the gaps with everything he knows of his cousin — of his habits, his pride, his cruel nature. And though you find yourself almost fond of it, the surest way you can think of to buy Gwayne and his nephew their escape, the man cannot quite stomach the thought.
“Ormund is not the kind of man who plays fair,” he warns you in a whisper. “Even in games he thinks he’s winning, if he so much as suspects—”
“He won’t,” you assure him, tracing a slow finger along the tense edge of his jaw. “I’ve made a trade of reading men like him, Gwayne, and it’s only for one night. You find Daeron, ready the dragon, and leave your cousin to me. Trust me, I have handled far worse men for far less worthy causes.”
“The scouts say they’re a day’s ride out, maybe less,” Ormund says beneath the soft scraping of his boots along the dim passageway. His voice bounces off the walls, where the torches gutter low with the late hour. “Though… Rhaenyra’s army has proven rather slow as of yet, haven’t they? Dragged down by supply, no doubt, and by the unfamiliar country… Much to our advantage, just as I knew it would be.”
Gwayne tenses his jaw, struggling to stomach the older man’s hubris — a thing he has choked down often enough over the years that it should no longer taste of anything at all, though it still has a way of burning going down. There is a small satisfaction in it, though, Gwayne realizes; in knowing something that, for once, his cousin does not. A little victory in knowing that Daeron is saddling Tessarion in the dragon’s stable at this very moment, while Ormund waltzes through this castle, utterly unaware of it.
“Many men will die regardless,” Gwayne reminds him.
“Yes. We will lose men,” Ormund nods on an exhaled breath, then tilts his head to flash the man a feigned look of sincerity — a kind, tight-lipped smile with no warmth in it at all. “Which means you’ve got nothing to worry about, cousin. You were never counted among the men anyway, were you?”
He lifts a ringed hand to pat the younger man on the shoulder, a little harder than necessary, before wrenching open the door ahead of him. Gwayne stands in place and watches him, jaw flexing as he grinds his teeth. He clenches his hands into fists, exhales a slow breath through his nose, and lets the insult pass slowly over him. He watches, instead, as Ormund strolls into his solar and falters a half-step past the threshold.
Ormund’s nose catches it before his eyes do — a strikingly foreign scent hanging in the air, of warm oil and crushed petals, sorely out of place amid the leather and parchment and wet stone. His nostrils flare faintly as his eyes finish the work his nose began. His gaze scans the room until it lands finally on you, arranged on the couch by the hearth like a thing to be painted. The sleeves of your dress threaten to slip from your shoulders as the neckline dips low enough to reveal the canvas of your plush breasts, kissed by the flickering candlelight.
Something in his chest leaps before he can help it, a red-hot flare of gladness at the sight of you lounging so delicately in his own chamber, which was only ever possible in his dreams before now — vividly and more often than he’d like to admit, since the morning he found you at the Honey Inn. He told himself it was only the irritation of you that lingered, the bitter memory of a woman far too bold for her station, though the lie only stuck so much.
He swallows down the boyish excitement rising like bile in his throat, and disgust follows hard on its heels — first at himself and then at the reflexive worry of some guard or handmaiden or septa seeing someone like you waltz into his chambers looking like that. He has spent too long manufacturing his reputation for it to go to waste on some common whore.
“What… is she… doing here?” Ormund spits each word like venom.
“You said it yourself. Rhaenyra’s army will likely make Oldtown before break of day,” Gwayne says lowly as the door clicks shut behind him. “This could very well be the last night either of us has left… And I thought you might want one happy memory before you give yourself to the dust.”
Ormund’s ringed hands twitch into loose fists at his sides. He tilts his chin and swallows hard and finds that it’s near-impossible to break your stare, no matter how plainly he wears the mask of disgust across his face. It takes him a second too long to turn away from you, and to plaster a brittle smile on his mouth when he looks over his shoulder at Gwayne.
“So you’ve brought me your leftovers?” he says with a short, humorless laugh. “How generous of you, cousin.”
“Well, leftovers would imply that I was once his, my lord,” you call from your place on the couch, twisting your pointer finger around the golden tassel of the pillow just beside you. “And I don’t much recall belonging to anyone… It’s bad for business,” you punctuate your quip in a whisper and with a devilish grin.
Ormund gives you a realer smile this time, though it’s quickly swallowed by his usual narrow-eyed look of composure. “Well… You’ve certainly got a mouth on you, don’t you?”
“Hm…” you shrug, and let the sleeve of your gown slip from your shoulder. “So I’ve been told.”
Your glimmering look of amusement stays locked with his pale-eyed stare as he saunters slowly towards you, like a predator to prey — though you look rather pleased to be caught in comparison. So much so that Ormund struggles to tell which of you is the apex now, even as he towers over you lounging form.
“You’re very devout, I hear,” you tell him, tilting your head to your bare shoulder to study the breadth of his frame — his long legs, his ringed hands, his broad chest, his sharp jaw, his cold cold eyes. “The Faith frowns on this sort of thing, doesn’t it?”
Ormund scoffs out a laugh. “Whoring?”
“Idle hands.”
You shift on the plush cushions until you’re on your knees before him, eye level with his scabbard and the silver pomander glinting in the torchlight. You reach for his hands in a smooth, unabashed motion — palms soft against the rough skin of his knuckles as you splay his ringed fingers flat against your ribs, just beneath the swell of your breasts.
His hands go stiff beneath yours, forgetting how to move them for a moment. And though his breath catches at the foreign contact, he does not step back from you, not even when a faint red flush begins to climb up the column of his throat. His mouth parts softly as his pale eyes go lidded, and your smile sharpens at the sight of it.
“You can touch me if you like, my lord,” you tell him, smoothing your hands over his green-leather coat up towards his shoulders. “I promise I don’t bite… Unless you’d prefer that I did.”
Gwayne watches your arms curl around Ormund’s shoulders with his stomach in knots. He feels suddenly very nauseous, watching his brutish cousin rest his undeserving hands where Gwayne has lain his own a thousand times over. Even now, knowing exactly what game you’re playing and why, he wants so desperately to pull you away and take you back to the Honey Inn and drown in your silk sheets forever.
But the gods aren’t that kind, and you are far too stubborn to come with him, so he clears his throat and bids his final goodbye. “Well…” he calls into the quiet, forcing a lightness into his voice as he folds his hands behind his back and moves towards the door. “I guess I’ll leave you to it…”
“Stay,” Ormund commands in a flat voice, without once taking his eyes off yours.
Gwayne freezes mid-step. His eyes widen right before an awkward laugh sputters from his mouth. “What?” he chuckles, forced from a half-strangled throat. “You’ll surely not have much fun with me standing about, cousin—”
Ormund turns finally to face him. A hint of a pleasant smile sits on his mouth, though his eyes carry a much icier glare in comparison. “Stay,” he repeats. “It’s only fair, isn’t it? You’ve been keeping her to yourself all these years, I’ve heard. Now you’ll have your turn to watch. I find I rather like the idea of you learning what that feels like.”
A flicker of anger passes over Gwayne’s face.
Ormund’s smug grin widens. “Do sit, cousin. You’ll want a good view, I expect.”
Gwayne does not move from where he stands but does not close the scant distance between him and his escape either. He has seen what Ormund does to people who do not abide by his every command, and he is less inclined to witness it himself now — or, worst of all, have that cruelty brought upon you.
You watch the exchange with an unreadable expression and file the encounter in the back of your head for later use, should you need it. One hand drags from his shoulder to his neck, coaxing him to look your way again with gentle fingers splayed along his shaven jaw.
“Fond of an audience, are you, my lord?” you murmur to him. “I confess, I wouldn’t have guessed that about you before now.”
Ormund nods, almost pleased. “There’s a great deal about me that you couldn’t possibly guess,” he retorts in a low voice.
“Good thing I’m a quick learner then, isn’t it?”
You urge him further down and tilt your chin to meet him halfway, slotting your lips in a lingering kiss. He’s warm and firm pressed against you, though his tongue tastes of nothing more than mint leaves and well-water when you lick into his mouth; as clean and sterile as all the rest of him. So much so that you think he could probably get drunk on the Dornish wine stained on your tongue alone. And you figure that he must, the way he relaxes against you with a slow breath, planting one hand along the back of the couch to brace himself and urging you backward along with it.
Your lips part with a quiet click. You smile to yourself when Ormund attempts to chase your mouth, nudging the tip of your nose against his broader one. “Let the poor boy go,” you coo softly to him. “I don’t suspect you’ll want an audience for the things I have planned for you, my lord.”
Ormund’s broad chest warms at the promise in your words, but his stubborn will never wavers. “No… I don’t think I will.”
You try not to let your face fall completely as you scramble for another excuse that might set Gwayne free. The auburn-haired man scoffs a faint laugh from across the room. “Cousin, I—”
“You will stay,” Ormund commands. “And learn exactly how it feels to stand apart and watch.”
Something cold and heavy settles in the pit of your stomach at his words — at Gwayne’s previous warning come to life right before your eyes. “He’ll want it now,” he’d told you. “He’ll want it simply because it’s mine.” You hadn’t understood the true weight of his meaning until now, with both you and Gwayne trapped beneath the man’s easily irritable, if not dangerous temper; and watching the promise of freedom slip through your fists like grains of sand.
You replace the distant look of worry on your face with another small smile the moment Ormund turns back to you, and try hard to kiss him back without reservation when he presses his mouth to yours again. There is little restraint in him now — in the tongue he licks between your parted lips, or in the ringed hands that trace the neckline of your dress.
His fingers curl beneath the thin fabric, urging it down down down until your bare breasts are exposed to the firelight and your delicate nipples pebble in the cool air. They’re sensitive within his rough hands as he cups them in his palms. You sigh hard in place of a moan, and feel Ormund grin softly into his kiss at the sound of it. His wet mouth smears across your skin as he trails his kisses from your mouth, to your jaw, and down your neck, before planting them to your left breast.
You sit back on your haunches and cradle the back of his hand, whimpering quietly when his tongue flicks across the sensitive nipple. Your eyes fall to Gwayne’s on instinct, where he remains across the room with his jaw locked tight, his hands balled into fists, and his pale eyes flaming with a withheld rage. He feels every inch of the late hour slipping away from you both — Daeron is still waiting for him at the stables now, and soon it will be too late to flee. And somewhere beneath his fear is a simmering jealousy, as he’s forced to watch his cousin’s undeserving mouth caress your body.
Your eyes dart to the door just beside him; a silent plea for him to leave with Ormund now distracted, as his mouth trails to your right breast. Gwayne answers with a curt shake of his head, to the left and back again. He wouldn’t make it down the hall before Ormund would realize he’d gone, and the both of you would likely suffer far worse for it.
So he suffers the sight before him instead, watches Ormund’s swollen mouth pluck off your breast and kiss the breath from your lungs once more.
He pulls off of you with a rosier grin. “Alright,” he pants. “Undress me.”
And though you’ve undressed many men over the years, your fingers tremble around each clasp of his leather coat for a reason you can’t name. You struggle now to meet his gaze with as much confidence as you had moments ago, as you urge the heavy fabric from his shoulders. His tunic goes next — the lace unknotted and the hem pulled from his trousers. You tug it up and over his head until the golden canvas of his body is revealed to you, toned from years in the training yard and unblemished from years of hiding from battle.
You run your hands down his shaven chest to the sparse at his stomach, a line that leads down into his pants. You unbuckle his scabbard next and then loosen the knot at his trousers, urging the fabric down his scruffy, muscular thighs. He sighs through his nose when his cock meets the cool air of the solar. He’s a few inches shorter than Gwayne, but thicker where it counts, with veins that trail in jagged lines from the base of his cock to the soft pink tip.
“Go on…” Ormund coaxes with a nod. “Kiss it.”
He’s half-stiff and smoother than velvet when you take him in your fist. He twitches harder in your palm when you duck your head to press a languid kiss to the satin head of his cock, right before swirling your tongue under the ridge of it.
Ormund watches you from the bridge of his nose, laughing through a low moan in the back of his throat. “Look at that… She is a good whore,” he hums with a smug smile, as he cradles the crown of your head in his wide hands. “And I didn’t even have to pay her…”
His head swivels in Gwayne’s direction, where he finds the younger man still scowling by the door, mere inches away from his escape. Ormund’s grin only widens at the sight of it.
“Careful now, cousin, or I’ll start to think you’re jealous… She said it herself, didn’t she? She doesn’t belong to anyone. Bad for business… Right, dove?”
You nod with your lips still wrapped around him, suckling the sensitive tip of his cock and using the remnants of your spit to jerk the rest of him in a slow, firm fist. Ormund grumbles a moan in the back of his throat and tips his heavy head back. His toned stomach tightens as a pleasured feeling coils in the pit of it, wound tight by your expert mouth upon him.
He tries to even his wavering breaths in a feeble attempt to make the moment last — if only to make his cousin watch a little while longer — but the wet sounds of your mouth are enough to undo him. And when you reach a hand to squeeze softly at his heavy balls, he nearly bursts entirely.
“Enough—” he hears himself blurt, pulling you off by your hair. Your lips part from him with a smacking sound. The thin string of saliva connecting you to him pulls thin until it clings to your bottom lip. You peer up at him with wide, glassy eyes. His broad chest heaves with every panted breath as he fights to regain his slipping composure.
“Get out of that dress,” he commands breathlessly, lips quirking into a grin. “And get on your hands and knees.”
You feel your heart thrumming hard in your throat when you reach for the sleeves of your dress, having long slipped from your shoulders now. You slide your arms out and roll the remaining fabric down your torso. The silk pools like water at your feet when you rise to take it the rest of the way off. The air feels cool against your flaming skin, and leaves chills pebbling in its wake. When you turn to plant yourself on the couch, just as he commanded, you feel Ormund swat your ass with a less-than-kind hand.
“Facing him,” he scolds in a gentle voice. “Give him a show now, shall we?”
You settle on your hands and knees along the lush cushions, angling yourself to face the door — to face Gwayne. Your bare chest heaves at the sight of him, pretty face etched with an anger you haven’t quite seen from him before. The quiet wretchedness of a man watching a thing he loves be claimed by a hand that’s already taken so much from him, and knowing that he cannot save you from any of it.
You want so badly to tell him that this is only a means to an end — that you do still love him — but you cannot risk Ormund hearing the words aloud and cannot hide the slick of primal excitement going sticky between your thighs.
So for now, you can only hold Gwayne’s wet-eyed gaze, and hope he can read the apology written in yours.
Gwayne cannot seem to look away from it, not even when Ormund settles in just behind you, with one leg bent on the cushion and the other still planted on the floor. Not even when the man presses two long fingers at the entrance of your weeping cunt, and hums in satisfaction when they slide without friction within your sticky walls.
“Mm…” he laughs beneath your whimpering. “You are lovely, you know— wasted on this trade, if I’m honest…” He curls his fingers and feels you clench around them when he pulls them back out again. “Perhaps I’ll wash some of that sin off you tonight… Make you clean… Make you mine… Would you like that?”
He reaches around to press his pointer and middle finger to your bottom lip, still glimmering with your slick. Your mouth parts for him on instinct, and he presses them to the pad of your tongue. You nod wordlessly with his long fingers in your mouth, salty-sweet with your honey, and imagine their Gwayne’s instead.
“You’ll agree with anything I ask, won’t you?” He laughs when you nod and slides his fingers out of your mouth again. “Like I said… Good whore…”
He grabs himself in his fist and presses the head of his cock to your pulsing entrance. He pierces you slowly, and feels your eager cunt spread around him inch by inch. Your airy sigh mixes with his rumbled groan when he buries himself to the hilt, with his hips pressed flush to your ass.
“Are you watching, Gwayne?” he calls proudly to his cousin, smoothing his rough hands along the canvas of your back.
Gwayne’s fingers curl and loosen into fists at his sides as his features flicker with a choked-back rage. “I’d prefer to take my leave now, cousin,” he answers, half-strangled.
“No…” Ormund coos with a sympathetic shake of his head. “Not until she cums, anyway. So… best work quickly, dove.”
He fucks into you a second later with a sort of precision you’d expect from a man like him. His thrusts are shallow and rhythmic and methodical. His balls smack your leaking cunt with every pass, creating a lewd symphony of sex all around you — of skin clapping against skin, of panted breaths entwining. Gwayne figures the sounds of war must’ve been far less cruel than this.
Ormund braces one hand along the back of your neck, like you’re a hound to be forced into submission, while his other slithers around your hip. The pads of his fingers press hard to your clit and a cry falls from your mouth before you can help it, filling the otherwise quiet solar.
“Rather sensitive for a whore, aren’t you?” Ormund chuckles from behind you. “Because you’ve never been fucked by a man before, I’d wager. Isn’t that right, cousin?”
Gwayne’s eyes burn under the weight of his unshed tears. He has faced death a thousand times over in the past few weeks, yet none of it was quite as heart-aching as this. His rage simmers to a boil in his throat, and it feels like fire when he swallows it down again.
Ormund’s thrusts grow sloppy thereafter, led purely by the pursuit of his own pleasure. But his fingers remain merciless on your swollen clit, and a white-hot pleasure begins to swell in the pit of your stomach accordingly. You grit your teeth and clench your fingers hard around the gold arm of the lavish couch in a feeble attempt to fight it — for your own pride, and perhaps for Gwayne’s, too.
“You’re mine now,” you hear Ormund say from just behind you, choppy between his faltering thrusts. “You’ll answer to no one else’s bed but mine. From this night forward. Is that understood?”
You nod wordlessly in response, if only to appease him for the moment, and feel his hand tighten on the back of your neck.
“Say it.”
“…I understand,” you just barely manage to squeak out.
“Then cum for me.”
He presses harder on your clit. Your face twists with a pleasure you can no longer fight away. You squeeze your eyes shut when your gaze falls instinctively to Gwayne’s, and when his pained features make your chest sear with a burning feeling. Your mouth falls open in a silent moan as your cunt gushes around Ormund’s twitching cock. He thrusts into you once, hard, and shudders just against you. His rough groan mixes with the sound of your quiet whimpering as he spits ropes of warm cum into your fluttering pussy, milking him for every drop of it.
“That’s it…” he spits through gritted teeth, fucking you sloppily through the rest of his high. “Take it all— There you go…”
He swats your ass once he’s finally spent himself inside you, gripping hard at the plush skin there and forcing you flush against his scruffy thighs. A satisfied grin sits crooked at his mouth when his lidded gaze falls once more to the man across the room.
“Oh, don’t sulk, cousin,” Ormund calls to him, flushed chest still heaving. “I’ll have another whore sent up for you, if you wish.”
Gwayne flinches instantly at the very thought of it, at being with anyone else but you — at some other woman’s hands being where only yours have been, at having some other stranger’s mouth on him instead of the only one he knows by heart. His features flicker with an involuntary disgust before he can hide it.
“Oh…” Ormund grins wider. “Did you… Did you think you could have this one?”
He punctuates his question by thrusting hard into you once more. You make a pained noise in the back of your throat at your growing sensitivity; head bowed and shoulders heaving as your weeping cunt clenches around his softening cock. Ormund chuckles through another moan at the sensation.
“No. No, no— See, this one’s mine now…” Ormund continues, pale eyes icing over into a glacial sort of look. “And you’d do well to remember it, cousin… Because I’d hate for anyone to come to harm over… so small a misunderstanding, wouldn’t you say?”
Gwayne’s blood runs cold at Ormund’s promise, because he knows his cousin far too well to mistake it for anything less. And he knows now, too, that whatever escape he, Daeron, and Tessarion might’ve made tonight has long since closed in on itself, and will surely not open again while you remain under Ormund’s dangerous, unforgiving hand.
So he will stay. And he will wait for Rhaenyra’s army to march through these gates. And he will make certain that his cousin does not live to see the end of it, so long as it means that Gwayne gets to have you to himself when the ashes finally settle over Oldtown.
Pairing: Baelor Breakspear Targaryen x female!reader
Summary: A letter that informs you of grueling news had your head made a mess, would you listen to your head or your heart? [9.0k]
Content: Canon divergent / non-canon, second wife reader, angst, mentions of sickness, mention of other characters, grief, guilt, Targaryen family stress, a bit of ooc!Dunk, no knowledge of how traveling works in ASOIAF, No use of Y/N, no physical descriptions of reader, idk what else.
A/N: I'm baaaaack! Writer's block is an absolute BITCH, I'm sorry it took me too long to finish this (more than a month, hehe) but I was really lacking inspiration and time to write. Anyhow, I'm here, new chapter is here... Let me know what you think AND if you have any ideas.
Disclaimer: English is NOT my first language so this may as well be written with my eyes closed and half delusional brain. Hope you enjoy it! NOT PROOF READ AT ALL!!!
Masterlist ✦ (17) < Series Masterlist > (19) ✦ Read on A03
My dear wife,
I am aware of the promise I made to you on my last letter, the promise of not writing to you unless I had information I could not withhold.
I must rely on you the kind of news I would never dream about giving you, let alone by a letter. This is something I would love to tell you face to face, yet I find myself away from you and unable to move away from King's Landing.
If I am being honest, I was about to make my way to you, praying to the Gods to allow me safe enough travels to see your beautiful face again, though they made themselves abundantly clear that I would not see you anytime soon.
Twice I tried to get on a boat and go beg you on my knees for forgiveness. Twice I did not even made it outside the Red Keep.
There are impediments at the moment that do not allow me to reunite with you, and I might have been selfish about even thinking about going to Dragonstone even when I promised you time but I cannot bear to be away from you any longer, my love.
A sickness has struck across the kingdoms, it is mentioned to be as strong as to perish the strongest of men in less than half a day.
We tried to control it before it struck harder on King's Landing, it had only be reported to cause struggles within Lannisport and Old Town. We got too confident, trusting the Gods would spare us long enough to make our way to you. That is right, I was taking my children with me, looking to protect them from the sickness, as per orders of the King.
I failed again, that is everything I can say on the matter, there is no longer explanation. I failed you, I failed my children, I failed my family and I failed the Kingdom.
I failed at something as simple as protecting my family.
Valarr fell ill, just as we were leaving to get to you, he was trying to be strong, to not show wavering in his step, yet at the last moment he fell into his knees, too weak to keep himself upright.
He refused any help from us, demanding only a Maester would help him. He claimed he was not going to let any harm come to any of us, that we should refrain from helping him stand or be carried to his rooms.
Oh, my brave boy. He is all alone right now, laying on his bed while the Maesters try to help him. He has not complained once, I am told. We are not allowed to be in the same room as him, only offering him comfort from far, talking to him through a wooden door.
There is no other thing that I want to do more than to be there, holding him, helping him through his fever as I did when he was little. It's breaking my heart to know he could slip through my fingers at any given moment.
I should not be thinking that way, I am aware. Valarr is a strong young man, he will be nursed to health, I know it deep in my bones.
He has asked for you, in middle of his fever, so the Maester says. I am told he had asked for his wife, his brother, even for me, but your name and Jenna's are there too.
He is calling for his mothers, both of them. You are his mother too, I hope you are aware of such.
There is a chance that I would not see you ever again, and this is not the way for me to tell you what I am about to write in this letter, I should be there telling it in person, begging on my knees, crawling behind you while you refuse to listen to me… none of what I suspect would happen soon.
I love you, simple as that. I love you with all my heart and I know I do not deserve to write you this, I do not deserve you at all, yet my heart calls your name at every turn. It cries your name, damning me for hurting you while trying to burst out of my chest and get to you.
You are not a replacement, I know you believe it to be that way and that I put that thought deep in your head when I asked for Jenna after I woke up. You are not Jenna nor do I want you to be.
I married her for duty and I did love her, but you… you I married for love. I had no obligations whatsoever to the crown, I had my heirs and I did not require a second wife but the moment I saw you… Gods, I knew I was going to marry you.
That night in the gardens, I thought you were married, why wouldn't you? A beautiful, kind woman like you unmarried? That could not be possible, yet it was. I do not recall how did I get lucky enough for the Gods to allow our paths to cross.
Then you met my family, everyone loved you instantly, even Maekar who's not known to warming up to anyone. My kids, those two young lads that had lost their mother, I saw them cling to you, it didn't matter that Valarr was old enough to be married himself, he opened his heart for you.
And that is the effect you have on people, they grow to love you even when it seems impossible. Gods, I am a lucky man to be married to you, I am also the stupidest man in the Seven Kingdoms, failing you again and again. If I see you again, I promise I shall try to earn your forgiveness, to give you everything you need and desire.
I need to ask something of you, and only because I would like to think I know you it is that I am daring to do so. Do not come to King's Landing, stay where you are safe, roads would most likely be closed for orders of the King. Everyone at Dragonstone should receive their orders any moment now. I have ordered for Dragonstone to be closed to anyone, no harm should come to you or Aegon should you listen to my instructions.
Do not go out, do not treat with any fishermen that make their way to the shore, do inform the Maester of any and all illness you may feel. Protect yourself and protect Aegon, I shall do my best to protect those who are with me here.
I will be informing you of any changes regarding Valarr, I promise this to you but in exchange you will not risk yourself and you will not come to King's Landing. Yes, you are a woman who does not fancy to be told what to do but in this case I am asking you to be mindful of your well-being first and foremost.
I hope I can see you again in this lifetime, my Love.
I love you and I miss you more than I can bear.
Yours always,
Baelor.
A gasp left your mouth as soon as you finished reading his letter, your shaky hands flying to cover any heartbreaking sounds that could follow after said gasp, your eyes were flooded with unshed tears. You did not want for Aegon to see you in distress, he was training with Ser Duncan while you kept an eye on them.
Valarr is sick.
That's what kept flowing through your head, your hands shaking while you tried to find a solution as if you could cure him from the distance.
He is sick and I am far away from him. From them.
You had to do something, you could not stay still and calm after the information was shared with you. Baelor had asked you to not travel to King's Landing, he was too aware of how your mind worked, you did not know whether you should listen to him or discard his words entirely.
Deep down you knew you will not sit idle while waiting for news of better or worse condition on the health of your son, nor would you wait for dreading news to reach you.
But how? How could you get to King's Landing safely? All roads and docks would be closed and it would be extremely hard to get to the Red Keep, that is if you did not catch the sickness along the way.
Knowing Baelor as well as you did, you knew he would have everyone in the staff fighting you in a moments notice if they noticed you wanted to show your head outside.
A world of thoughts and plans were running through your head, trying to find a solution so you could go be with your family in their time of need.
You could not let them to go through it alone, less of all, you could not do that to Valarr. You wanted to by with him, offering him comfort as he did when you needed it.
“…Auntie?” Aegon's little voice snapped you out of your thoughts.
Focusing your gaze back on them, you could see both of them staring at you with worried expressions. “I apologize, I was lost on my mind" you shook your head, forcing a smile upon your face “What were you saying, Egg?"
Aegon shared a suspicious glace with Ser Duncan before looking back at you “Is everything alright, Auntie? You look distressed”
Without fully noticing it, you were gripping the letter tightly in your hand, crumpling it in an attempt of regaining some resemblance of control over the wave of emotions that threatened to spill at the moment.
You tried to calm down, grounding yourself just enough to avoid scaring Aegon. Realistically, he is not someone to be scared as you have known other children to typically be, yet that did not erase the fact that he is, after all, a child.
"Your Uncle Baelor has written to me” you informed after a few breaths "He sent word to share with us news that affect the Kingdoms” facing Aegon, you mustered your warmest expression, trying to reassure him "There is a sickness that spreads fast yet he assures me that it should not reach us if we follow his instructions”
"What kind of sickness?” Aegon dared to ask you, his voice instantly growing worried.
“In truth, I have no knowledge of what it is" You confessed after a few seconds “I am merely told that we must take care of ourselves and do not leave the castle"
Aegon nodded but his eyes did not part from you, as if he was trying to see the details you were leaving out in your eyes.
You knew the boy was a bit too perceptive for his age, he was smart and most of the time knew how to obtain information from his eldest. In your eyes, it was a result of how his older brothers were and the lack of his mother in his life.
Too bad for him, you would not have intention of sharing with him the rest of news Baelor had written to you. It was not Aegon’s place to be worried by something he could not resolve.
With a heavy sigh, you waved both Aegon and See Duncan away "Go freshen yourselves, I shall see you both at supper”
Aegon knew your tone very well— Ser Duncan was starting to recognize it too—, it was the kind that meant you were not willing to talk further at the moment, so instead of fighting you on it, they both nodded and disappeared inside the castle walls, leaving you alone.
You did not want to worry them, especially Aegon but you were too nervous to sit still. Rationally, you knew you had to stay in Dragonstone, Baelor had asked for you to remain there but the other part of your mind— the irrational one— wanted got you to get on a boat and get to King's Landing as soon as possible.
The question was; Could you really do it alone? Could you get to King's Landing safe enough to see your family again?
It was tricky, of course, theoretically you knew how to get there but roads and shores were closed, Baelor had told you as much. If you decided to go, it would be definitely tricky… but not impossible.
With that thought in mind, you made your way across the castle of Dragonstone to knock on the Maester's chambers. You waited patiently for the door to be opened.
When you finally heard the squeaking sound of the door opening, revealing Dragonstone’s Maester on the other side.
“Ah" he smiled at you, he was a nice old man “My Lady, I was reading Prince Baelor's letter just now. Have you gotten yours?"
“Yes, I have" you tried to smile back at him but you were sure it came out as a grimace.
His nice smile fell slightly "Terrible news, I know” he shook his head "Is there something this old man can help you with, my Lady?”
You took a deep breath before nodding "I need a map”
“A map?" He parroted in confusion.
"A map” you confirmed "Of Westeros, I would prefer if it is of The Crownlands"
The Maester blinked at you for a few moments, not quite understanding the need you could have for it. “My Lady, I—" he shook his head while trying to find words “May I ask, what need do you have for it?"
You tilted your head, your expression firm “I am set on finding a good use of my time here, I believe teaching Prince Aegon of geography is one"
A frown adorned the crinkled face of the Maester "That is what I am here for, my Lady, to teach the young Prince”
“Still" you brushed him off “I would like to do it myself"
“But, my Lady—"
You raised a hand, stopping the Maester “I am not asking for counseling, I am asking for a map. Do you have one or not?"
The old Maester blinked for a few seconds before nodding “I shall look for it and send it your way as soon as possible, my Lady"
“Very well, Maester" you mustered a emotionless smile towards him “I appreciate it"
Without waiting for a response, you turned on your heels and started walking away. You had to get everything ready for supper later, even when it would be hard to hide your true intentions to Aegon and the knight, however, you had to try.
…
Supper went relatively quiet, you could feel Aegon's worried gaze set on you, as if the child was trying to read your stony face for the information he lacked, while Ser Duncan did not bother with trying to instigate information out of you, feeling that, if you needed him you would reach out to him.
To be honest, your mind was miles away, pushing the food around in its plate while you thought about those who were far from you.
Was Valarr too sick? Was he in pain? Suffering or alone?
Was Baelor alright? Was he mourning his first son already? Was he lost in his mind, blaming himself for it?
Too many questions, too little answers. You never had been a woman who fared in darkness, you needed to know, to see if they were alright.
“I shall retire to my chambers" You informed your company with a quiet murmur, pushing yourself from your chair.
Aegon's little frown was a warning, he was about to start questioning you "Is everything alright, Auntie?”
Gods, he is too young to be that perceptive.
With a tilt of your head, you faced him fully “Everything is fine, my sweet boy" you mustered a smile as best as you could “Nothing for you to worry about"
His little hand tightened around the fork he was holding “You do not seem alright, Auntie"
"Aye! Do not be rude” Ser Duncan's words were quick, correcting the young Prince.
Shooting Ser Duncan a quick glance, thankful for his guidance on Aegon's attitude "Everything is perfectly fine, Egg”
You could tell he did not believe you, but he did not push either, merely nodding at you with an expression of frustration etched in his face.
You walked to him, lowering yourself by his side to be eye to eye "Sweet boy” your words were full of warmth as you brushed his head, where his hair was still short but noticeable "Believe in me, I will solve and manage whatever trouble there is at the moment, you shan't worry”
"I know there is something you are hiding” His words were almost a murmur, laced with the kind of anger that only came from the thought of wanting to know it all.
A smile grazed your lips, trying to help him trust your next words "Perhaps I am, regardless, you should trust I am telling you what I consider it is right for you to know”
“You are treating me like a child!" Aegon's little voice was full of petulant displeasure.
“You are a child, boy!" Ser Duncan's words called from the other side of Egg, reminding him that, no matter how grown up he liked to act, he was still a child.
“Trust me, Egg" you guided his face to look at you “I will tell you everything when I see it sensible to do so, not before"
You were met with silence on his part, the fight leaving his body when you refused once again to inform him of what was really transpiring across the Kingdoms.
With a sigh, you stood up “Go to sleep, Egg" you ordered warmly, kissing his forehead.
A quick glance followed by a nod was all that you shared with Ser Duncan before you retired to your chambers.
Only one thought plagued your mind while you walked the cold and dark halls in direction of your chambers; You had to find a way to get to King's Landing.
It was not optional, you had to do it.
Once you entered your private chambers— those you shared with Baelor after your wedding— your gaze quickly fell onto a pile of books and sheets that laid on the table, most surely the Maester listening to you and getting you what you needed.
Without a second thought, you made your way to the table, rummaging through everything that was there, deciding what you could use and what was of no importance before settling on a chair in front of it.
You had to find a way.
Hours passed while you scanned and observed and learned about the isle and its different ways out.
There was the way you got to the island both times; by traveling the sea, a journey of a couple of days by boat. It was not likely to do, all docks were closed and you were pretty sure the guards of Dragonstone had orders from your husband to prevent you to even reach a boat.
Another option was to sail towards Rock's Rest and make your way on horseback all the way to King's Landing, though you were not sure it would be a great idea, given it would take you too long to get there.
Or you could sail to Driftmark, then in direction to the Kingswood, but again, unlikely for the dock to be unguarded.
Or you could… yes. You could travel across The Gullet, towards Sharp Point, probably buy a horse there and make your way to King's Landing across the Kingswood, avoiding the Kingsroad. It was your better chance, the wood would give you enough coverage to travel without encountering the sickness.
It would be tricky, you were sure of that. A woman alone, traveling the Kingdoms? You would be lucky to make it in one piece.
As you were tracing on the map, your ears could not help but perk up at the intruding sounds of… something in the room.
You did not move, trying to identify where the sound was coming from without looking up. You could hear hushed voices, they were hiding away somewhere in the room, and you knew who would be interested on pulling something like that.
“I know you are there, Aegon" your voice cut through the chambers, your gaze still focused on the map.
The stillness and silence was immediate, sharp and only rivaled by the sound of the cracking fire. A few seconds passed before Aegon made himself known, a sheepish expression lacing his face.
Your gaze was set on him as soon as he was in sight, an eyebrow raised while you took him in. Aegon was wearing his nightwear, looking even more childish. It was refreshing, seeing him look adequately his age.
"You do know it is rude to eavesdrop, Ser Duncan?” your voice was firm, even motherly while you chided them. You knew Aegon was not alone.
You observed Aegon squirm, finding himself caught— Ser Duncan as well— they really thought they could get away with it.
A few moments happened and you could not hear movement from the place where Ser Duncan was hiding, he probably was afraid to face you.
"Come on out, Ser” you said firmly “Might as well, you have already been caught"
A few seconds passed before you saw the shadow of the tall man show itself. His face was a deep shade of red while lowered to the ground, no doubt distressed about being caught.
You hummed, your fingers thumping on the wood table while you stared at them. “Would you be so kind as to explain yourselves?"
Both of them looked beyond embarrassed and sheepish, they had no intention on getting caught, though they were not good at staying silent either.
"It was my idea” Aegon informed you "I wanted to see what were you hiding, Ser Duncan merely came to try to talk me out of it”
You believed it, of course you did. You knew Aegon's curious nature a bit too well.
"I hope you do know it is wrong to spy on others, Aegon” with a firm voice, you kept staring at them, your expression bemused.
His little head dropped to his chest, a faint flush painting his cheeks and ears “Yes, my Lady. I know"
"I do not condone you doing this, Aegon. It Is completely unacceptable”
"Yes, my Lady” he answered obediently.
Your gaze now settled on Ser Duncan's form “And you, Ser." a shake of your head told the Knight all he needed to know “I expected better of you, after all, Aegon is a child but you are the one in charge to teach him about honor not indulge him"
“He tried to stop me—" Aegon's voice cut through the air in the chambers.
With a lift of a hand, his words died in his mouth, choosing silence when he saw your unwavering expression.
“It was wrong of me, my Lady, I am aware of such" Ser Duncan said, slouching to try to appear less big, though that was an almost impossible task. "I will accept any punishment you deem fitting”
With a huff of air leaving your lips, you stood up "That will not be necessary, I do not believe in punishments” you started putting the maps away "However I do believe that both of you know better and that this would not happen again, under absolutely any circumstance”
“Yes, my Lady” Both of them answered at the same time.
That almost got you to smile. Almost.
You let the silence set for a few seconds, your gaze firmly set on two heads bowed down in shame. "I must know, what did you find out while you spied on me?”
It was obvious they knew, their frames tensing was answer enough.
Your gaze focused on Aegon "Well? Speak, what do you know?”
Aegon eyed Ser Duncan before looking at you once again, you could see his chest inflating with a deep breath as he prepared to confront you "You are planning to travel to King's Landing”
You sighed, focusing on them "What else?”
“That you are not planning to travel traditionally there, mostly because of the closed docks" Aegon's voice was telling you he knew everything.
In the corner of your eye, you saw Ser Duncan shift slightly, uneasy, as if he wanted to speak.
“Do you have something to say, Ser?"
He hesitated before nodding "Indeed, my Lady” Ser Duncan took a deep breath before continuing "I shall say, I do not believe that traveling by yourself it is the smartest decision”
You stayed silent, prompting him to continue.
"I swore an oath to your husband” he continued "I swore to protect you with my life if necessary, I won't let you travel alone, my Lady”
“That is not your decision to make, Ser" your voice was sharp, feeling cornered.
“It is not" Ser Duncan agreed with your words “But I have orders, my Lady. I will not allow any harm to come to you"
Your gaze flickered to Aegon for a moment “I cannot risk Aegon, you should protect him"
"I will protect both of you” Ser Duncan bowed his head "You can either stay here, in the safeness of Dragonstone or you can let me join you in your travels”
“No" you said firmly, clenching your fists “You will stay here with Aegon. That is an order"
The tall man shut his mouth, he could argue that you were intimidating when you were furious.
A beat of silence stretched in the room while you kept organizing the table where you had been working.
“You are not from the Crownlands, my Lady" Ser Duncan's voice cut through.
That give you pause and you turned to look at him “I am not" you confirmed “What about it?"
“You do not know the roads"
A scoff left your lips, offended "I have enough knowledge and a map”
"Still, if you do not know the terrain it could be dangerous enough, you could get hurt or lost” He offered, his voice soft while trying to coerce you to agree for him to accompany you.
Turning to fully look at him, hands on your hips, you raised an eyebrow “And I suppose you do know the roads, Ser?"
"He does, he has been teaching me about it!” Came Aegon's little voice, defending the Knight.
You silenced him with a sharp glance, you were not happy with any of them.
“The lad is right, my Lady." Ser Duncan nodded “I am a hedge knight, I know the roads, I know how to navigate them and I can get you to King's Landing safely"
“I will not allow Aegon to be in danger, Ser" your voice, though firm, held uncertainty in it.
"Well, I am not staying here alone while you go to see our family” Aegon murmured under his breath.
“Retire to your chambers, Aegon” you said firmly, massaging your forehead in frustration. “Now"
The little boy knew to thread carefully by your tone of voice, he merely nodded and did as you said, leaving you and Ser Duncan alone.
"The lad is worried, my Lady” Ser Duncan defended Aegon's actions "I hope you do not take at heart his acts and words”
You moved across the room, reaching for two cups and the canteen, pouring wine in both cups.
“I do not have any children of my own" your voice carried across the room while you poured the wine “but sometimes I feel like I am a mother to my husband's children and his brother's"
"I believe they do see you as their mother, my Lady” Ser Duncan's words were kind, laced with the understatement of what he had seen in his time around the royal family.
You smiled softly, warmth lacing your expression even in your time of worry "I am glad to have them, gray hairs and all”
Ser Duncan matched your smile, nodding softly. He looked almost boyish, reminding you, once again, that he was close in age to Valarr.
You moved, offering him the second cup of wine, which he shook his head at the offer.
"I insist, Ser” You prompted softly.
“I appreciate it, my Lady" he shifted from foot to foot “Yet you should not waste expensive wine on a poor hedge knight"
You shook your head in amusement “Ser, you are no longer a hedge knight, I think we've already established that. You serve House Targaryen"
"Even so, that wine is not for the likes of me”
"Yet I am offering it to you, it would be rude to not take it, though I will not force you” Either way, you settled the cup in front of him, an offer should he decided to take it.
After taking a seat, you took a sip of the wine, the flavory taste reminding your mind that you were not need to be as tense as you were, allowing you to relax for the state of stress you had been since receiving Baelor's letter.
"King's Landing” your voice cut through the silence you found yourselves in "How would you manage to get there without being stopped or killed?”
You needed the man's insight, even if you were not willing to allow for him an Aegon to join you, you knew he could offer you knowledge for it.
Ser Duncan shifted his stance slightly, just before you signaled a sit for him to take. “You want to avoid the dock of King's Landing”
“Yes, my husband informed me in his letter that it would be closed, as supposedly is the shore of this island"
He nodded in thought, you could see his mind working hard, trying to find a solution for the problem you were presenting him to.
“I guess your plan is as good as anything I could offer” Ser Duncan agreed with the knowledge of your plans he already had from his spying with Aegon "Traveling by boat to Sharp Point, it would take less time, a quick journey”
You offered him a nod, in silence, prompting him to continue with his train of thought. The man was capable enough, you were sure of it, he had managed to survive the trial in Ashford, and he had indeed traveled most of his life. If someone knew how to survive roads, was him.
"Then buying horses to continue, it would take a day or two to make it far enough to the Kingswood” He pondered, his gaze unfocused as he thought of the possible scenarios that could happen.
“And what would you suggest once the Kingsroad is reached? It must surely be closed as well" That question was what haunted you the most, you did not know how to travel outside the roads.
For a brief moment, his response was a mere hum, before he focused his eyes on yours once again “Avoid it, the journey must be complete by staying far enough from the Kingsroad, I know a way" He informed you, his eyes held a twinkle of something close to recognition “Ser Arlan took me once through the Kingswood, far from the road, said it was easier that way, not too many hungry bastards that'd try to rob us"
A shadow of red coloring painted his cheeks as he realized the crude language he had used in front of you, not proper at all "I- I apologize, my Lady, it was not my intention to be that crude”
With a flicker of your wrist, you waved him off. In that moment, you cared little for pleasantries and property, you needed information.
"Then you do know how to get through the Kingswood while avoiding the roads?” the question left your lips with an expression of curiosity, your eyebrows raised in question, prompting him to answer you.
"Yes, my Lady. I do”
“Very well" You practically jumped off your seat, moving to rumble through the papers you just put away, until you find the one you were looking for, grabbing a quill as well. "You shall draw the way in this map”
You saw the refusal in his eyes as soon as you settled the map in front of him.
“My Lady, I can't—"
"Oh, but you will, Ser Duncan. This an order” Your words were firm, even sharp, you were not open to negotiate.
Heat started rising in his cheeks and the tip of his ears, while he looked down in shame. "It is not that, my Lady” His words were a mere murmur, his head low "I do not know how to read maps, I would hate to send you the wrong way”
You forced your expression to remain unchanged, you wished not for him to feel judged. Somehow, you knew the man could not read, the life of a hedge knight was not one rich for education, though hardly any life outside royal families was.
“What you are saying it is that my only option to make it safely to King's Landing is to take you with me, Ser?" You questioned, a growing headache already making itself known to you.
The knight nodded bashfully "I do think it would be the safest way, my Lady”
"What if we caught the sickness, what then?” Your question was full of worry, not entirely for you but for Aegon, should he travel with you.
It was plain, you could either stay there, ensure the safety of Aegon or you could travel with both Aegon and the Knight. It was the options you had, you knew as much. And as much as you would like to stay put, you did not have that nature, not when your son was sick, with no promise of health or that you would see him again.
“I could deal with any people we need to, I would buy the horses and food," Ser Duncan proposed “While you and Aegon wait in safe places and apart from there, we shall travel together at a distance"
You tilted your head in curiosity, contempt lacing your features. That could work, the risk existed either way, that was for sure, but his suggestion was a ray of sun in a sky full of clouds. A ray of hope.
“That does not sound completely insane" You murmured, more to yourself than to him, sipping on your wine.
"I am at your service, my Lady” with a bow of his head, he reminded you "Shall you decide to travel, I would travel by your side and protect you”
A sigh left your lips, your mind and heart divided by the complicated dilemma you found yourself in at the moment.
“I have a lot to think about, Ser" You stood up, finishing the wine in your cup before settling it on the table “I shall see you in the morrow"
Ser Duncan stood up, his large frame blocking the light from the burning hearth in the room. "Of course, my Lady” he offered you a nod of his head, bowing in respect "Sleep well”
“Likewise, Ser" you said back, your gaze following the man until he was outside your chambers, the door closing with a thud after him.
The silence in the chambers once the man left was… defeating. You felt divided between what had been asked of you and your own desires.
A growing pit in your stomach was reason enough for you to gulp the second cup of wine— the one you had poured for Ser Duncan— while staring into the dancing flames of the hearth.
Deep down, you wanted to believe that everything would be just fine, that the letter and its contents was merely a test from the Gods, a dream, even. You wanted to got to sleep and wake up with the same feeling that had joined you since you stepped foot on Dragonstone; that feeling of anger mixed with heartbreak. Of course now your heartbreak was for a completely different matter.
The discarded crumbled map on the chair across from you, the one where you had traced your planned route, was calling your name, as if telling you to do it, that you could do it.
The Gods would not be that cruel as to keep punishing you, even after all you went through, right? You do believed them to be merciful enough to allow you to reach your family without a scratch on your body.
Would Valarr hold on enough for you to get to the Capital, was another question, one loaded with uncertainty. He had to hold on, you would not let your mind wander farther from that thought, he had to live.
Suddenly another thought crossed your mind. What if Baelor was sick too? The mere image of that had a shiver crawling up your spine, he could not let you. He could not be sick, he had to wait for you to properly chew his head off.
Of course you distanced yourself from him though it doesn't mean you don't love him or care for him anymore. You did, more than you would let on at the time. Your plan was clear before; travel to Dragonstone to have some peace and clarity, send word for Baelor to travel to meet you there, talk it out and scream at each other, resolve our differences and go back home with him. That was not happening any day soon, you realized.
Now you were going to go against everything that had been taught and asked of you, following your own feelings on the matter, wanting to be there for those of your family who need it and even for those who don't.
With your mind made up you settled your empty cup on the side table, walking to your closet to change into your night clothes. You had to rest properly if you planned to move as soon as you wanted.
…
The next morning came quicker that you would have wanted it to, announcing itself it the light filtering through the windows. You laid in your bed, staring at the ceiling while the light hit you in the face, you had not been able to sleep as much as you wanted it to but the few rest you had would have to be enough.
With a determined sigh, you called for your Lady's maid so she could help you get dressed. You had to go looking for Ser Duncan.
Once dressed, and after looking for the Knight in a lot of places, you found him on the shore, staring into distance, his back was at you.
“Good morrow, Ser" You made your presence known a few feet from him.
"My Lady” He made quick work of facing you, bowing his head in respect.
“I have been looking for you, Ser Duncan" you informed him, coming to a stop next to him.
"I apologize, I merely intended to grab a bit of fresh air” Ser Duncan told you, his expression bashful.
You waved him off gently “Do not worry, you are allowed to do so" your eyes settled in the moving water in front of you “I have made my decision, Ser"
He stood by your side in silence, his eyes settled on you as he waited for you to reveal what had you decided.
“We travel" the firmness in your voice told him everything he needed to know “Today, if possible"
Ser Duncan did not respond, merely nodded.
“We need to get everything we need ready, we travel light and comfortable" you started listing off everything that has plagued your mind since last night “We need to find someone who would get us out of the Island without Dragonstone guards noticing"
Spearing a glance towards the man, you noticed he, apparently, knew something you did not.
“What is it, Ser?"
His hand was already scratching the back of his neck, a nervous habit "I already arranged for a small boat to take us to Sharp Point, my Lady”
"That was what you were doing here?” you asked him, receiving a nod for an answer. "What time did you settled with the man?”
“By mid-day" Ser Duncan informed you “We shall see him on the farthest shore from the Castle, he will wait for us there"
You blinked at him a few times, stunned "Thank you, Ser” your mind started running, trying to identify what you need to had done before mid-day. "Could you get Aegon while I take care of something?”
His response was immediate “Of course, my Lady"
You started walking side by side back to the Castle, of course he had to slow down a little for you to be able to keep up with his long strides.
The way back to the Castle was filled with silence on both ends, each of you lost in your own minds. Yours was plagued with uncertainty, with worry and a bit of hope everything would go fine. Really trying to focus on positive thoughts was becoming a hard task for you, even when you have always been someone hopeful, past events had the effect of letting go of it a little.
Once you entered the Castle, each of you went on your separate directions, trying to get everything ready before parting. You had a lot to tend to, besides readying a bag with utterly important things only, you had to be sure you would have food and write to your husband.
Yes, you would have to write him a message, either way, when he would receive it you would already be on your way, nothing he could do but wait for you.
Once you stepped foot into your room, you saw your Lady's maid already there, taking care of something you had no time nor care of what it was, your mind set in the important matter at hand.
“Good you are here" You smiled at her, trying to appear as composed as you could “Ser Duncan, Prince Aegon and myself are going riding in a few, would you be so kind to ready a bag with a lot of food?"
Seeing her confused face, you quickly added “You have seen how big Ser Duncan is, have you not? I swear that man could eat his weight on food”
She nodded, pleased with your explanation, because he was indeed a big man “Of course, my Lady"
"Thank you!” You called at her as you rummaged through your coffers, trying to find clothes comfortable enough for your upcoming travels.
After discarding a lot of dresses, you settled on a plain dress you liked to wear when you had nowhere to go and no person to face, it was comfortable and made you look… free. You included your riding attire under the dress, you had to be prepared. Least of all, comfortable worn out shoes and a light hooded cloak would be part of your attire, helping you hide your face and shield you from the chilling wind that was sure to hit you once in the open.
On the corner of your eye you noticed a worn out letter bag, probably Baelor's or someone else's, you did not care, grabbing it before starting to grab what you needed; gold coins and whatnot.
With the passing time your confidence started to grow, your hope too, you wanted to see your family, that was the only thought in your head.
A knock on your door signaled the presence of someone “Come on in!" you called while looking for a piece of paper to write your brief letter to Baelor.
The creaking sound of the heavy wood doors informed you the person was shyly hovering in the entrance of the chambers.
Lifting your gaze from where it was settled, you saw Aegon there, looking sheepish.
"Oh, Egg!” you smiled at the child "Come on in, sweet boy”
You saw him hesitate a little before stepping forward, he was already dressed resembling the attire he used back in Ashford, pretending to be a simple kid, not a Prince. You could also notice he was holding a blade in his hands.
With a tilt of your head, you asked him "What is it, Egg?"
He glanced down at his feet “Ser Duncan told me we are going to King's Landing…”
You nodded, prompting him to continue “Yes, that is true"
"Would you shave my head?” He asked you, his voice small "It is best if people do not find out of my status and my hair gives me away”
A soft smile broke on your face “Of course, sweet boy. Come, sit down" you pulled out a chair, signaling for him to sit. “Let me get soap and water, wait here"
Once you returned with everything you needed, you settled everything down while Aegon fidgeted in his seat. You noticed his nervous habit, of course you did.
"What is plaguing that little, wonderful mind, huh?” You asked him, tapping his head playfully.
“What has happen back in King's Landing? Is- is everyone alright?” His question was full of fear and worry, feeling lost about the lack of knowledge he possessed on the situation.
"Oh, Egg” you said softly, moving to kneel in front of him, lowering yourself to face the afraid child. "Something has happened, yes. Valarr has fallen with the sickness” you informed the child, but seeing his distressed expressing you quickly added "He is alive but sick. That is the reason for my impatience to travel”
“Everyone is alive, then?" Aegon dared to ask you, knowing you did not have the heart to lie to his face.
You nodded, a reassuring smile on your face while you held his hand “As far as I know, yes"
The little breath his body released in relief was noticeable, you could see him relaxing immediately “Good, that is good"
"Yes, that is good” You agreed, standing up to get behind him once again, reaching for the soap "Are you ready?”
He nodded eagerly, his energy changed completely from the moment he entered the chambers to then “Yes, please, Auntie"
“Stay still" you warned softly as you got to work, wetting the soap and adding a generous amount to his barely hair-covered head.
While you worked with the blade in his head, you hummed a soft song, focusing on not cutting the boy. Little by little you could see the little child you saw that day in Ashford, it was as if having no hair to tie him back to his House lifted a weight from his little shoulders.
Once you finished with the shaving, you started drying his head "All done, little one” you informed him proudly "I must admit, I did a good enough job”
Aegon looked at you with a smile before practically sprinting towards the looking glass in your chambers, staring at his reflection in there, admiring your work. You could see his hand running across his now hairless head, inspecting it and relinquishing on the feeling.
“Thank you, Auntie" His voice was grateful, fully satisfied with the result.
"You have nothing to thank me for” You smiled at him before nodding at the door "Now, go find Ser Duncan and wait for me with him, alright?”
"Yes, I will” He nodded, quickly rushing out the door without looking back.
You could not hold back the chuckle that left your lips after seeing his energetic self and how he looked in better spirits that before.
With a shake of your head, you forced yourself to go back to looking for a piece of paper and a quill, you needed to get your message for your husband written as soon as possible, before it was time to get going.
Once you found it, you were quick to scribble down what you needed to say in short sentences, enough for Baelor to know what you needed him too. You made quick work of folding it and sealing it before grabbing your bag and shearing a dagger under your cloak, ready to leave.
On the corner of your eye, you noticed some sparkling that caught your attention.
It was the ring, that ring Baelor had made for you when he leaned you were pregnant, the one he sent with his first letter, same one you had refused to wear.
Picking it up, you inspected it for a moment before putting it on and with a last glance, you left your chambers, making your way to deliver the letter to the Maester so he could send a raven to Baelor.
…
Once you took care of everything you needed to, you left the Castle with the same excuse you had given to your Lady's maid; you were going horse riding with Aegon and Ser Duncan, exploring the island and you would be gone most of the day.
No one suspected a thing, not the guards or the Maester. You took care of bribing a stable boy so he could go grab the horses from the place where you would safely left them and bring them back.
Everything was easy enough, maybe even too easy, soon you were encountering the fisherman that would take you to Sharp Point, he looked like a trustworthy enough man, friendly too. Though neither you or Ser Duncan lowered your defenses, carefully staring at every move the man made.
The journey from Dragonstone to Sharp Point was fairly quick, reaching from one place to another just as the sun was disappearing into the horizon.
I am coming, Baelor.
…
Back in King's Landing, Baelor Breakspear Targaryen was fairing absolutely terrible, he could not sleep and worry was eating him alive. He spent hours hiding away in his solar, thinking about his boy and the sickness that threatened to take him away from him and into the claws of the Stranger.
He lamented the way he was forbidden to be by his son's side, he yearned to hold his boy, try to lower his fever and console him as he did when he was but a babe. But he couldn't, and that was eating his soul.
It had been two days since, by his calculations, you had received his letter and yet he had not received a response.
He could only imagine your reaction to his letter, to the news you received in the form of his writing. It was something he was reluctant to write at first but you had a right to know.
His heart cried for his son, who would call for you in his fever, hoping to be comforted by you but lacking your warmth and comfort.
To make matters worse, his father had also fallen sick with the same sickness Valarr had caught, ending in the King being isolated while he fought the fever and the Maesters pampered him. That left him in complete charge of the matters of the Kingdom, Maekar helped as most as he could but it was a grueling task.
The only comfort Baelor found in the whole ordeal was that you were safe, away from him but safe. He would take the win, even if his whole world apart from that was falling in front of his eyes.
It was past the hour of the Owl when a knock in the door snapped him out of his head, calling for whomever was on the other side to enter his solar. Once the door opened with a shrieking sound, he saw a maid with her head low and a resemblance of letter in her hands.
“Your Grace" she bowed respectfully “Master Yormwell said to bring this to you, a raven arrived today. For you"
The kind maid waited until Baelor nodded before crossing the distance from the door to his desk, extending her hand to give him the letter.
“Thank you" Baelor said honestly through is tiredness “You may retire"
With a bow, she left quietly, closing the door after her.
Once he found himself alone, Baelor allowed himself to glance down at the letter, instantly recognizing your seal. Good, a response of his letter. At least he would have your writing as a newfound comfort.
He leaned back in his chair while ripping the seal off, unfolding the letter with the utter care.
The handwriting on the letter was rushed and messy, not at all the way you used to write, that was his first sign something was wrong.
He forced himself not to panic, taking a deep breath before focusing to read the letter.
Baelor,
I know that you must be surprised by this letter, as I had never answered your past one, but this time it was important to write back.
By the time you receive this be sure I would already be in my way to you, I am ready to part as I write this.
I know you asked me to remain here but the truth is; I couldn't, not when I know of Valarr's condition, not when I know you are at risk too and there is a possibility we are not to see each other again. I cannot remain still.
This is a short letter, a mere warning, if you'd like to call it that.
I am coming, I shall arrive soon if the Gods show me mercy, I am traveling with Ser Duncan as my guard and Aegon.
Wait for me. I am coming, Husband.
See you soon,
Your wife.
Once Baelor finished reading, his form was tense, the letter crumpling in his hold as he tried to remain calm. You were infuriating when you set your mind to be, but he could not deny that he knew you a little too well to, deep down, know you would pull something like this off.
Standing up from his chair, he walked in direction of the window, staring at the darkness outside in the direction of Dragonstone.
“I am waiting for you, you stubborn woman" He whispered into the wind, hoping it would travel long enough to you.
do not copy, reupload, translate or feed to artificial intelligence.
contents: novice!reader, slow burn, strangers to lovers, mutual pining, angst, hurt/comfort, religious imagery cw for power imbalance, obsessive behavior, gaslighting, spiritual manipulation, barely proofread, smut 18+ (MDNI): ormund has a scent kink, mutual masturbation, m!receiving oral, thigh riding, dubcon due to manipulation (but everyone is kind of a perv here so it balances out), this is a pretty dark fic so please heed the warnings!!!
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
Sometimes you think you were unforgivably damned from birth.
You had been born, as far as anyone could tell you, on no particular night in no particular place to no one in particular who cared enough to claim you. You belonged to nothing more than whatever poison you’d inherited flooding your veins, and the years of constant isolation that had drawn an invisible line between you and the rest of the world.
Everywhere you went, you tried to copy what you understood was expected of you, but humanity had never come all that easily to you. You spent most of your life, instead, feeling like a gown turned inside out, with all of your seams and soft parts showing.
First, it had been the other orphan girls you were raised with in childhood, rows and rows of flocking sparrows in matching tatters of grey and navy. Then it was the septry in the Riverlands, where you’d spent the bulk of your teenagehood; and then it was the handful of minor households you served, scattered along the coast from Storm’s End down to Sunspear. After that, it was Septa Enith — who had known you since you were small enough to be lifted onto a washing stool to reach the basin — who sent a raven to the sept keeping you for the season, imploring you to come to Oldtown.
“Lord Ormund Hightower stands in need of a tutor to assist in his nephew’s instruction,” the letter wrote in the old woman’s perfect script. “If the Mother grants it and your present duties permit, come to Oldtown with due haste, and the Seven may yet make some purpose of you.”
So you had gone to Oldtown the way you had gone to every foreign town throughout your childhood. A ghost wandering a half-gone graveyard, a stranger let loose in another man’s sanctuary — hoping, always hoping, that someone might finally decide you were something worth keeping.
When the city rose finally before you in tiers of sun-bleached stone, with a towering lighthouse crowning its center like a great white candle, you believed that you had only traded one kind of nothing for another — as you had done your whole life.
Septa Enith leads you through the corridors of the tower with her habit whispering faintly behind her. You follow a few paces back with your eyes downcast, dressed in a gown of plain wool that marked your status — lesser, unfinished, a novice still — lacking the septa’s seven-pointed veil you had not yet earned, and allowing your hair to hang loose behind you.
“Septa Enith,” Lord Ormund greets from further inside his office upon her entrance. The room is warm with early-morning light, turning motes of dust aglitter where they drift through the tall stained-glass windows. The air is sweet with the scent of pine logs smoldering low in the hearth, where a young boy lingers — Daeron, you figure, still soft-cheeked with the last days of childhood.
His uncle rises from the great oak desk, full of organized letters and ledgers. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome to the point of devastation. He comes around the desk, boots padding softly along the cobblestone.
“This must be the girl you wrote me of.”
You sink into a small, practiced curtsy with your gaze fixed on the cobbles. Septa Enith introduces you like a woman would present her own handiwork — that you were traveled and well-taught; a little green yet, but still diligent and pious beyond most girls your age.
But you were not devout, in truth. Not really. The gods were like your parents in that regard: neither one was coming to look for you now. And in the few times you had sunk low enough to beg the gods for mercy, they only seemed to shove more suffering down your throat to keep you from crying out again. But devotion was never the point — a girl so alone in the world, with no dowry and no kin to speak of, had precious few paths laid before her. The grey wool and the seven-pointed star was, perhaps, the only one that would ever choose you back.
With your eyes still lowered, you see only Lord Ormund’s polished boots enter the narrow scope of your downcast vision.
He lingers before you, close enough for you to catch the scent of him — leather, incense, and musky bathing oils. He waits with a polite grin for you to lift your eyes, and raises his brows to his hairline when you don’t.
He ducks his head instead, made of short, dark-auburn curls, trying almost playfully to catch your gaze from below — the way a young boy might peer beneath a table to startle someone hiding there. He leans closer then, enough for you to hear the soft pull of breath he draws in through his nose.
You flinch involuntarily at the nearness of his warmth, before willing your body back into its practiced submission once more.
“Rosewater…” Ormund mutters, almost to himself, as if he were solving some sort of riddle. “And something else beneath it— orris root, I’d wager.”
He straightens then, satisfied with his guess, and waits again for a response from you that never comes.
It was always easier to be quiet, you found, after so many years spent in the company of high lords and ladies who cared not if you lived or died. You had learned to stand so still in a room that you all but vanished from it, refusing to give away even the smallest, truest piece of yourself.
Ormund’s grin grows wider at your silence. His deep, melodic voice is coated in amusement as he quips, “Septa Enith hasn’t sent me a silent sister, has she? I’d hate to think my nephew’s new tutor has sworn off speaking entirely."
“No, my lord,” you answer finally, though the words are swallowed back down again almost as soon as they leave you.
“She speaks!” Ormund chuckles, the sound ringing through the quiet expanse of his office. “A voice like a mouse, yes, but a voice all the same.”
Still, though, you fail to lift your eyes to meet his own. You’re grateful when the man doesn’t press you any further for it, though you can feel a tension that suggests he wants to — like the glimmering heat off a flame. There’s something strangely gentle in his palpable restraint; a simple courtesy that costs him nothing, though he seems to take a private pride in offering it nonetheless.
“You needn’t be frightened,” he tells you, gentler now. “You’ll be treated kindly here. Enith keeps a fair house, as I’m sure you know, and Daeron is no great trial— are you, boy?”
He glances over his shoulder towards the hearth, where Daeron stands with his hands folded behind his back and his eyes watching the exchange with an attentive, green-eyed stare — a future knight in the making no doubt.
“No, uncle," Daeron answers, firm but gentle, and with a deep voice that still fractures slightly with the remnants of boyhood.
Lord Ormund's pink mouth curves into a pleased grin. “Well, what do you think, then? Shall we keep her?"
He poses the question lightly, as if you were a piece of livestock being brought to market. You suppose he means it in jest, or at least, as something far more light-hearted than the words truly sound, but it strikes you deep in the chest anyway.
“If it please you, uncle,” Daeron responds politely.
Lord Ormund turns back to you then, still sporting the same polite grin. His brows bounce with amusement as his pale gaze sweeps your form in a slow, daunting pass.
“Then yes…” he hums to himself. “I think we shall…”
Your days, for the first time since childhood, take a shape that feels almost permanent.
You rise each morning before the sun, kneel through your morning prayers alongside Enith and the other septas in the hush of the sept, break your fast on stale bread and watered wine, and then report to the small, sunlit chambers where Daeron takes his studies. Septa Enith watches every day from her chair by the window, tending to her needlework while you lead the young prince’s lessons, and correcting you only rarely.
Daeron, as you had come to find after weeks within the Hightower keep, was a perfect pupil. He was quick, attentive, and always very sweet. He minds his histories well and his prayers even better, and only rarely drifts his attention out the window toward the training yards where the squires train with blunt swords. But you had been a child once, too, even though it felt a very long time ago now — and you deign to crack his knuckles with the pointer stick the way your teachers had once done to you.
“We’ll start easy,” you say from across the low table, where a scattering of parchment lay between you. “The Hightowers of Oldtown."
“‘An old, just, and true line,'" Daeron recites the text easily, with his eyes fixed out the window and his finger drumming with a boyish distraction. “‘Keeper of the light, guardian of the Citadel and the Faith.' Words: We Light the Way."
“Good,” you hum. “The Tyrells of Highgarden?”
“Words: Growing Strong. Their sigil is a… a golden rose on a green field. They hold Highgarden by right of the Gardener kings— though they were stewards once, not lords."
“The Lannisters of Casterly Rock?"
“Words: A Lannister always pays his debts—”
“A common phrase, yes, but not their true words,” you correct gently, lips pursed to keep from smiling. “Try again.”
“Words…” he trails off, wrinkling his freckled nose in thought. “Hear Me Roar. Their sigil is a golden lion on crimson. They say they're the richest house in the Seven Kingdoms, though Septa Enith says rich men are always saying that about themselves—”
“That was not meant for you to repeat, boy,” the older woman scolds without looking up from her stitching. Daeron ducks his head with a grin pursed to the side of his mouth, and you allow yourself the smile you’d been holding back all lesson.
A steward arrives in that moment, rapping twice along the door frame to announce his presence. “Begging pardon, Septa,” he says with a polite bow of his head, just before his eyes find you. “Lord Ormund has requested your presence in his office.”
“Oh—” Your eyes widen as you glance back at Daeron, then to the half-done lesson laid out before you, and then to the lanky man across the room. “I— We’re still at our studies, ser. Might I come after we’ve—”
“Girl,” Enith snaps, her voice cutting through the room like a whip. All eyes turn to her in an instant. Her wise, watery gaze hardens at you. “Lord Ormund does not wait on the patience of novices. You will go to him now, and you will be grateful he thought to send for you at all."
Heat crawls up your neck from the high collar of your woolen dress. You swallow through the distant shame of being scolded before your own pupil, as if you were a child of Daeron’s own age, and rise with a murmured apology to no one in particular. You follow a few paces behind the steward with your eyes fixed on the floor.
Ormund’s office, you find, is washed in beams of silver-gold from the morning light spilling through the high windows. He stands within the rays with his strong hands clasped loosely behind his back as he gazes out over the tower's long descent to the river below.
The sound of the door clicking shut behind you draws his attention. He turns his head, and the light catches in his sheared curls, turning them a richer shade of auburn.
“There you are,” he greets with a kind smile, motioning to his desk in the center of the room with a broad hand. “Come in. Sit, if you like.”
You do not move from your place. You remain just inside the door, with your head bowed and your hands folded obediently in front of you, the way you had been taught. You say nothing in response until he asks.
“How does my nephew’s lessons fare?”
“Well, my lord.” Your voice comes out smaller than you mean it to, trembling at the edge of each syllable despite your attempts to steady it. “He’s very smart. He’s very clever, too, as I’m sure you already—”
“Come closer, won’t you?” he interjects suddenly, though not unkindly. “I can hardly hear a word from you all the way over there.”
Your slippers pad along the cobbles as you near him with small, hesitant steps, and with your breath caught somewhere in your throat. You stop an arm's length from him before the great stained-glass windows — Ormund closes what little distance remains himself, smothering you in his warmth and the incense clinging to the silver pomander hanging at his sword belt.
His wide hands lift to rest along the outsides of your elbows without warning. You’re perhaps more startled by the gentleness of his touch rather than the touch itself — you can feel the warmth radiating from his palms even through the thick sleeves of your dress. He dips his head the same way he had the first time he met you, trying once more to catch your downturned gaze.
“You needn’t be frightened of me,” Ormund tells you softly, though it did very little to loosen the perpetual knot in your chest.
“I am not, my lord,” you tell him, half-strangled, and wonder distantly if a lie is still a sin if it’s meant to spare someone else the trouble of you.
Ormund says nothing for a long moment. When you dare to lift your eyes, you find that he’s already leaning in — the way he had that very first day. Your pulse falters a beat when you hear him draw a slow breath beside your temple. You go very still, like a trapped animal going quiet in the hope of being spared.
“Lavender,” he muses to himself. “And… beeswax.”
He straightens once more, pleased with himself, and smiles down at you again.
“The motherhouse must be running thin, if you've had to make do with the castle's plain milling,” he quips with an attentiveness that feels borderline intrusive. “I’ll have something better sent along to you at once.”
You say nothing. There is nothing to say to that, you think — nothing that wouldn’t feel like spurring on his kindness, which has started to feel like comes with a debt you didn’t agree to owe.
“Well,” he says in response to your silence, dropping his hands to his sides. The warmth in his strong face returns again, with the negligible tenderness of a lord dismissing one of his middling servants. “I won’t keep you from your duties any longer. Go on back to my nephew— I imagine Enith's grown fond of her needlework again, now that she's free to listen to you instead.”
You drop into your usual curtsy with a“yes, my lord,” murmured beneath your breath. You rise again and turn to go, but Ormund catches you before you can.
He ducks down and presses his mouth to yours in a parting kiss that a great lord might bestow on any woman of his household. His lips are soft and light against your own, but lingering nonetheless — long enough that the peck turns from well-mannered to borderline indecent.
You go rigid at the shock of it, too stunned to do anything more than stand there with your hands clenched into fists at your sides until he pulls away from you again.
“May the Seven be with you, sister,” Ormund says with a kind, untroubled grin, as if nothing strange had passed between you at all.
“And with you, my lord,” you manage through the invisible hand still wrapped around your throat.
It takes the length of the corridor outside for you to remember how to breathe again. You feel the ghost of his mouth on yours for hours after he’s let you go.
Something about Ormund sticks in you like a splinter under the skin. The thought of him grows on you like ivy on cobblestone — quiet and quick and everywhere. It was his unwavering tenderness, you think, or maybe the way his eyes always seemed to linger on you a beat longer than courtesy required, which left something raw and unfamiliar in its wake. Like what little you remember of love in your girlhood, a childhood infatuation that was usually very fickle but always very intense.
It was this same constant turning-over of him in your head that made it so easy to suspect him when your slips began to disappear.
It was a small thing at first — a sliver torn from the edge of your thin linen, leaving the hem pulled and frayed. A rat, you assumed, gnawing for fabric for its nest; or a splintered edge, maybe, from where your trunk had snagged it. And when a second strip vanished, this time cut clean from the chest, you believed it had been a rat then, too.
But then an entire slip had disappeared outright, gone from the wicker basket of unwashed linen, and no amount of searching your small chamber seemed to turn it up.
Septa Enith called you mad when you told her of your suspicions, but you knew what kind of man Lord Ormund was.
You had felt his breath along your temple, heard him murmur rosewater and lavender and beeswax against your skin with the quiet reverence typically reserved for prayer. And, thus, the thought crept into your skull unbidden, shaped like that same warm breath along your skull. Try as you might to laugh it off as foolishness — the overactive fancy of a girl raised with gossiping novices, forever seeing shadows where none existed — the thought did not leave you. And after a time, you understood it would not leave you until you knew if it was true.
And so you lie.
You tell Septa Enith that you were feeling poorly and asked if she could take Daeron’s lessons herself that day. You bore her subsequent scolding with your eyes down and your hands folded — that you ought to have more of a backbone than to let a little queasiness keep you from your duties; that a septa's calling was not so easily set aside as that. You had already memorized the prayers of contrition you would say for it later, kneeling before the Mother to confess the small sin honestly.
But for now, you spend the rest of the morning in your chambers — sitting first upon your bed and then, when that grew tiresome, at the writing desk by the window. You watch the morning light drift across the ancient floorboards and feel more and more foolish by the minute. By midday you’ve nearly convinced yourself that you’ve wasted a perfectly good lie on nothing, and that the missing slips had simply been misplaced; that Lord Ormund had far better things to occupy his time than a novice septa's undergarments.
Then you heard his voice in the corridor, exchanging some brief word with a passing servant outside — “See that the eastern rooms are aired before the Citadel men arrive,” he says.
It would have meant nothing to you at all if it hadn’t been drawing nearer to your bedchambers. Your heart lurches wildly in your chest as you scramble from the desk and into the small adjoining bathing room — easing the door shut until only a hair’s-breadth crack remains. You press yourself against it, scarcely daring to breathe.
A knock comes at your door a moment later. It’s soft and courteous, two sharp raps against the wood, as if to make certain that no one at all was behind it. The heavy door creaks open without invitation. You hear the scuff of boots against the floor and the click of the door easing shut, just before Ormund comes into view.
Through the crack in the door, you watch the man move slowly through the narrow confines of your quarters. The late morning light catches the auburn flecks in his curls as he passes the window by your writing desk. He lingers there for a long moment, studying the things scattered across its surface as if he were already well acquainted with them.
He lifts the smooth river stone you’d kept since childhood, somehow already knowing where to find it, and runs his thumb mindlessly over the smooth edge. As he does so, he dips his head to skim through the parchment scattered there — clumsy sketches, scant prayers, and miscellaneous writings of dried ink.
Ormund touches nothing else. He only looks, cataloging the smallest parts of your life with his eyes alone.
He sets the small stone down with a quiet thud and crosses to the hamper of unwashed linens tucked beside your washstand. He peers inside and, without hesitation, plucks one of your slips from the pile.
Your heart goes still but very loud all at once as you watch the man bring the linen up to his nose to inhale the scent of you upon it — of rosewater, soap, and faintly of sweat. His strong chest rises beneath his emerald doublet as he takes a slow breath in. His eyes fall shut on the long, lingering exhales that follow.
You see only the profile of his broad form from where you stand. He goes quiet and still thereafter with something that seems almst peaceful.
When his hand moves into his trousers, with the linen slip still caught in his fist, you do not move from the doorway. You stand frozen in disbelief while his hand disappears in his pants, while the rest of your slip hangs lazily at his thigh. You scarcely breathe — because your heart has moved so far up into your throat that you cannot, maybe; or because you long to hear the man’s grumbled groan as he works himself hard with his fist.
His adam’s apple bobs in his throat when he tips his head back. His moan comes from the very back of his throat, sounding like distant thunder as it rolls across the quiet room. The pleasured sound feels like a hand between your thighs, where a strange throbbing has started to settle — an ache that longs to be smoothed out.
“Yes…” Ormund groans to himself through a jaw clenched tight.
And, as if spurred on by his own words, you feel your hand reaching down to lift your skirts — and to shove your fingers where the dull pulsing has settled.
Your pointer and forefinger slot wet between the velvety folds of your cunt. You pierce yourself with them slowly, the way it had been down to you by a young knight somewhere between The Twins and Riverrun in your girlhood.
You remember the way he attempted to pleasure you with his fingers, dragging them in and out and in and out of you. And even though you failed to orgasm then the way the knight said you ought to have, you fight now to chase that pleasure warming in the very pit of your stomach now.
You brace yourself against the doorframe with your free hand and watch the man stroke himself with a lidded gaze — with the same violating scrutiny he always seems to watch you with.
You’re no different than he is, a cynical voice screams in the very back of your head. The two of you are made out of the same kind of sin. But even still, you find yourself hunting the feeling simmering in your stomach; a knot pulled tight and threatening to snap.
Ormund tenses in place, bracing himself with a strong hand along your bedframe as his towering body quakes with the tremors of his orgasm. His knuckles go white around the ancient wood, gripping there hard enough to splinter it.
His moan sounds like thunder in his chest — “Fuck…” he grumbles lowly. “Fuck, yes…”
He reaches his pinnacle before you do, and when the aftershocks have subsided and his limbs have stopped shaking, Ormund pulls your dress from his trousers. Something sticky darkens the pale fabric where his fist had held it. You catch only a sliver of the stain before he tosses it back into the basket of unwashed linens.
Your heart slams against your ribcage; hard enough that you worry he might hear it through the door as he slips back out of your bedchambers, just as quietly as he had come in.
You remain in the crack of your own bathing room door long after the sound of his footsteps has faded down the corridor.
You wonder how many times Ormund has let himself into your chambers while you attended your lessons and prayers each day. You wonder how many times he’s pleasured himself using your garments as a rag, and how many of those garments you must have washed without noticing his pleasure stained upon it.
You wonder, even more so, if you should feel more violated by the thought than you do — if it would be such a sin to take pleasure in the thought of being so carnally desired.
You drag your fingers, finally, from the depths of your pulsing confines. The pads of them have started to prune with the slick gathered upon them, shiny with honey and slightly stringy when you separate your middle and pointer finger from one another.
What are these hands supposed to do now? the voice berates you still, while your loins tingle with a lingering pleasure. Because they are certainly far too stained now to pray.
You need a mother to comfort you; a father to shield you; someone older and wiser to cry to, because the skies are empty and no god has answered you yet.
Your attempts to tell Septa Enith what you’d seen had failed you entirely. You had gone to her that afternoon, before the courage could leave you, and found her in the small garden off the sept where she typically took her afternoon needlework. You told her what you had witnessed (and nothing of what your own fingers had done to yourself while you witnessed it).
Her needle stilled mid-stitch. For a moment, you thought she might believe you, as her wrinkled face twisted in shock at your confession. But when she finally spoke, her voice came flat with something closer to anger than alarm.
“So you lied to me this morning?” she asked after several moments of daunting silence.
“Yes. I did,” you answered honestly from where you knelt beside her chair, with your hands clasped in your lap like a penitent child. “And I do mean to repent for it, Septa, for however long you think fit. But I saw him. With my own eyes, in my own chambers. I saw him take my—”
“Oh, enough of that,” she grunted, as if she were dismissing a child mid-fancy. Her face screwed with annoyance as she berated you. “I have known you since you were a girl of seven years. Sniveling and friendless and full of stories that were never true; stories you told yourself to escape the real truth of things. I remember it. The other septas remember it besides.”
You cowered at her words. Her mouth thinned into a tight seam; her watery blue eyes hardened in a way that you had not seen since your earliest, clumsiest days under her instruction — when you were still learning which lies got a girl a slap and which got her days of confinement.
“And now you would have me believe that Lord Ormund — a kind man who has shown you nothing but courtesy since the day you set foot in this tower — has been sneaking into your chamber to steal your smallclothes and use them to… pleasure himself like a lovesick stableboy?"
“I saw it," you repeated, voice cracking with a desperation to be believed. You blinked away the haze of tears burning at your waterline as you begged her. “Septa, please—"
“Enough,” she shoved your pleading hand away and stood, smoothing out her skirts with hands that were not quite steady. “I’ll not hear any more of it. You'll do your penance tonight as you've promised, and you'll pray besides for honesty — and for gratitude, perhaps, that a house such as this took in a girl with no name and no prospects and gave her some purpose at all.”
You stayed where you knelt as the woman moved towards the tower, heavy with the sinking feeling that she was moving to Lord Ormund’s solar to carry your confession to him herself.
“I’d have thought you'd grown past your stories by now,” she scolded without looking back at you.
The summons, which you knew was inevitable, doesn’t come until the sun has dipped low over the horizon — turning the cloudless sky into a mixture of deep orange and dark lavender. A steward knocks at your door and does not meet your eyes when he tells you that Lord Ormund awaits your presence in the castle sept. You had lain through the afternoon anticipating exactly this, but your stomach still flips in spite.
The sept is empty and quiet with the remnants of evening prayer. The air is stale and thick with the scent of burning incense and glowing candles. What little light remains falls through the stained glass in slanted beams of color across the ancient wood — deep red where it touches the Warrior’s carved shield, soft green pooling at the Mother’s feet, and jewel-blue catching the folds of the Father’s robes where he stands in eternal judgment above the altar.
You find Lord Ormund standing near the front with his back to you, and with a leather-bound copy of the Seven-Pointed Star in his hands. His voice is low and even as it carries through the empty nave, reading aloud to no one at all: “…And the Crone raised her lantern, saying: truth is the light by which the righteous find their road, while falsehood is a mist that leads only to darkness.”
He speaks the words as if he knew precisely when you would arrive, and had arranged the moment accordingly to catch you in some sort of trap.
Ormund does not look up when your slippers pad along the narrow aisle. He lets you linger there instead, like a stupid lamb walking itself to the slaughter. The silence grows too suffocating to bear. You feel the weight of the sept pressing down on either side of you — old wood and candle-smoke and the watchful, carved eyes of seven gods who had never once troubled themselves to answer your prayers.
“Septa Enith came to speak with me this afternoon,” Ormund says in lieu of a greeting when he turns finally to face you. His smile is thin-lipped and gentle, if not a little disarming. “She tells me you’ve become… distressed.”
It takes you a long moment to find the courage to speak. The words well up into your throat like bile but refuse to come out, lingering bitterly on your tongue instead. The candles crackle in the silence you leave behind.
“I— I only told her the truth, my lord,” you tell him. And though your voice does not waver, your folded hands start to tremble despite your effort to keep them still.
“The truth…” he echoes, as if he were tasting the word on his tongue for the first time. He saunters down the steps of the altar with the leather-bound book tucked beneath his strong arm. “You believe, truly, that I entered a novice’s chambers without invitation? That I used her garments for something so sinful? That I’ve been… stealing pieces of her garments for my own keeping?”
A laugh leaves him then, warm with amusement.
“Surely, you do not think so little of me as that.”
“I only know what I saw,” you answer and hold his gaze until it feels like a little rebellion. It’s the first time you’ve ever offered him your eye contact so freely, to be sure, and it feels like it costs you something to do it.
“Would you swear it?” Ormund asks, approaching you like a hunter would a prey animal caught in a snare. The candlelight catches in the strong curve of his jaw and the blue of his eyes, carving him out of flickering gold and shadow. “You would swear it before the Father himself. Invoke His judgment upon your soul, should you speak false."
Your mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water until you find the breath to answer. “I… I would never lie before the Seven, my lord.”
“No,” the man hums with a shake of his head, studying you still from a few paces off. Something in his chiseled features turns gentle, or seemed to besides. “I do not believe you would.”
You think the words are meant to comfort you.
They do not.
“But I do believe something else," Ormund continues without his gaze straying from yours. “I believe loneliness makes strange companions of the mind. Wouldn’t you agree?”
You stiffen from where you stand before him, bracing yourself for his following words, which you know are bound to find you like a rod to the thigh.
“You grew up without mother or father. Without kin of any kind, as I’m told,” Ormund rambles with all the tenderness of a man delivering some sad, gentle truth. “A child left alone in such a place learns to invent reasons for the things she cannot understand, does she not? It is not a fault in her, to be sure. It is only what loneliness does to a mind left too long to its own devices."
“I am not a child,” you try to argue, though the words come out more strangled than you intend.
“No,” Ormund grins, devilish enough to squint the edges of his eyes. “But perhaps some distant part of her lingers in you yet."
Your hands clench into fists. Your dull nails bite crescent shapes into the delicate skin of your palms. “I saw you—”
“You've always had a fondness for stories, haven’t you?” he interjects, almost fondly so. “Septa Enith told me as much herself— said that you used to… frighten all the other girls with tales of dragons in the rafters, of shadows that moved on their own in the dark.”
“I was a child then—”
“She said you often mistook the wind for voices; and shapes in dark corners for things with faces,” Ormund continues with a grin, tilting his head until the candlelight pools in the hollows of his eyes. “So tell me, sister, and weigh it honestly, as the Seven would have you weigh it… What is more likely— that a lord of this tower crept into a servant's chamber to steal her smallclothes like a common thief? Or that a girl who has spent her whole life inventing stories has done so once more?"
His words close around your throat like a pair of cold hands. You search desperately for a response but find nothing immediately waiting. Your voice has sealed itself shut around whatever truth you might have offered him, choking instead on the smothering weight of his.
Ormund steps closer and holds the Seven-Pointed Star out between you. His voice comes out sterner this time as he commands, “Read. I’ve already marked the page for you.”
“My lord—"
“Read."
Your hands tremble when they reach for the book he motions towards you. You find the leather still warm from his palms and impossibly heavy between your fingers as they fumble for the scarlet ribbon tucked inside. The thin pages turn heavily, until the inked words swim finally before you, blurred at the edges with time and something hot building behind your eyes.
“Aloud,” Ormund presses at your silence.
Your voice is scarcely more than breath when it finally comes to you.
“False witness is… is a wound upon the soul. For the tongue that fashions lies… distances itself from the light of the Father— and the Mother turns Her face from deceit until repentance is sought…” you swallow hard through a tight throat, fighting the tremor in your voice. You press on before you lose the nerve, and pretend not to notice the weight of Ormund’s stare fixed upon you.
“Let he who bears false tales examine his own heart before… before casting stones upon another. For the Crone's wisdom teaches that the eye deceived is— is no less guilty than the tongue that speaks the falsehood aloud—” You cut yourself off with a shake of your head, a stubborn refusal at Ormund’s plain attempt at manipulation. “I cannot.”
“You can,” the man nods, warm and almost encouraging. “Continue.”
Your voice cracks in two, but you obey regardless — because some well-worn part of you never learned how to do otherwise.
“…And let the penitent seek not to defend his pride, but to humble himself before the Seven. For truth asks no champion, and innocence need fear no judgment,” you continue, voice thick and wet with unshed tears, breath hitching occasionally in your throat. “Bow thy head before the… the Father, confess thy trespass before the Mother… and the Smith shall make whole— that which falsehood hath broken. So shall mercy be granted— unto the contrite, but the stubborn shall… shall dwell in the Stranger's shadow… until the last of their days—”
By the time you reach the passage's end, your vision has dissolved entirely into tears. They burn hot and humiliating down your cheeks and chin until one strikes the page before you could catch it. It blooms dark against the old vellum. You scrub at it with your sleeve, as though you might undo the stain before it set.
“I—I’m sorry," you stammer — to the book, maybe, or to Ormund, or to the Seven watching from their carved and unmoving faces.
The man says nothing for a long while. When he finally speaks again, the sternness has slipped entirely from his voice — replaced by something that sounds, almost, like kindness.
“You’ve carried a great deal on your own, haven’t you?” Ormund wonders suddenly aloud. You peer up at him with your eyes still glittering like stained glass. His hardened face has softened slightly, because of the tears clouding your vision maybe, or perhaps due to a newfound warmth. “You've spent your whole life learning to survive on what you need. But tell me, my girl— What do you want?"
You don’t realize until then that no one has ever asked you that before — not once, in all your years of learning to be small, useful, and no trouble to anyone who might otherwise have turned you out into the cold. The question moves through you like a key turning finally into an old lock that’s long rusted shut.
“I…” you try hard to speak, but your breath catches somewhere in your throat before you can. “I don't know, I… I’ve never…”
You trail off, shaking your head. Ormund ducks down to catch your gaze when it falls away once more.
“Tell me,” he presses gently, brows softly furrowed. “Speak true.”
“I’ve… I’ve never belonged anywhere, my lord,” you confess for the first time aloud. “I don't remember my mother's face. Nor my father's. No one’s ever… ever chosen me before. The only reason the sept took me in was because there was nowhere else for me to go, I… I think that— I’ve always been in… in someone's way. I don't— I don’t even know what I’m supposed to want.”
A laugh sputters from your mouth, all watery and ashamed. You trail off again, so quietly you can barely hear your own voice over the pounding of your heart.
Your face screws into a pained sort of look as you admit to him, “I think… I think I only want someone to— to tell me what to want, what to do.”
The candles gutter along the altar, though no draft has moved through the sept. Your words cling so ardently to the incense-thick air between you that you wish so desperately that you could reach out and put them back in your mouth again — suddenly terrified that you’ve given away far too much of yourself.
Ormund steps forward, close enough to smother you with the warmth radiating from his towering form. He plucks the leather-bound scripture from your trembling hands, closes it with a resounding thud in one broad fist, and tosses it blindly to a pew just beside him without once looking away from you. The book hits the wood like a door slamming shut. Your shoulders jerk as the sound echoes through the quiet sept.
You try to will your hands to stop shaking at your sides as you peer at the man from beneath lashes clumped wet with tears. He spends a long moment staring down the bridge of his nose at you, chest rising and falling with even breaths beneath the clasps of his doublet.
When he speaks again, his words come out low and steady from his mouth — far gentler and far more certain than any god has ever been to you before.
“Kneel,” he commands plainly, needing no further adornment to carry the weight of the word.
You stand frozen before him for several long moments thereafter.
The last color pooling from the stained glass thins now as the sun sinks somewhere beyond the windows — crimson bleeding to rust, green fading to a negligible yellow, blue fading to the color of an old bruise. Above the altar, the Seven look down upon you with nothing but judgment. They offer you no counsel, no rescue, no sign that they had ever been listening to all your years of prayer.
Then, with your cheeks still wet with thick streaks of tears, you clasp your hands tightly together and lower yourself to your knees. They meet the cold wood with a quiet thud, and the chill of it climbs up through your skirts.
Your lowered gaze lifts slowly to the man towering above you. You find no comfort waiting in his strong features. There is nothing behind his light eyes except the flickering candlelight and the same coldness as the Father looking down from his stone alcove — as if Ormund, too, felt owed something you had not yet given.
“There can be no absolution without obedience…” he says without taking his eyes off yours, even as his hands reach for the buckle of his sword belt.
The gold clinks faintly together; the leather hisses faintly when it’s pulled through. At first you think he means to spank you with it — bend you over his knee, lift up your skirts, and whip you bruised. Your stomach twists with excitement at the thought.
A mixture of dread and self-deprecation consumes you a moment later, when he tosses the scabbard aside and reaches for the tie in his trousers instead.
“…Show me the second,” Ormund continues, this time with his fist hidden in his pants, massaging himself there the same way he had in your chambers. “And perhaps I’ll be gracious enough to give you the first.”
Your mouth waters like a starving hound when he frees his cock from the confines of his slacks, tucking the hem beneath his balls. It’s heavy and half-hard in his fist — a shade paler than the rest of his skin, and glowing a faint pink color at the tip. This one is far bigger, far prettier than the cocks you’d seen throughout your teenagehood — when high lords and lanky knights would pull it out for you, “c’mon, just kiss it,” they’d beg, right before berating you when your face screwed in disgust instead.
All that repulsion seems to leave you now. Your mouth parts without further command from him, as if an unconscious part of you had longed to wrap your lips around his cock and taste the glittering spend he’d buried into your slip that morning. Your tongue darts out in a soft kitten lick to collect the pearls drooling from the tip, more salty than sweet.
“All of it now. C’mon…” you hear the man coo above you, like a parent urging their child to finish their supper.
You abide him willingly and take the rest of his cock into your mouth. Your eyes squeeze shut as your hands ball the fabric of your dress into fists, fighting back the gag that rises in your throat as you force yourself to take the entire length of him — if only to prove to yourself that you could, that you would lay the whole of your obedience at his feet for the smallest word of praise from his lips.
Ormund’s head tips back. A mixture of a laugh and a moan rumbles in his throat when the tip of your nose buries in the coarse thatch of brunette hair above his cock, smelling of sour sweat and musky bathing oils. Tears prick at the backs of your eyes like burning embers. His wide hand splays along the crown of your skull, more gentle than forceful, and it feels like an act of clemency.
“The gods weren’t enough for you, were they?” Ormund says, a lazy grin audible in his voice, as his thumb smooths over your hair. “No, you needed someone real to teach you, didn’t you? Someone real to belong to…”
His words make you nauseous.
You feel the urge to puke, but stronger still is the urge to make him feel good. You want to please him and murder him — you want to be obedient to him alone; you want to make him smile; you want to make him proud; you want him to forgive you and hate you and desire you all at once. You want to kiss him all over, and then beat him for making you so unholy, and then kiss him so more, and then let the hounds consume his sin to the bone.
You let him cum in your mouth instead.
“Take it all. There you go…” he praises in murmured slurs, keeping you pressed against him while he tenses above you. You nearly gag when the first drop of his spend stains your tongue, heavy and slightly bitter. “Take it all, and I’ll make you holy again,” Ormund babbles, almost to himself, as he shivers against you. “I promise… I promise…”
He pulls you off him with his fingers twisted tight in your hair, though not quite hard enough to hurt. He stares down at you with lust still swimming in his glassy blue eyes, and you wonder what you must look like from his perspective — on your knees, swollen-mouthed, heavy-eyed, wearing a mixture of cum and saliva down to your chin. The statue of the Father looms just behind him. You pretend not to notice.
“Open your mouth,” Ormund commands before you can swallow.
You do as you’re told, careful not to let the pearl-colored spend drip off of your tongue when you show it to him. Ormund’s chest heaves at the sight, as if it had snatched the breath from his lungs entirely. And then, before you can blink, he kneels before you — holding you by the chin with the hand not knotted in your hair, and kissing you hard enough to swallow you whole.
His tongue swipes against yours to collect his own cum and sighs hard through his nose at the taste of it, a mixture of himself and you. You can taste the ale on his lips and the lemon dessert from his dinner right before he pulls away from you; still close enough to run the tip of his broad nose over the bridge of your nose.
“Have you ever done that before?” he whispers, breath fanning warm against your mouth. You shake your head against him, too breathless for words. “Good…” he hums, then wonders aloud with all the sheepishness of a young boy. “Has anyone ever made you cum before?”
“They’ve tried,” you confess.
A smile curls slowly on his lips at that, pleased by your answer.
Ormund drops his hand from your chin to your dress skirts. His palm is warm and calloused as it creeps up the hem. You hold your breath in anticipation, waiting to feel his fingers slip into your cunt the way yours had done when you watched him pleasure himself. They slip around your thigh instead, digging into the skin hard enough to leave bruises when he drags you suddenly into his lap.
You brace yourself on his broad shoulders at the sudden shift in position, reminding yourself to breathe when the newfound proximity forces him to lift his chin to look at you properly. He keeps one hand on the back of your head and his other on the swell of your ass. His whisper fans across your jaw as he says, “If absolution is what you want… Then claim it.”
Before proper reasoning can take over, you grind your hips up and down his strong thigh, chasing the same pleasure you’d been so close to giving yourself earlier that day.
With your dress skirts now pushed up to your hips, your cunt is able to press fully to his trousers — the delicate skin parts along the fabric with every pass, exposing your sensitive clit to the merciless rhythm. You can already feel the wet spot you’re leaving on him there.
Your broken whine of pleasure and embarrassment echoes throughout the empty sept.
Ormund grins wider at the pathetic sound. “It’s okay, my girl… Take it… You can do it…” he praises lowly, helping you rock your hips up and down his thigh with his free hand. “There is no sin here that I cannot pardon for you. Leave your guilt to me and let go. That’s it… Let it go.”
Your hips lose their rhythm, hopelessly chasing the warmth swelling in the pit of your stomach — a rope pulled tight and fraying, bound to snap at any moment.
“You’re so needy for it now, aren’t you? After you couldn’t pleasure yourself with your fingers earlier? Hm?” he whispers in your ear, then smiles wider when you falter. “No, don’t stop now. Keep going. There you go.
You bury your face in his shoulder and twist your trembling hands in his shirt, choking on the pleasured moans welling in your throat. You feel dizzy and half-disgusted with yourself, as your heart hammers harder with every word from his mouth.
“You thought I didn’t notice, did you?” Ormund hums with an audible grin. “I could hear you whimpering behind the door… You liked watching me using your dress to make me cum, didn’t you? …Hm?”
You nod wordlessly into his neck, and feel the rumble of his laughter there as he chuckles to himself.
“I knew you would… I knew the kind of girl you were when you stepped into my office— the kind who mistook her loneliness for devotion…” he mumbles against you, helping your hips move up and down his thighs when your own rhythm falters. “The kind who prayed for guidance and got only silence in return… Well, the gods might’ve abandoned you, my girl— but I will not.”
You peer at the altar ahead with teary eyes, where all the eyes of the Seven look down upon you as you unravel in your sin. You cum with a fragile whimper in your throat a second later, trembling in Ormund’s lap and holding onto him like a raft while your sensitive cunt drools on his thigh.
“Yes…” the man praises in your ear, smoothing his nose across your temple just before he presses his mouth to the burning skin there. “There it is… Give me all of it, my girl. I can take it...”
Ormund continues his sweet murmurings until the aftershocks have passed – until you’ve gone lax on top of him, with your body heaving enough to melt against his. You want to be soldered to him, just like this, with his cheek against your cheek and his hands in your hair and your cunt to his thigh. Perhaps this was your purpose, you think to yourself, as the last of your pleasure drips onto his thigh. Perhaps the gods sent you here to find religion in the crooks of his body, and Ormund in the crooks of yours.
“Am I forgiven now?” you ask in a small, teary voice. Though whether the question is meant for the gods staring down at you from their alcoves, blurred now by the unshed tears clouding your vision, or for the man holding you through every wave of pleasure and guilt — you cannot say.
“Yes,” Ormund answers instantly, soft mouth brushing the shell of your ear as he smooths your hair from your temple. He feels your body slacken with a breath of relief against him, as if some unbearable weight has finally been lifted from your shoulders. “You will always be forgiven, my girl… So long as you remember that you must kneel to me to ask for it.”
You close your eyes at that, distantly ashamed of the relief blooming in your chest, unable now to tell where the comfort ended and the feeling of captivity began.
summary: beneath a storm of wrath, loneliness bares its wicked teeth. his war demands discipline. his faith demands restraint. his obsession demands a woman promised to another. the burden of control is heavy and the price to pay is high.
word count: 8.4k+
pairing: ormund hightower x reader; gwayne hightower x reader (if you squint)
contents: 18+ (mdni), noble!reader, mutual manipulation, reader matches his freak, heavy sexual tension, religious themes of shame/penance, misogyny, arranged political marriage, forbidden desire trope, violence, mentions of abuse, control, submission.
a/n: manipulative, politics savvy reader anyone?
→ NEXT CHAPTER
The sun was at its highest point when the carriage came to a halt inside the main courtyard of the seat of House Hightower. The portcullis rolled down with a rumble, a retinue of armoured knights removing their helms, all bearing the sigil of your noble House.
The gravel beneath the horses' hooves was warm with the heat of late morning, the sky blue and cloudless. Thick vines of ivy climbed the walls of the Hightower, fragrant lavender encircling the decorative pool in the centre of the yard, fashioned after the shape of the seven pointed star.
On the steps leading to the colossal stone fortification stood Lord Ormund Hightower, surrounded by his household guard, servants, lesser lords, and the young crown prince himself. He stood, tapping his booted foot against the ground, hands clasped behind his back and a sword hanging at his hip. He watched - feigning patience - as a young woman was helped down from the carriage, climbing down the wooden stairs to greet him.
The bargain had been simple; a noble Hightower husband for you, a formidable army for him. A bride for a victory.
You had met your husband to be once, long before, back when old King Viserys still sat the throne. It was a simpler time when war had not yet split the realm in two, years before any formal betrothal had been agreed. His father's visit to your castle had been a matter of trade - your sire's lands were rich; a great House, known for its strength in arms, wealth and wits.
The Hand's son was older than you, though handsome and tall; auburn of hair and with an air of grace which you had only ever encountered in song and tale. Barely fifteen at the time, you and your companions blushed and giggled when he glanced your way. Every lady in the hall longed for his attention, and those who were not yet wed, dreamed that one day he might be theirs.
Alas, that honour would be yours, for when the old King died and conflict began to stir, alliances needed forging.
What better way to forge alliances than with marriage, after all?
"My lady, it is a pleasure to receive you in Oldtown. I hope your passage has not been unkind to you."
Lord Ormund grinned, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners as he descended the steps, the embodiment of highborn courtesy. He stepped forward and took your hand in his, bowing his head and placing a gentle kiss upon your knuckle. He smelled faintly of mint.
"The journey has been long, my lord. I thank you for your hospitality."
You willed your own lips to curve into a gracious smile, a mirror of his own sophistication. You curtsied low, respectful.
Lord Ormund held your gaze with a kind of calculating intensity. He was surveying you, you realised, contemplating just what kind of bride he had procured for his cousin, in exchange for the vast army travelling down the Roseroad. The Lord of Hightower had not met you at the time of brokering the alliance, and a part of him wished his insufferable cousin would be forced to marry some horrid, horse-faced wench. To his dismay, you were beautiful; the kind of beautiful men like Gwayne would start wars for.
"Your quarters have been prepared for you and maids have been chosen to see to your wishes. I do hope you feel at home here, my lady."
You had heard rumours, tales of Lord Ormund's violent temper, his devotion to the faith and his reverence for custom and propriety. Your loving father told you of his changeable nature, that he was a man whose disposition could shift quicker than a candle guttering in a draught. For all the warnings you had received about him, none truly captured how pleasing he was to gaze upon.
The warmth and affection of his demeanour were also at odds with the man's reputation. You understood then that appearances mattered to him greatly; he was every bit committed to presenting himself as a generous and hospitable lord.
Your face did not betray your suspicion. Instead, you placed a hand over your heart to show him just how grateful you were.
"That is very kind of you, Lord Ormund. My father always speaks very highly of you." A lie.
He offered a nod, satisfied with your praise, before continuing on with the necessary pleasantries.
You greeted everyone with a dazzling smile, addressing by name the lords and knights whom you recognised and making sure to curtsy especially low for the young Targaryen ward. You accepted the bread and salt offered to you as a symbol of hospitality, and commented on the fine taste of the wine.
You were acutely aware, as you took in your surroundings, of the servants keeping their heads down in quiet submission.
Even the young prince dared not to speak until permitted.
You realised, very quickly, that this was not a household filled with joy or laughter.
"There is a matter to be discussed," he stated, when the pleasantries and introductions finally came to an end. "Sadly, I must be the bearer of some rather unpleasant news."
You looked towards your host. His lordly smile remained, though his brows furrowed to create an expression akin to sympathy. Not genuine sympathy, not truly. It was a type of sympathy laced with a vague undercurrent of condescension.
Behind you, your companions began to unload heavy gilded chests of your personal belongings. A horse snorted, filling the brief moment of silence between you.
"...A matter best discussed in private," he elaborated, prompted to speak when you yourself said nothing. His light tone of voice suggested the matter was of no great concern, but the attempt at appeasement made you weary.
"When will your noble father be joining us?"
Your own expression depicted the most subtle of frowns.
"My father shan't arrive until shortly before the wedding. He is taking personal charge of guarding the gifts being transported for the High Septon, in honour of the joining of our houses. As his army travels at his back, their pace is slow."
"A most pious and generous man, your father." Despite his smile, Lord Ormund did not seem pleased. The tension to his words suggested he was not all that fond your sire. "Let us speak of the matter later, once you have had some time to rest and refresh yourself."
Without waiting for your response, he turned his attention to his guard.
"Escort the Lady Y/N to my study in time for supper. I shall like to speak with her this evening."
He turned to leave, not bothering to ask for your opinion, the gravel crunching beneath his boots.
You had the audacity to stop him before he could reach the steps, his guards, household and guests already at his heels, as if under a spell - a spell of undying obedience.
"And my betrothed?"
Lord Ormund paused where he stood but did not deign answer your question. He released a breath, like he did not wish to trouble himself with this conversation any longer. He offered the kind of hospitality expected of him given the circumstance, but you could sense within him the underlying coldness, the annoyance at having to entertain you.
Behind his mask of pleasantries and smiles Lord Ormund saw you as nothing but a bargaining chip. Beautiful, but not worthy of his time. After all, the Gods were rarely so generous as to give a maiden both wits and beauty. The loveliness of your face alone told him all he needed to know.
And so he turned halfway to face you, breathing in sharply through his nose and schooling his expression to depict the image of a sweet-natured host.
"Oldtown is made brighter by your presence, Lady Y/N. I look forward to supping with you."
He inclined his head and climbed the steps, the young prince offering you an apologetic glance before following meekly behind.
You wondered, if only for a fleeting moment, whether ambition recognised its own reflection.
Your chambers were bright and opulent, located close to the top of the Hightower, just a floor below the Lord's private quarters. Heavy tapestries of religious scenes adorned the walls, an obscenely large seven pointed star looming over the four poster bed.
You had a private terrace overlooking the splendour of the Honeywine, with flowers and a place to relax in the afternoon sun. A cloak of Hightower green waited for you in the enormous carved wardrobe, a symbol of a future soon to come.
The bath had been drawn and you took your time in the hot soapy water, listening to the sound of servants carrying in your belongings, the new maids scurrying about to unpack your things.
As your muscles relaxed, you allowed yourself a moment to close your eyes and contemplate your situation.
You had heard enough stories, received enough warnings upon your betrothal to be cautious of Lord Hightower, to stay sharp and careful in his presence. Perhaps the most memorable of these warnings was your father's decision to wed you to Lord Ormund's cousin; the vehement objection when you asked, astonished, why he did not propose a match with the Lord of House Hightower himself. Certainly your lineage, wealth and reputation made you an excellent candidate to be his bride, and a marriage to him would have been even more advantageous to your family.
And yet, despite the logic of the argument, your noble father refused to entertain the idea. Disgusted, he stated that he would not sell his daughter to that cunning and conniving brute, that he would rather burn in the fire of the Seven Hells himself than have Lord Ormund be his son by law.
"Whomever is unfortunate enough to be Lord Hightower's next wife shall find herself not with a husband, but a master," your father had said.
The matter was thus decided. You would wed the kind and gentle Ser Gwayne, a match which, to your dismay, now felt rather disappointing by comparison.
After stepping out of the bath, you took care in choosing a gown for the evening. You sat on a cushioned stool as your new maid brushed your hair until it shone.
The girl was shy, and she tried hard to ensure perfection in her work. Her hands were deft, careful not to snag at your hair, and when she accidentally dropped the comb there was a moment when you could have sworn the girl held her breath, as if readying herself for chastisement.
"Tell me about Lord Ormund," you requested by means of breaking the unbearable silence, watching the girl's reflection in the polished looking glass. You were accustomed to your own maids back at your father's castle, a gaggle of women always happy, always chatty, giggling at jests you had shared between you over the years. The atmosphere at the Hightower felt morose, by contrast.
The girl stilled and did not answer at once. Instead, she hesitated, as if stunned to be asked a question at all.
"Lord Hightower is... he-" she paused, stammering. She took a shaky breath to steady herself. "The High Septon calls him a godly man." She nodded vigorously, pleased with herself for getting the words out.
You narrowed your eyes. The sudden quiver of the girl's hands told you there was more to Lord Ormund than just his piety.
"And what do you make of him?"
She swallowed audibly. "My lady, I- I don't think it is my place to pass judgement on his lordship." There was no denying the girl was afraid of what would befall her if she said the wrong thing. Rumours of Lord Ormund's wicked temper seemed to have truth to them, after all.
"Fine, what do the other servants make of him? I ask only as I am to marry his cousin and so become a part of this family."
On a quest for information, you decided to vocalise some of your own observations, hoping that this would give the girl some courage of her own.
"His pleasantries in the yard felt false. The only feeling I noted at the time of my arrival was how uncomfortable everyone appeared. I cannot imagine it was because of me."
The girl smiled ruefully, not taking her eyes away from the braid she was masterfully weaving.
"No, my lady. It wasn't you. Lord Ormund is... He is very particular about the way in which he governs. He can be good and kind, but also quick to anger. Things have not been easy for him recently."
She paused, as if debating whether she had said too much. Her teeth worried at her lip before she continued.
"I do not mean to be presumptuous, my lady, or cause any offence, but be weary of his lordship." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper, eyes quickly darting around the bedchamber. "Every person who resides within this tower quickly learns the merit of keeping their distance."
You remained silent, allowing the young maid's words to sink in. It was a long moment before you turned your head and looked at her over your shoulder, smiling with gratitude.
"That is sage advice." The warmth of your expression was reciprocated, the maid busying herself with pinning strands of braided hair and saying nothing more until the guards arrived.
By the time you found yourself outside Lord Ormund's study, the sun had set and torches were lit to illuminate each and every hallway. You waited patiently, readjusting the neckline of your gown as the guard announced your arrival.
A moment later you were stepping inside, curtsying in greeting, long skirts sweeping over the stone floor.
The space was large but warm, candlelight flickering in every corner, a fire roaring in the carved stone hearth. His study resembled a library, with shelves full of dusty books reaching for the vaulted ceiling, like sunflowers towards the sun. A subtle hint of incense drifted on a gentle breeze.
Lord Ormund sat behind his ornate desk, his attention seized by the heavy tome in front of him, another stack of books perched neatly by his side. He looked up when you entered.
"You look delightful, Lady Y/N. I trust you have been well looked after?"
He dismissed his guards with a simple nod. They departed, silent as ghosts in their polished armour. The heavy door closed quietly behind them, leaving you alone with the peculiar Lord of Oldtown.
He said nothing as he pushed himself up to stand and slowly crossed the room to where you stood. His steps were graceful, his movements precise and slow.
"I have, my lord. Your home is beautiful - I had some time to admire the tapestries in my chambers. I have never seen anything so intricate."
Your smile was bright, girlish.
He gestured for you to sit, placing a gentle hand on the small of your back and guiding you to the cushioned chair opposite his desk. Then, without hurry, he turned his attention to the golden pitcher waiting nearby, and poured wine into two polished goblets.
"We have the finest weavers here in Oldtown." He brought the wine over and offered you the cup. "I am fond of anyone who can appreciate the beauty of their art."
You knew this was flattery. Your father had warned you of the way this man could control and reshape feelings, spin such masterful webs of manipulation that one could not be sure of their own mind.
"I suppose," he mused, catching your eyes as he took a seat behind his desk. He released a breath, relaxing in the chair. His voice a was purr. "Beauty calls to beauty, does it not?"
Even with all the warnings, you could not help but redden.
Despite the weight of disquiet you felt at being alone with him, you had to admit there was something alluring about the man. He was unquestionably handsome, but it was the arrogance with which he carried himself that made it difficult to look away.
You took a small sip of wine to bide your time. The next time you spoke, your voice was like honey.
"Am I... Early to arrive? I did not mean to interrupt your reading, my lord, and I notice Ser Gwayne is not here."
You kept your demeanour calm, deciding to restrain any and all responses to his words.
Lord Ormund shook his head, the movement delicate, thoughtful. He knew that the best way to bend people to his will was with kindness; a compliment here, an expression of affection there, a gentle fatherly touch somewhere in between.
He studied you from a distance, trying to discern the effect of his words, whether you would respond as he intended. There was a pleasure, he found, in sowing a seed of control and watching it blossom.
It was a curious dance, one in which both partners knew they were being led. Both of you crafted every word with care, then studied the other's expression, searching for the smallest crack in composure that might reveal whose performance had proved the more convincing.
"You are right on time," he responded. "With so much unrest stirring in the realm, I'm afraid I have been spending an awful lot of time studying texts of battles and wars long past."
Your eyes travelled down to the book on his desk and you tilted your head to make sense of what you were seeing. The tome opened to a sketch of a familiar military formation.
"I personally find Grand Maester Gawen's work to be tedious at best."
You enjoyed the sudden shift in dynamic when you noticed his surprise.
Silent, he shut the tome and read the name of its author inscribed on the age-darkened leather of the cover. Grand Maester Gawen, indeed.
"A scholar of military history?" He quirked a brow, amused. There was something patronising in his tone.
If Lord Ormund truly intended to leave his mark upon the realm, surely he would one day recognise the value of a woman who hungered for power as fiercely as he did.
"My father would not take another wife after my mother's passing. It fell to me, his only child, to become a worthy heir. My education comprised not only the feminine arts but also strategy, laws, history and diplomacy."
A moment passed.
"Though I suppose," you continued, eager to recover the image of an obedient, docile bride, "with my betrothal to your cousin, these burdens will soon be eased." Your smile was sweet, coy.
"A lady of such gentle birth should not have to take on such responsibility." He chuckled softly. "Leave the burden of such dreary matters to us, the men."
He took a drink of his wine and set the goblet down on the desk.
"Speaking of dreary matters," he began. "I'm afraid my sweet cousin will not be supping with us this evening, or for many evenings yet to come."
You felt your fingers instinctively tightening around the wooden armrest of the chair.
"Has something befallen Ser Gwayne?"
You did not allow your emotions to surface. The union between your two Houses was necessary. Word of your father declaring for the Greens had undoubtedly already reached Princess Rhaenyra's ears.
"By all accounts, he is well. He has been summoned to King's Landing by his sister, the Dowager Queen."
Your brows knitted together.
"But we are to wed in less than a month."
He looked to you silently, his own emotion difficult to discern. While his face was schooled into an expression of solemn apology, there was something more hiding beneath the surface. Impatience? Frustration?
Slowly, he pushed himself away from his desk, the chair screeching against the stone.
"My cousin, though well in body, has behaved in a manner not befitting a man sound of mind."
He spoke the words with a simmering calm, grazing his fingers over the polished surface of his desk as he closed the distance between you.
"I urged him to delay his departure, to await your arrival and seal this alliance before riding to the Capital. He disobeyed, departing in the middle of the night."
Lord Ormund reached into the pocket of his doublet and produced a folded parchment. "He left a note addressed to you. I took the liberty of reading it."
His displeasure was evident, as if touching the thing disgusted him.
Carefully, you unfolded the note, the flickers of candlelight dancing wildly across the page.
"My dear lady,
It is with an aching heart that I must leave Oldtown and ride to my sister's side. She calls for aid, fearing for the safety of her children and suspecting a coming attack on our capital. It is my duty to protect her.
I have made a promise to wed you, sweet lady, and I intend to keep my vow, though with some delay. My thoughts and dreams are consumed by you and I long to swear my devotion to you, the bells of the Starry Sept ringing out to herald the news that you are mine. I hope you will forgive me. I will return to you as soon as it is possible.
Your loving Gwayne."
You read the note twice over before finally looking to Lord Ormund with a cocked brow. His lips were pursed, the arrogant smile from earlier dimmed as he awaited your reaction. He understood very well the magnitude of the situation.
In truth, Lord Ormund raged when the news of his cousin's disobedience reached him.
He was in a meeting with his lords and councillors when the news arrived. It was the maester who informed him Ser Gwayne was gone - one of the maids had found his bed untouched in the morning, and when they checked, his horse was gone.
Lord Ormund's voice cracked like thunder, echoing against the vaulted ceiling of the council chamber. "He what?"
The maester bowed his head in shame, as if Ser Gwayne's decision had been his own fault. Before he could answer, the lord's fist came down upon the table with such force that the ink pot toppled, black liquid spilling across his letters like fresh blood.
"I gave him one order." Each word was louder than the last. "One - to wed and bed that wretch's whore daughter before leaving."
He swept an arm across the table, sending parchments, candles and quills crashing to the floor. The councillors shrank back instinctively. Even seasoned warriors lowered their eyes, careful not to become the focal point of their lord's rage.
Lord Ormund's face had gone crimson, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles quivered beneath his skin.
"Does he imagine," he roared, "that my commands are offered as kindly advice? That while I bear the burden of this war, he may indulge whatever foolish impulses seize him?"
His voice dropped, fingers drifting over the pommel of his sword and hesitating as if trying - desperately trying - to contain his rage, to recover his composure in front of his lords and councillors. Lord Ormund stood rigid at the head of the table, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths. His hands trembled - not with fear, but with the effort of holding himself back.
For a long, terrible moment, no one dared breathe.
Seconds passed. He allowed the fury to crest and break like a wave, then gathered himself with startling ease, returning to the matter at hand with the cold precision of a man who had never lost control at all.
"I do hope that your father and I can come to some agreement. Perhaps he will agree to delay the wedding. Until we have a decision, you are most welcome here, my lady."
The sentence was spoken with affection intended to comfort you and ease your displeasure. But although his voice was kind, you could practically smell his anger hiding beneath the curtain of restraint. You understood, then, what the maid had meant with her warning.
After a long moment, you finally spoke.
"And what if Ser Gwayne shall perish in battle before we are wed?"
Your voice remained calm.
"My father was promised a Hightower husband, to wed me before any true fighting begins, to rule our lands by my side when the war is done, to father children unto me. He requires Ser Gwayne to keep his end of the bargain, not die before the promise is fulfilled."
His false sincerity, the sympathy appeared once more.
"I understand your torment, my lady. Your gentle heart must ache with grief."
"Do not dare patronise me, my lord."
You did not wait before continuing.
"You are mistaken. It is not grief that I feel, only anger towards my betrothed for placing us in this situation."
Your composure slipped before his very eyes, your words sharp and dignified.
He realised, as if slapped, that perhaps the best course of action was not flattery and sweet promises. His plan had been to comfort you, to offer soothing words and keep you happy... pliable. He was quickly realising, however, that the woman he was speaking to was not naive enough to fall for such.
"I apologise if I have cause offence," he said, slowly, unsure of where he stood. Lord Ormund was not a man used to apologising, and the words felt strange on his tongue. His brows furrowed as he attempted to collect himself, to make sense of the dynamic between you.
The two of you, strangely, found commonality in your mirrored frustration.
"You have every right to feel spurned by him," he said, this time honestly. "The Seven were kind to make his father mine own's younger brother. I fear that had the mantle of lordship fallen to Gwayne's shoulders, we'd all be doomed by his undying yearning for the glory of knighthood."
You ran a hand over your face, exasperated.
"Does he actually believe one man can make a difference in King's Landing? Is he truly so blind as to not understand the repercussions of his choice?"
Unbelievably, you laughed, the sound expelled upon a breath of resignation. You took a large drink of your wine, emptying the cup.
"There is nothing to be done until my father arrives," you continued. "The future of this alliance is for him to decide."
As your nursemaid frequently told you, once the cow has been milked, there is no squirting the cream back up her udder.
A moment of tense silence lingered in the air.
"You know your father well. Tell me... is he like to exercise patience and keep faith?"
"I cannot imagine he will be pleased." You took a deep breath. "He is a proud man, and does not take to slights easily. Honour may demand he put an end to the betrothal and in consequence, our alliance."
Lord Hightower said nothing, just tilted his head to the side, a silent invitation for you to continue.
"Though he is fond of Ser Gwayne and may be willing to forgive the folly. He does so want me wed to a man of his... valiance." The word sounded bitter, Lord Ormund realised.
"And how do you feel about marrying my cousin?" Would you, a woman spurned, still agree to the match?
You did not balk at the question.
"It does not matter how I feel, only that I will do my duty."
Not for the first time since your arrival, Lord Ormund seemed taken aback by your response. Not by the fact that you would be dutiful, but by the sheer indifference with which you acted at the prospect of marriage.
"My cousin is very gallant. Despite his faults, he is the truest knight I have ever known. Many a maiden would lead themselves to damnation for the mere chance of his affection, and all you have to say is that you will do your duty?"
"Yes, my lord."
He laughed, genuinely entertained by your lack of interest. It seemed his sweet cousin would not find in you the wife he imagined. You would not swoon over his poetry, nor weep when he rode off into battle. To you, as to Lord Ormund, marriage seemed a political affair.
He would not admit it, not until he visited the Sept, that the idea filled him with a strange sort of glee.
He reached over to grab the pitcher from his desk.
"You are harder to impress than most women, are you not?"
Lord Ormund was not sure if his delight with you was the result of the Arbor Gold, or a true pleasure in your company.
You peered up at him from beneath long lashes, your arm extended in his direction as he filled your empty cup. You held his gaze, unflinching, when you answered.
"Have you known many women, Lord Ormund?"
He narrowed his eyes, stilling his arm for the briefest of moments before resuming the pouring. He hovered over you, your head of a height with his navel. You did not look away.
"Careful now, sweet lady," he warned, but the playful glint remained, his voice low like a lover's. "Remember that this marriage requires mine own consent, as well as your father's. Without my permission, it will not come to pass."
You had the audacity to roll your eyes at him.
Lord Ormund could not recall a time someone had been so utterly disrespectful in his presence. He realised that had you been someone else, had you done this in front of his fellow lords, he would have had you thrown into a dungeon and whipped.
Alone in his study, however, he found himself inclined to be more forgiving, even enjoying the provocation.
"You will not deny it." Your voice was self-assured, almost mocking.
"I won't?" He raised a dark brow in challenge, setting the pitcher back on the desk. Lord Ormund leaned against the polished edge, picking up his own goblet and taking a generous drink.
His eyes remained locked on your face. In the soft light of his study, your hair shone like a jewel, the subtle embroidery on the sleeves of your gown glimmering when you moved your arms.
"Ten thousand men for your army is not something you would be willing to give up so easily. You need me, as now my House needs you. Without me wed and bearing the Hightower sigil on my breast, your family's cause is lost."
"Smart girl," he praised, and the words made a feeling, unnamed and untamed, twitch somewhere deep within you.
He continued. "Yet you understand that my cousin's welfare is also my responsibility. He is not so young, though he can be naive as if he were. He has met you once, many years ago, and yet he is yearning to be your husband and protector."
"And here lies the issue."
He took another drink.
"You do not believe a husband should guard his wife, shield her honour?"
"I do," you said, impatience showing. "My lack of enthusiasm lies in this naivety you speak of. I have been raised surrounded by strong men; men who do not delude themselves about the realities of this world. I fear your cousin, while certainly chivalrous, does not have what it takes to keep me safe, especially during a time as perilous as this. Unseemly things may yet have to be done before the war is done, to protect your family and mine, and keep the rightful heir upon the throne."
Lord Ormund was well and truly impressed by your critical mind, the sharpness of your wits.
"I find myself becoming quite fond of you, Lady Y/N." The statement felt like a caress. "I see your father truly has taken great care in your education."
"And so you understand that while I will do my duty, my feelings about the situation are not those of a joyous, infatuated bride? Your cousin's gallantry might have satisfied me when we first met all those years ago, but I had hoped he would be more wise by now. Nevertheless, I will do what I must."
Lord Ormund found a twisted sort of pleasure in hearing your true opinion of Ser Gwayne. The Gods knew how much he despised his cousin, and to hear you say he was inadequate felt like a graze of cold silk on a stifling summer night.
"A shame," he said, but did not seem disappointed. The word was a theatrical sigh. "My cousin does adore you so."
"Your cousin adores the idea of me," you countered, expelling a laugh which held a somewhat bitter edge. "A gentle bred lady with a pretty face, a famous castle to inherit, and a formidable army at her back. He does not know me, and I fear that he would not love me if he did."
Lord Ormund's curiosity was continuing to grow. A confrontation he initially dreaded was quickly turning into one of the most riveting conversations he had had in a long time.
"And why is that?"
"Because, my lord, marrying him is a duty, given to me by my noble father. I will honour him, care for him, be faithful to him and maybe even love him in due time, but I will not pretend to swoon over a man who does not excite me."
"Well said, my lady." He lifted his goblet as if in toast. "I admire your courage in accepting the burden of your responsibility. I know a great number of highborn ladies who would rage and fight against a match they were not satisfied with."
Somewhere along the way, you had shed the act and now found yourself speaking true. For all the warnings you had received about the dangers of such behaviour, Lord Ormund did not seem displeased. In fact, it seemed the two of you found an unexpected mutual understanding.
"My father decreed a Hightower husband I shall have, and so it shall be."
Lord Ormund narrowed his eyes, his tongue darting out to wet his full lips. It was a long moment before he spoke again.
"So it shall," he agreed.
The words were followed by a gentle tap on the door, signalling the arrival of servants, and with them supper. They scurried about, setting the table for two, aromatic dishes soon replacing the gentle scent of incense in the air.
As they worked, a silence descended between you, but you caught him watching, as if evaluating. The stillness felt devious, somehow, like the conversation that transpired was your secret, never to be shared with anyone else.
He filled your cup once more. When the servants left, neither you nor him made any attempt to move towards the table. You stayed exactly where you were, acknowledging that despite the pause, the conversation was not yet finished.
It was him who spoke first.
"You are right when you say your marriage is of great importance to me. Your father has been clear that without it, I shall not have his men. And yet we find ourselves in this predicament." He looked thoughtful, a man considering all options and possible problems. "What would happen, say, if King's Landing fell on the morrow and Ser Gwayne met some unfortunate end? Or if your noble father did not consent to delay? I wonder, my lady, does it matter which Hightower is to be your husband?"
When he looked at you again, it was with a measure of curiosity that had not been there before, and you knew the game had subtly tilted in your favour.
You allowed yourself a moment to deliberate upon the question. As you did so, you aimlessly wandered over to the hearth and extended your hands over the fire, allowing it to warm you in the chill of night.
"I fear neither my father, nor I will be satisfied with a more distant relative. And as you have no brothers, my lord, Ser Gwayne appears to be the only candidate." You dared not suggest him as a potential match.
You had placed the idea before him gently, knowing that the most fruitful schemes were those men believed they had discovered themselves.
"No, it would have to be someone worthy of you." He paused, thinking. His next words were delivered on the same breath as his gentle laughter. "Though having met you, my lady, I worry that you might be wasted even on my noble cousin."
Despite the calculations behind your every move, your reaction was unfeigned. The praise felt good, and your traitorous body responded with a sudden awareness of an emptiness, a sense of hollow, there, at the apex of your thighs. It was a reaction of flesh, nothing more. And as you attempted to maintain your dignity, you told yourself that it was just the wine, that it was just a flicker of appetite soon to pass.
"You flatter me, my lord." Your voice dropped to a whisper. You felt your cheeks burn, not quite sure if it was the effect of the fire or his words.
Faking excitement for a man was something you refused to stoop to.
You never thought about what you'd do when the attraction was true.
"Your lady wife is very lucky to have a husband as thoughtful as you."
You knew very well there was no Lady Hightower. The inclination to flirt came so naturally, you did not even think about the possible repercussions of such boldness. When the craving was real, it seemed, acting upon it felt as easy as breathing.
He smirked.
"You are very kind, but I have been a widower for some time."
You recognised the moment his gaze lingered a fraction too long, as though he had begun to see not merely the woman before him, but the future you had quietly invited him to imagine. His next move was carefully measured, but it was a different sort of caution now - the caution of a man entertaining an idea he had never expected to consider.
He set his cup down and stood to his full, towering height.
"Oh?" You feigned surprise, watching with a wanton sense of excitement as he closed the distance between you. With a few long strides, he stopped when only two or three feet separated you. "I'm sorry for your loss, Lord Ormund. She must have been quite the woman to be worthy of you."
He placed a hand on the stone mantle, the other reaching over to catch the belled sleeve of your gown between thumb and forefinger. He looked thoughtful.
"In truth," he began, grazing his thumb over the embroidered lavender flowers decorating the flowing fabric. He smiled to himself, not meeting your gaze. "It was a political marriage, as yours will be. It seems that rarely in such circumstances do we marry people who are worthy of us. We must make do with the fate we are dealt."
Your heart skipped a beat. He was so close you could taste him - the cleanliness and the flowers, a mirror to the ones embroidered on your dress. You could feel the heat radiating from him, your mouth watering at the delicious proximity.
"Those are wise words," you whispered, trying your hardest to maintain your composure.
Lord Ormund's eyes held a glimmer that told you he was enjoying this, enjoying the easy, intimate atmosphere between you. He seemed relaxed, and if he noticed how flustered you were by his closeness, he made no mention of it.
"I'm curious..." You cleared your throat, trying to swallow down your desire. You understood your position, your commitment to his cousin. Your station demanded you guard your virtue. Even so you knew that if he wished for you to drop to your knees, you would have done so without question; you would have given him your mouth to use as he pleased and done so eagerly.
"...Is my betrothed like to develop this kind of wisdom one day?"
He dropped your sleeve and instead reached up - tenderly, affectionately - to tuck a rogue strand of hair behind your ear. Your skin seemed to sizzle beneath his touch, but Lord Ormund paid it no mind. He was lost in his own reverie, examining your face, the softness of your hair, the smoothness of your neck.
He hummed, as if to signal his own deliberation. "Is wisdom something you wish for in a husband?"
You exhaled a shaky breath, unmoving as his fingers slid from your ear, down your neck and slowly towards your collarbones. He touched the pendant - a seven pointed star - hanging from the delicate chain atop your chest.
"Wisdom, strength... A man with the power to shape his own destiny, and the generosity to let his wife share in that ascent. Those are the qualities I shall find pleasing in a husband, I think." Your words were slow, intentional, but your heart felt like it was going to stop. "Though as your lordship said, marriages of convenience are oft devoid of the things we long for."
He let the pendant drop into place and withdrew his hand. His gaze met yours, the connection intense, the flames of the fire reflected in the blue of his eyes.
The most unusual smile graced his features, an expression you couldn't quite read.
"Indeed," he sighed, watching you with reverence. Unbeknownst to you, he indulged himself in the subtle change of your scent. "Though not always. From time to time, the Gods choose to smile down upon us and grant us our desires."
He took a small step back, turning the attention of his hands to straightening the sleeves of his doublet. To any onlooker the gesture would have seemed insignificant, nonchalant, but Lord Ormund was familiar with the limits of his own restraint.
Immediately, you missed the closeness, the thrill of his frame towering over you.
You did not think through your next words before they left your parted lips.
"And what do you desire? Were you to wed again, what would please you in your lady wife?"
He did not answer. The fervour of his gaze made you wonder if you had been too bold, crossed the line.
"Forgive me, my lord. I should not have asked such a question."
But Lord Hightower was not offended, nor was he aghast at your bravery in asking him such an intimate question. He knew enough courtly games to recognise the possibility of a performance, yet he found himself dangerously willing to believe.
"It's quite alright," he reassured, voice low, barely above a murmur.
He never really thought about what he wanted. His past marriage was not a place for want. And so he took a moment to compose an answer. His words were little more than a whisper, a secret shared upon a breath.
"I suppose I desire what most men in my position do - a lady of gentle birth and beauty, a woman who is devoted to me not because she is forced to by laws of men but because she yearns for me so completely she could never want another."
He couldn't help himself. He touched your face again, large hand splaying across your cheek.
You felt exposed under his gaze, wondering what would happen if you were to reach across and drag your hands down his chest, how the supple leather of his doublet would feel beneath your skin.
His own touch lingered, a lover's caress. You felt your eyes flutter closed, leaning into his touch.
"My late wife was a pious woman," he whispered, too spellbound by you nuzzling your face into his hand to truly consider the words leaving his mouth. "In my foolish youth I made the mistake of assuming that was the most important thing; that all other qualities I valued would flow out of the fact she was committed to the Seven."
His thumb grazed the apple of your cheek.
"Faith is still important to me, though I now realise too much of it will keep a man lonely and his bed cold."
He chuckled quietly, as if amused by his own misfortune. The sadness of the sound pulled you out of the daydream.
In that moment, you felt it, deep within you, the true melancholy of the man before you. You had ripped the curtain back and saw exactly what hid behind.
You did not expect the vulnerability of his confession, and from the clench of his jaw when your eyes finally focused on his face, neither had he.
Lord Ormund cleared his throat, as if realising after a moment of weakness what he had shared with you. The Lord of Oldtown suddenly felt the bitter grasp of shame. Without thinking, he moved to withdraw his hand.
Your instincts were quicker, your fingers wrapping around his wrist and stilling his retreat. With some force, you willed his palm to rest upon the exposed skin of your chest, right on top the seven pointed star, your heart beating wildly just beneath his touch.
You held his wrist, a tight squeeze to show that you did not pity, did not judge. To show that you were simply there, standing with him and seeing his pain, his loneliness.
You offered yourself, your ambition and devotion, as if on a platter.
It was a long moment before you reached out with your other hand and placed it gently upon his jaw. The Lord of the Hightower did not move away.
He succumbed to your touch, relaxing his palm against your chest and feeling something unfamiliar stirring in his own. Your heart thrummed beneath his fingertips like a hummingbird, your chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. He was consumed by the sensation.
The Lord of Oldtown was not a stranger to physical affection. After all, it was not uncommon for him to show his love by placing his hands on young Daeron's shoulders. What he was not accustomed to was being on the receiving end of such tenderness, to having someone show that adoration to him. To not flinch from his affection.
He released a sharp breath, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, a weight he hadn't realised he'd been carrying. His eyes squeezed shut, the muscle in his jaw twitching, as if the feeling was so intense, so overwhelming he could not contain it within himself.
It was a long moment before he looked at you again.
You were closer now, and Lord Ormund could not imagine that the look of gentle affection in your expression could be feigned.
You breathed in deeply before you spoke, the words so quiet he knew they were meant only for him.
"Let us pray, my lord, that my husband to be finds his wisdom, and that your future wife, whomever she may be, loves you so fiercely you never have to feel lonely again."
For several moments after you spoke, Lord Ormund remained perfectly still.
The words were gentle. That was what unsettled him most.
Had you been cruel, he might have found comfort in anger. Anger was familiar to him; it was something he understood. It gave direction, purpose, something upon which he could set his mind and strike until the feeling passed.
But there was no cruelty in your expression. No triumph. No satisfaction at having uncovered a weakness in the Lord of Oldtown. There was only kindness. And kindness, he realised with a sudden and uncomfortable clarity, was far more dangerous.
He had expected many things from you since your arrival in the city; obedience, nervousness, the carefully rehearsed courtesy of a noble lady attempting to please the man whose household she had entered. And in truth, he had seen all of those things.
He had seen the graceful curtsy in the courtyard, the measured smile offered to his household, the careful words spoken to his guards and guests. He had watched you perform the role expected of you with the same precision with which he performed his own.
He had mistaken that restraint for simplicity.
His gaze remained fixed upon you, his expression unreadable, though something in his face had shifted. The confident ease he had carried throughout the evening - the composure of a man accustomed to command - seemed to falter for the briefest moment.
Then, as though remembering himself, he slowly withdrew from your touch.
You watched him carefully.
"My lord?" Your voice was quiet, uncertain.
He looked away, retreating towards his desk as if the distance would make this encounter any easier.
"You should return to your chambers."
The change was so sudden that you almost wondered if you had offended him.
Only moments before, he had stood before you with a tenderness you had not thought him capable of. Now, he had returned behind that familiar wall of courtesy and restraint, his features once again composed into the expression of the Lord of Oldtown.
"Have I displeased you?"
The question made his jaw tighten. He gripped the back of his chair with both hands, knuckles turning white. He leaned forward as if trying desperately to contain himself.
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
You stared at him, your face shifting to depict the most real expression of concern.
Lord Ormund was a man who rarely struggled to make his meaning known. His commands were simple. His expectations were clear. Yet now, for perhaps the first time, he seemed unable to explain himself.
"My lord, I fear I have spoken too freely."
He shook his head.
The fire continued to crackle behind you, filing the room with the only sound neither of you seemed willing to make.
Finally, Lord Ormund forced himself to look at you.
"You are promised to my cousin."
The reminder was spoken as much to himself, as it was to you.
"You are a guest beneath my roof. I am your host, and I am bound by duty to protect your honour."
There was no accusation in his voice, only restraint; a man reminding himself of the things he already knew.
You lowered your gaze, accepting his words with the dignity expected of your station.
"Of course, my lord."
And somehow, that acceptance unsettled him more than if you had argued. He had spent his entire life surrounded by people who yielded to him because they feared him. He knew how to handle resistance. He knew how to overcome defiance.
He did not know what do to with someone who simply understood.
You offered him a final curtsy.
"Goodnight, Lord Ormund."
Your slippered feet made no sound as you moved towards the door, and when he was finally alone, the silence within his study deafening, Lord Ormund screwed his eyes shut, tilted his head to the heavens, and begged the Father for forgiveness.
summary. rumors of the bond between you and your twin-brother daeron begin to swirl amongst oldtown, your uncle, ormund, does not appreciate it one bit and decides to confront you about it
word count. 7.1k
warnings. mdni, dead dove do not eat, targtower reader, dub-con, ormund is a hypocrite, oral (f receiving), set pre-dance, english is not my first language!
a/n. family tree by ethel cain. go listen to it!
highly inspired by this post.
The bone comb slides through your hair, smooth as silk.
In the polished silver of the looking glass, the long strands caught the morning light filtering through the high arched windows, gleaming a pale, shimmering silver-white. Around you, your handmaidens fluttered like a flock of nervous sparrows, whispering their soft awes and marveling at the plain view of your Valyrian ancestry.
You had been in Oldtown for almost as long as you could remember yourself.
The Red Keep of King’s Landing was nothing but a collection of half-faded memories. The faces of your lady mother, Queen Alicent, and your other siblings—Aegon, Helaena, and Aemond—were remembered only in fleeting glimpses, through a sort of thick and hazy mist. You knew they all much resembled yourself in looks, with the same pale eyes and silver-gold locks.
But they were distant princes and princesses of a court you barely knew.
The only other person who resembled you so closely, but one whom you knew all too well and held dear to your heart, was your twin brother, Daeron.
The maesters at the Citadel loved to recount the tale of your quickening to the young acolytes. It was said that when he came wailing into the world from Alicent’s blood-slicked womb, the Grand Maester had no idea there was another.
The old man had wiped his brow, thinking the labor done, and only when he saw the Queen’s birthing was still taking place, her screams echoing through the chamber anew, did he realize a second babe lay within.
Alas, you were no less welcome, appreciated, or celebrated than your brother.
So when the time came for Daeron to be sent south to the Honeywine to serve as a squire for your mother’s family, the Hightowers, it had been decided that it would be best if you went along too.
That is how, for most of your life, even as a princess of the Crown, you have called Oldtown your home, raised amidst the scent of salt, tar, and the tolling of the bells from the Starry Sept.
“It is so beautiful, my princess,” Miriam spoke softly, her voice hushed with the reverence usually reserved for the Mother’s altar. She gently carded the bejeweled golden comb through the long strands of your hair. “Like pale moonlight on the water, or the morning mists on the morrow…”
Through the silvered mirror, you could see her eyes wide in awe, and you could feel the extreme caution of her touch. Her fingers did their work ever so gently—not daring to snag a single knot or cause the slightest pain to the princess.
“Thank you, Miriam,” you replied with a gentle, practiced smile. You were much used to being showered in compliments by the household, and equally used to replying to them with the appropriate courtly courtesy.
“Which dress, princess?” another of your maids, Cathy, chirped up. The other girls helped her hold up two different garments, their faces eager for your choice.
Your eyes followed the trail of the first; a gorgeous, sweeping gown made of quality red silk from the Free Cities, flowing like fresh-spilled blood and intricately embroidered with black thread along the bodice.
The other was a gown of Hightower green, fashioned from the softest Myrish wool, its collar carefully decorated with seven-pointed stars stitched in silver thread.
It was a silent, but obviously heavy choice—the colors of your father’s house against the colors of your mother’s kin.
Before you could make your choice or offer a reply, two rapid, thudding knocks sounded on the door. Before any of your maids could bid entrance, the heavy oak thing was creaking violently on its iron hinges, banging hard against the dressed stone wall as it all but flew open.
The girls around you instinctively flocked closer to one another, forming a kind of protective half-circle with their bodies, their eyes cast down toward the rushes on the floor. One of the household servants entered first, his eyes fixed stiffly ahead of him, not daring to spare any of the women the slightest glance.
“The Lord Hightower, my princess,” he announced, his voice tight with formality.
Before you could catch your footing, find a robe, or even question what was happening, your uncle was already stepping foot inside your private chambers.
You were wearing nothing but your thin linen shift, and the maids seemed to notice your state of undress as they nervously began jittering their fingers, shifting from foot to foot.
Ormund stepped into your room as he stepped into any other room in the city—like he owned the very stones beneath his boots (because in truth he did).
He was wearing a simple but finely cut doublet of dark green velvet, the color he preferred frequenting the most, slashed with silver satin. His sharp grey gaze swept across the flock of trembling girls once before settling entirely on you.
“Uncle—” you began, straightening your back and lifting your chin, attempting to summon the dignity of a Crown princess while clad only in your night-smock. Miriam took a hasty step backward from your side.
“Leave us.” he commanded the maids, his voice a low, resonant baritone that left absolutely no room for disobedience.
You could see almost all of them squirming under the cold scrutiny of his gaze. His tall, broad-shouldered frame and strong, unyielding jawline inspired absolute reverence and fear in many a young maiden in Oldtown. Alas, you were not just one of many; you were blood of the dragon.
Your jaw tightened quietly. “Your princess commands you to stay.” you firmly countered, your voice ringing clear against the stone walls.
The girls seemed paralyzed. Entirely confused, frozen in place, caught in a web of divided loyalties. They looked between their princess and their Lord, not entirely certain whose orders they should be following.
You thought Ormund’s eyes would flash with fury at the defiance, but instead, what you found on his face was a dark amusement. A sly, mocking grin threatened to spread across his features at your antics.
“Your Lord commands you to leave us at once.” he repeated. His voice carried a tone of absolute authority, carrying no hint of the amusement that danced in his eyes.
At the sheer severity of his command, the girls finally broke. They scampered out of the door one by one like frightened mice, nodding their heads in hurried acknowledgment and leaving you alone with your uncle.
A sharp sense of quiet betrayal began to unfurl within your chest.
These are my girls, you thought bitterly. They should be loyal to me. They should be listening to my commands, not his.
The only comfort, the only thing you would look upon later with a touch of gratitude, was Miriam.
Just before stepping foot through the heavy oak door, the girl looked back, her ashamed eyes searching yours for an answer, a silent plea for forgiveness. You nodded ever so slightly, letting her know she was dismissed, and the girl quickly took her leave. At least someone in this castle still recognized your royal authority.
The door creaked shut behind them as a household guard pulled it closed from the hallway, and the servant stepped outside, leaving a heavy silence in the room.
You turned your back on your uncle, returning to your vanity.
It was a magnificent piece imported from Lannisport, a gorgeous bone-white wood crafted with intricate star designs and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
It had been a gift for your fifth nameday, and you had been in love with it ever since, even if for the first five years it had been far too grand for a child to use.
Your fingers picked up the bone brush Miriam had dropped and continued the work; alas, your movements were far less gentle and much more forceful than the maid's. You yanked the bristles through your silver-white hair, your eyes fiercely refusing to meet Ormund’s in the reflection.
Once again, you could hear him shuffle his boots against the rushes, and a soft air of laughter escaped him at your stubborn antics.
“Is this how you greet the Lord of Oldtown?” he began, stepping closer to where you sat in front of your vanity, his shadow falling over your shoulder. You still refused to meet his gaze or give him the satisfaction of an answer.
“Have I not raised you with better manners, niece? A princess of the crown should know how to behave appropriately in front of Great Lords. Hm, tell me, what would your lady mother say to this?”
“I would not know, my Lord,” you countered through gritted teeth, venom dripping from every syllable. “I have not exactly been privy to my lady mother’s thoughts or her presence. After all, I was raised here in Oldtown.”
His thick eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. “Yet still… she is the Queen… and you her daughter, a princess of the royal blood.”
“A toothless princess, or so it would seem,” you muttered bitterly. “When not even my own handmaidens seem to follow my commands.”
Ormund let out a low chuckle, a sound that rumbled deep within his chest. He stepped directly behind you, placing a firm, calloused hand upon your bare shoulder, his fingers slowly caressing the pale skin.
A sudden prickle of goosebumps rose along your flesh at the unbidden contact. He leaned down, tilting his head until his lips pressed against the delicate, pale shell of your ear. His warm breath fanned over your skin, sending a cold shiver down your spine.
You watched it all through the silvered glass of the vanity—his sharp, predatory gaze watching you like a deer through the reflection.
“Ormund.” you began, your knuckles turning white as you clutched the bone hairbrush tighter.
“Uncle.” he corrected softly, his voice a low, commanding murmur against your skin.
He shifted his lips down to the crook of your neck, pressing a firm, lingering kiss into the hollow there.
“What are you—” You tensed, attempting to wrench yourself around to break free from his suffocating proximity, but his hands on your shoulders kept you firmly locked in place.
“Is it true that Tessarion has mated with Starfyre?” he questioned suddenly, as if to catch you off guard, an accusatory glint entering his grey eyes as he spoke of your magnificent beast.
Starfyre had been your very own hatchling, born from a precious clutch laid by Dreamfyre herself. He was a breathtaking vision, clad in shimmering silver-white scales that caught the light like polished armor, with wings that glittered like crushed diamonds when he took to the sky.
Though he was already considerably larger than Tessarion, Starfyre carried himself with a fierce, regal majesty— his long, serpentine neck beautifully akin to Prince Daemon’s dread mount, the Blood Wyrm, Caraxes.
“What—” Your brows furrowed in sheer bewilderment. “What? Yes, it is true… they are dragons, Uncle. They nested together in the outer pits—what did you expect them to do?”
He shushed you quietly, raising a sharp finger to cut off any word or attempt to speak. Not that you had any defense to offer… nor any way to justify the ways of your beast. Dragons were creatures born of fire and blood, and you possessed no true, godlike power over them, despite the grand illusions of Targaryen superiority that the smallfolk and highborn alike reverently believed in.
“The most concerning of… rumors have reached my ears, sweet niece… and this unfortunate discovery has only sharpened them.” He announced, straightening his spine, before reaching down and taking a single lock of your snow-white hair between his thick, calloused fingers and slowly coiling it around his digit like a pale ribbon.
“Rumors…” You parroted, attempting to turn your head to face him. But his heavy hand tightened upon your shoulders, staying your movement. His fingers dug painfully into the soft flesh beneath your thin linen shift, but you bit down the wince threatening to escape you. You swallowed hard instead, forcing your voice to remain level. “Words are wind, uncle.”
“Words are wind. Indeed.” he hummed in acknowledgement, his eyes remaining locked onto the strand of pale hair wrapped around his finger. “Alas— even the foulest wind carries a scent. And the most rumors have at least a crumb of truth buried within them. Or would you care to differ?”
“I—I do not know what you mean.” You stammered. A cold sweat began to break across your brow then, even as goosebumps rose along your arms.
It was a queer, conflicting sensation—the dragon blood in your veins made your core feel flush and hot with ancestral fire, yet Ormund's unexpected intrusion left you shivering with an icy dread.
“Oh, stop playing the fool!” He snapped at last and the suddenness of it made you physically recoil from his touch. His voice boomed against the high, vaulted stone ceiling of the chamber like a heavy war drum. It was a sound thick with agitation, sharp and aggressive.
“Ormund—” You pushed yourself to your feet, standing up to face him. Your voice shook—far shakier than a princess of the blood royal should ever sound—and you hated yourself for the weakness of it.
You needed to be strong. You needed the iron will of your house. Your lady mother, Queen Alicent, would never waver or tremble before a man's anger, you thought.
“You will stay silent and listen to me.” Ormund jabbed a thick thumb toward his own chest, his gesture sharp, almost manic. The raw authority in his command left you with little choice but to obey.
Your knees felt weak, and you sank back down with a dull thud onto your wooden stool.
He closed his eyes for a brief moment, drawing in a long, slow breath as if mentally gathering his patience before exhaling it into the quiet room. When he spoke again, his voice came out far steadier, though the quiet malice in it sent a renewed chill down your spine.
“Oldtown is the seat of the Faith, niece, as all the folk in the Seven Kingdom know. It is no place for unholy and sinful people.” He began, his tone unyielding. “The mere fact that you carry the blood of the dragon does not exempt you from the laws of gods and men, nor does it shield you from the judgment of the Seven. Not you nor your brother.”
What in the names of the gods was he talking about? Your mind raced. Desperately searching for meaning, but you could simply not fathom his intent. Still… you had learned your lesson well enough this morning; you knew better than to speak back and stoke his fury.
“You think the eyes of the Hightower do not see?” He finally spat, a look of pure disgust twisting his features. “You think I and everyone else in this castle do not see how you and Daeron look at each other? How you touch one another?”
At those words, you felt your heart drop like a stone into a well.
Daeron was your twin. He was your other half, the right part of your own soul. He understood you as no lord, lady, or maester ever could. You had shared a womb; you had been cradled together in the same nursery. It was only natural that you felt entirely comfortable in his presence. That you laughed at his jests and relished the warmth of his embrace. He was your brother, by the grace of the Seven.
“He is my brother.” You stated, standing your ground. You were proud of the sudden firmness and steadiness that returned to your voice.
Finally, the blood of the dragon was answering, and you were gaining back your footing.
“Your brother, yes…” Ormund spoke the words with a soft, mocking sneer. “And the lot of you—my royal cousin’s kin—have notoriously queer customs indeed. The abominations of Old Valyria may fly about free in King’s Landing, but Oldtown and the Faith do not tolerate such queerness.”
A bitter, breathless laugh escaped your lips before you could stop yourself. “You are out of your mind, uncle.” Through the silver looking glass, you watched as another dark storm of fury began to coil behind his eyes at the audacity.
“Out of my mind, she says.” Ormund sneered, a strange, ugly twist curling his lips. Before you could gather your senses or summon your dragon-pride, his hand shot forward. His fingers clamped around your forearm like an iron manacle, gripping the flesh so fiercely that a sharp gasp of pain caught in your throat. By sheer, unyielding strength, he dragged you to your feet, jerking you forward until you stood scarce an inch from his chest.
“Yet it is you, and your whore of a half-sister with her bastards, and your rogue of an uncle who bring abomination into the realm.” He hissed, his breath hot against your face. “And my own cousin is no better… wedding her two children to one another like beasts in a paddock.”
Any other man would have lost his head for such words. It was high treason, spoken aloud in the light of day, but here in the Hightower, Ormund was king in all but name. What defense did you have? Who would believe the word of a lonely princess over the Lord of Oldtown?
“She brings nothing but shame to the Seven and the name of House Hightower.” He spat.
You writhed against his grasp, trying to twist your arm free, but his hold only tightened, his fingers bruising the pale skin. “You are hurting me!” You cried out, squirming in his grip.
Ormund merely cocked his head to the side, rolling his eyes with a cold, mocking amusement, as if your protests were nothing more than the theatrics of a spoiled child.
“Come,” he said, pulling at you. But you dug your heels into the rushes, your body locking in place. He let out a dark, raspy snort. “Move your feet, niece, or by the Smith, you will make me drag you across the stone.”
You opened your mouth to scream, to protest, but he was already hauling you toward the far end of the chamber. Your bare feet stumbled clumsily over the floorboards, tangling together as his iron grip remained locked upon your forearm. He pushed you roughly into the secluded alcove of the solar, where the handmaidens had prepared your morning bath.
It was meant to be your sanctuary before the day's dressing, a quiet ritual interrupted by his brute intrusion.
The great tub was fashioned from fine, polished oak. Wide and deep, its rim decorated with simple, carved waves. When first poured, the water had been scalding hot—a heat that would leave any ordinary mortal blistered and weeping, but to the ancient blood of Old Valyria, it was a comfort.
Now, however, the thick blankets of steam had faded into the high ceiling. You swallowed hard, your throat dry, as he shoved you toward the lip of the tub, finally releasing his bruising hold on your arm.
“Undress.” He commanded.
Your head whipped around with sudden, fierce indignation. “What?” The word stumbled from your lips, breathless and broken.
Ormund sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, deeply displeased at having to repeat himself. “I said,” he began, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low register, “undress.”
He nodded toward the water, his grey eyes fixed on you as you stood frozen, refusing to comply. “You reek of dragon.” He spat. “I assume you went riding at first light?”
“Last evening.” You clarified, your teeth chattering slightly despite the heat of the room.
He hummed, a low, rumbling sound. “And you did not think to bathe afterward?”
“I did.” you said defensively.
“And yet you still smell of those… wretched beasts.” He spat the word beasts with a charring venom, as if the very thought of the dragons fouled his tongue. “Why must you be so difficult at every turn?”
With a heavy sigh, he whirled you around. Before you could leap away, his thick fingers caught the collar of your linen shift. With one brutal downward jerk, he pulled the sheer material down your arms. You reached towards the garment, desperately trying to catch the fabric, but his hands were too strong, his movements too practiced and unyielding.
You felt the linen slip from your body, pooling around your thighs and ankles in a breathless rush. The cool morning air hit the bare skin of your belly like a sudden winter storm. Instantly, you crossed your arms over your chest, curling inward in a desperate attempt to shield your nakedness from his searching eyes.
“No… no…” he whispered, his voice suddenly thick. He reached down, catching your wrists and pulling your arms away from your body by force. “You will not deny me this, sweet niece.”
You turned your head away in profound shame, your cheeks burning. Under the chill of the solar, the rosy points of your breasts hardened, and a fresh wave of goosebumps broke across your skin.
Ormund stepped closer, entering your space until the heavy green velvet of his doublet brushed against your bare flesh.
He brought a rough hand up to your face, his fingers cupping your chin with a firm, unescapable grip, forcing your head back up. You hated the treacherous instinct of your own body—how you naturally leaned into the warmth of his hand for a fleeting second—but you hated what came next even more. Through the coarse cloth of his breeches, you felt the rigid, swelling hardness of his manhood pressing aggressively into the soft flesh of your thigh.
“You must understand,” he whispered, his breath smelling faintly of sweet wine and incense as he leaned over you. “I do not blame you for what you cannot control. You cannot help it, poor child. This savageness… it is bred into your very bones. It is in the blood of the dragon. You are stained by it. Dirty. It is a disease.”
A hot liquid welled in your eye, spilling over your lashes. You felt stripped of all your royal dignity—embarrassed, ashamed, and consumed by a helpless, raging fury. Your teeth clenched so tightly your jaw ticked.
“But do not fret, sweet niece,” he murmured. He leaned down, pressing his lips to the wet track on your cheek, tasting the salt of your tear. “I will cure you of it. I will be your guiding light, and free you from this monstrous burden.” A slow, unsettling smile spread across his face.
“Now. Get into the water.” His voice was quiet now, almost gentle, yet it carried the absolute weight of a battlefield command. Once a general, always a general.
With no stones left to throw and no shields to raise, you had no choice but to comply.
Lifting one trembling leg and then the other over the rim of the wooden tub, you descended into the water. Most of the vapor had long since vanished, and the water had cooled to a dull, bearable warmth. As the ripples closed around your chest, you were only glad for the dark water, fore it did something to shield your naked form from his hungry, predatory gaze.
Ormund hummed in low contentment. For a single, fleeting moment, as he turned his back to you, your heart unclenched. A desperate, foolish hope flickered in your chest that he might finally leave you to your privacy.
He did not.
Instead, he marched with heavy, deliberate steps over to the cedar cabinet where your handmaidens stored the various scented waters, crushed herbs, and rare oils meant for the bath.
He pulled the drawer open with a forceful, impatient tug that made the wood groan. Instinctively, you drew your knees up to your chest, curling into a tight ball within the water, trying to minimize what he could see.
From the safety of the tub, you could only see his broad back and the dark chestnut curls of his hair as he bent his head over the drawer, examining the glass phials nestled inside.
“Which one shall it be…” you heard him murmur under his breath.
He lifted a slender glass tube to his nose, pulling the stopper to sniff the contents. A low hum of approval escaped him. “They received the new Lyseni order I made for you. Good.”
You sank deeper into the water, until it lapped just beneath your chin, wishing the oak tub would swallow you whole.
He rummaged through the collection for a few moments more. In the quiet clinking of glass, you almost found a strange, twisted peace inside the intimacy of the act. Then, his fingers closed around his prize.
“Aha.”
When he turned back around, he held a glass phial filled with a thick, pinkish-orange liquid that gleamed like a captured sunset in his large hand. He slammed the wooden drawer shut with his free hand, the sound echoing sharply against the stone walls.
“This will do perfectly.” he murmured.
As he walked back to the edge of the tub, you could see the dark dilation of his pupils, the tight clenching of his free fist at his side. You knew that look. This was not the first time he had looked at you so, nor was it the first time he had forced his way into your sacred spaces. Far from it.
You and Ormund had done things in the shadows of the Hightower that the Seven would make you repent for every single day for the rest of your lives. The septons would call it an abomination, a wicked stain upon your soul. Yet, staring up at him, a treacherous warmth began to bloom in your belly. You hated how much you wanted him in these quiet hours. You lusted for his touch, desired his strength, and craved the very danger he represented.
The worst part of it—the part you loathed most of all—was how quickly the guilt began to evaporate once the lust settled into your blood. The betraying slickness between your thighs had been there from the very moment his iron grip had clamped onto your forearm.
Let him think you are afraid, the dragon blood whispered inside you. You were far too proud, far too much a princess of the realm, to ever admit how much his rough handling truly pleased you.
“A special Lyseni bathing oil,” Ormund explained, kneeling down upon the heavy stone floor beside the wooden tub. Even on his knees, his towering frame loomed over you, leaving him almost a head taller than your sunken form in the bath. “It is exceptionally strong, but it leaves behind a pleasant, gentle aroma. Rosemary and sharp lemon—concocted from a special batch originally meant for a wealthy Magister’s wife.”
You merely hummed in quiet acknowledgment of his words, your eyes tracking his movements. With a sharp pop, he loosened the cork stopper with his teeth, tilting the glass phial so the oily, sunset-colored liquid began to drip lazily into the water around you.
The scent hit the air instantly, thick and intoxicating. The sharp, bright aroma of lemons mixed with the earthy, pine-like fragrance of the rosemary herbs, completely overtaking your senses.
Ormund closed his eyes, inhaling the rising steam deeply. The harsh lines of his brow finally unfurled in pure pleasure. “There now.” he whispered, his eyes opening to pin you with a heavy gaze. “This will rid you of that dreadful dragon stench.”
Your muscles gradually uncoiled as the sweet, sharp vapors of the Lyseni oil worked their way into your senses, eliciting a soft, involuntary sound of contentment from your throat.
Through hooded eyes, you saw a surge of possessive satisfaction cross Ormund’s dark gaze. He rolled the heavy velvet sleeves of his doublet up past his thick, hair-darkened forearms, reaching for a dry linen washcloth before dipping it into the scented water.
He wrung the cloth once with his thick, powerful fingers. You watched the warm water cascade down his digits, back into the tub in heavy droplets, hating how effortlessly your mind trailed to darker, more treasonous thoughts about those very hands.
Beneath the opaque, oil-slicked surface of the bath, your thighs squeezed together. You breathed a silent prayer of thanks for the dark water that shielded your body's betrayal from his sight; you knew precisely how smug he would be if he caught even a glimpse of the effect he still held over you.
He brought the wet linen to your skin, tracing your collarbones with a strange, quiet reverence. He began to scrub away the nonexistent dirt and the invisible scent of the dragon, working with a meticulous precision.
He handled you as though you were his most prized treasure—like a man polishing a sacred family heirloom, or the dark, rippled edges of Vigilance— the Valyrian steel greatsword of House Hightower.
The only other time you had ever witnessed your uncle display such haunting gentleness was when he cleaned that very blade.
You remembered the story Daeron had told you, fresh from the courtyard. Ormund had just taken a rebel lord's head, the steel dripping with crimson, and your twin brother had been too young, too trembling, to know how to properly wipe the Valyrian steel clean. Despite Daeron's high position as his squire, Ormund had not cursed him. Instead, he had taken the oil and the rag, showing the boy personally.
“A squire does not serve because the knight is incapable,” Ormund had told your twin that day, his voice steady over the dead man's blood. “He assists so the knight may look to the horizon, where the heavier duties lie.”
Now, those same hands traced the pale skin of your arms, sliding over your shoulders and down your back. Gently, silently, his knuckles nudged your knees apart, smoothing the cloth over your chest.
In the heavy, lemon-scented silence of the alcove, your mind drifted to forbidden shores.
You found yourself imagining a world where the two of you were wed in the Starry Sept, a world where you would legally become the Lady of Oldtown. You imagined your belly swelling with his highborn seed, envisioning a dozen children—some with the dark chestnut curls of the Hightowers, others with the striking silver-white hair of the dragon—running and shrieking through the echoing corridors of the castle.
But even as the thought bloomed, a bitter taste rose in your mouth. You knew it was nothing more than a fool's dream. An ugly, poisonous fruit that presented itself as sweet, only to choke you the moment you bit into its flesh.
Your lady mother, Queen Alicent, would sooner see Oldtown reduced to ash before allowing such a scandalous match. And Ormund, for all his dark lusts, would never disgrace his house or his standing in the eyes of the realm by taking his royal niece to wife.
And besides, the Lord of the Hightower already had three trueborn children of his own to secure his lineage.
With a low hum of approval, finally pleased with his work, Ormund tossed the sodden rag onto the floor. It hit the dark stone with a heavy, wet squelch, the spilled water staining the grey masonry an even deeper, bruised shade of black.
He leaned closer, his shadow completely consuming you.
His bare hand, still damp from the water, caressed your collarbone before trailing down, down, down…
His fingertips tracing the curve of your breast and the slope of your waist, until finally they settled over your sweet mound. Your breath hitched as he gripped your cunt. You hated how instinctively your hips arched into his palm, the bathwater sloshing softly against the wooden tub.
He began to trace his fingers along the sensitive folds of your cunt. He was teasing you—deliberately rolling the tender flesh between his fingertips, his thumb pinching and applying a slow, agonizing pressure to the bud of it.
“Do you let him touch you like this?” he whispered, his voice dropping into a dark, demanding register that made your heart hammer against your ribs. “Do you let him look at you, hm? Do you give him this right?”
You shook your head blindly, your silver hair dragging wetly across your shoulders.
“Words, niece,” he commanded softly, his grip tightening just enough to demand total submission. “I require words.”
“No.” you managed to choke out, the syllable catching in your throat.
“I need to hear it plain.” Ormund murmured, his eyes flashing with a savage, predatory glint as he watched the burning crimson rush to your cheeks. “Do you let Daeron into your bed? Into your cunt?”
The shame of it washed over you in a suffocating wave. To be pinned beneath his hold, naked and defenseless in the water, while he spoke the name of your twin brother—it felt entirely depraved, a twisted game born of the dark shadows in his mind.
Yet, beneath all the humiliation, that treacherous lust in your blood stirred, confusing your senses until the line between fury and desire blurred entirely.
“No—I do not let Daeron touch me,” you managed to whisper, a sharp gasp escaping your lips as the sheer intensity of his fingers working you apart overwhelmed you. “Only… only you.”
He laughed at that—a genuine, unrestrained bark of amusement leaving him, though the tension between you was anything but light. Pressing deeper, he joined two more fingers with the first, curling them inside your slick heat in a heavy, beckoning motion.
Your eyes fluttered shut, your thighs parting wider as your head thudded back against the rim of the wooden basin.
“Maybe you are not so unmanageable after all,” he hummed, his gaze tracking the rise and fall of your chest. “Spoiled, without a doubt. But not entirely beyond locking into place.”
Your chest tightened at his words, a strange, hollow warmth blooming inside you despite the insult. You bit your lip so hard the taste of copper threatened to burst forth, your knuckles turning white as your hand gripped the edge of the tub for dear life.
Ormund’s eyes flickered down to your straining fingers. With his free hand, he reached out, interlocking his thick, calloused digits with your own, anchoring you to him.
He brought your laced hands up to his lips, pressing a cold, lingering kiss onto the back of your hand, all while his gaze remained locked onto yours. He searched your violet eyes for any sign of true distress or displeasure. He found none.
For a time, the chamber held only the lewd squelching sounds of his fingers moving within you, slightly muffled by the water, the gentle sloshing of the bath, and occasionally your own heavy, breathless heavy sighs.
The damp white baby hairs clung to your forehead, slick with sweat and the rising mist of the bath, the bottom of your locks completely drenched.
Unable to bear the distance any longer, you leaned forward blindly, catching his lips with your own.
He groaned as your lips crashed with his own, his wine-laced breath mingling with your own. His free hand tangling into your silver locks tils your head, pulling you flush against the wood of the basin until you were facing him entirely within the cramped confines of the tub.
Your mouths clashed in a desperate rhythm as your tongue intruded past his mouth, beneath the water his fingers quickened. He moved faster, driving deeper as your inner walls constricted around his hand, your pleasure threatening to spill over the precipice.
Ormund always knew when you were reaching your peak. Your body grew restless, shifting against his touch and you became squirmy, your hand blindly clamping down on the wrist that wrought such havoc upon you.
“Yield to it, niece.” he whispered against your bruised lips, his voice a commanding growl that left no room for retreat. “Let me see it.”
With a breathless, unrestrained cry, you obeyed his command and let go, the world spinning away into a blinding haze of colors as he held you through the wave.
Only when the tremors finally subsided and he deemed the deed finished did he slowly withdraw his hand, leaving you to slump back weakly against the curved wood of the basin, completely undone.
Ormund rose to his feet, exhaling a heavy breath as his hands moved down to adjust the tight laces of his breeches. But before he could take a single step away from the water, three rapid, echoing knocks thudded against the heavy oak door.
He froze, a dark groan of frustration escaping him, as the blood in your veins instantly turned to ice.
If anyone were to find you in this scandalous compromise with the Lord of Oldtown, you would be absolutely doomed.
A princess of the Blood Royal caught in such a depraved state would bring ruin to the realm and shame to the High Tower. Yet, to your absolute horror, Ormund did not falter. He did not hide. Instead, he cleared his throat and called out to the door with a booming, careless command:
“Come in!”
“Ormund!” you hissed in a frantic, terrified whisper.
You scrambled to stand up in the oak tub, desperately looking around for a linen robe or a dry sheet to cover your nakedness, for there was no denying he was inside your private chambers.
But the bottom of the basin was slick with the Lyseni oils. Your foot slipped on the smooth wood, and you stumbled, your heart leaping into your throat as you barely caught yourself on the damp rim of the tub. The water sloshed dangerously against the sides.
Ormund marched with long, confident strides to the other end of the solar.
With a rough, heavy yank, he pulled the thick brocade privacy curtain shut, cutting off the alcove from the rest of the room. Thank the Gods, you thought, pressing your back against the wood. He was reckless, but he was not utterly insane.
You heard the heavy oak door creak open at that exact same moment, followed by the soft shuffle of boots upon the floor rushes. You caught your breath, freezing like a hunted doe, trying to keep the water completely still so it wouldn't make a single sound.
Your blood ran instantly cold when you heard the first word spoken from the solar.
“Uncle.” It was Daeron’s voice.
You all but shrank into the water, wishing you could disappear into the copper depths. Your naked form left you feeling utterly vulnerable, stripped of every ounce of your royal dignity.
“Nephew.” Ormund acknowledged curtly. You heard the heavy thud of his boots as he shifted closer to the doorway to block the boy's path.
Daeron cleared his throat. You could not see him through the heavy curtain, but you could picture him perfectly: clad in the deep green fabrics of your mother's house, the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen worked in silver thread upon his leather belt. His pale brows would be creaked in confusion, his young face puzzled as to why the Lord of Oldtown was standing in his sister’s private solar. Alone. The reality of it stung like a whip.
“I wish not to… intrude, my Lord,” Daeron said, his voice carrying the polite, practiced cadence of a well-bred squire. “But the Septon has been awaiting your presence at the Starry Sept for almost the entire morning.”
He had easily slipped into the dutiful role expected of him, and you hated how natural it sounded.
“Ah,” Ormund managed, his tone dripping with a feigned nonchalance, as if the holy matters of the city had completely slipped his mind. “Indeed. The hours slip away far too treacherously.”
“I kept him company in the courtyard and assured him that you had urgent, pressing matters of the estate to attend to.” Daeron explained, trying to look out for his master.
Ormund cut him off by placing a heavy hand upon the boy's shoulder.
It was a hand that was still completely drenched in the bathwater—slick with the sweet, musk-scented evidence of your recent release. You heard the distinct, wet slap of his palm against the fine velvet of Daeron's doublet.
The droplets clung to the fabric, immediately soaking into the cloth and staining his squire's garment with the very nectar Ormund had coaxed from your body only moments before.
You burned red with a sickening, paralyzing embarrassment. Gods, you thought, closing your eyes in agony. Your own twin brother was standing a mere few feet away, unwittingly bearing the scent of your sin upon his clothes.
“Thank you, Daeron,” Ormund said, and you could hear the smug, insufferable smirk in his voice. “You are a most dutiful squire. You will make a great knight one day, I am certain of it. You might even surpass your uncle Gwayne one day…”
You knew the Lord's arrogance wasn't born from a genuine desire to compliment the boy, but rather from the thrilling, twisted pleasure of the secret he held right behind the curtain.
“Uncle—is everything alright?” Daeron wondered aloud. You heard a slight shift in his footsteps, as if he were tilting his head to peer over Ormund’s broad shoulder, trying to catch sight of your vanity.
But Ormund kept him firmly locked in place, his grip unyielding. “Of course everything is alright, boy. Why would it not be?”
Ormund countered the question without an inch of doubt, lying straight through his teeth while his royal niece sat naked, shivering, and thoroughly ruined just on the other side of the silk hanging.
“Now, be a good squire and ride ahead to tell the Septon I am arriving.” Ormund patted the boy's cheek with an affectionate, patronizing hand, sending him off.
Daeron opened his mouth one last time, squinting a pale brow. His lips formed a shape as if to call out your name, wondering where his sister had vanished to on this morrow, but under the heavy gaze of his Lord, he relented.
“As you command, my Lord.”
The heavy oak door banged shut behind him, the latch clicking into place with a definitive thud.
An invisible weight lifted from your chest, and you finally managed to let your shoulders drop, exhaling a long, shaky breath that you had been holding for what felt like an eternity.
You stood up from the tub, the cooled water cascading down your pale thighs and clinging to your skin as Ormund drew back the privacy curtain.
He stepped into the alcove, his dark eyes sweeping over your dripping form one last time. His gaze was entirely silent, unreadable, and devoid of the warmth that had filled it moments before.
He gave you a single, curt nod of his head, turning on his heel without a word. The heavy door opened and closed once more, leaving you alone in the quiet solar—aching, profoundly confused, and shivering in the sudden cold.
"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.”
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.
warnings: 18+ (mdni), eventual smut, canon-typical incest (cousins), sexual humilation, loss of virginity, religious guilt, age gap (~20 years), grooming, dubcon, emotional manipulation, obsession (mutual), stockholm syndrome, power imbalance, canon divergent, no use of y/n
