wrap me in your skin and bones

ignorant obtuse dick requests are open

[sylasthegrim]

𝐞𝐳𝐫𝐚𝐧 │ 𝐬𝐲𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐦 │ 𝐬𝐲𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬

Multifandom writer │ ao3 │ minors DNI │ requests OPEN

An Exchange of Influence (gwayne x targaryen reader)

Honor is the Bane of Love (gwayne x reader)

⊹ Agony is Your Triumph (regent aemond x baratheon reader)

⊹ The Gods Are Prisoners (aegon x stark OC x aemond)

⊹ House of the Dragon + A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

⊹ Osferth

⊹ Michael Gavey (Saltburn)

⊹ Ettore (High Life)

Maekar x Baelor's widow (post-Ashford, angst)

[mercurieux]

Watts Cemetery Chapel in Compton, Guildford

[sylasthegrim]

Quiet Before the Storm

Pairing ✶ Otto Hightower x Arryn reader

Tags ✶ arranged marriage, enemies to lovers (sort of), wartime angst, mention of b&c, grief/mourning, hurt/comfort, soft smut (barely)

Wordcount ✶ 2,090

Once a lady in service to Queen Aemma, you returned to the capital years later as instructed by Rhaenyra, who needed a trusted ear in the Red Keep. Married to the Hand, what should have shattered your marriage when war broke out, instead brings you closer together.

Otto Hightower Masterlist

The Red Keep was dreary that night, as it had been the previous night, and perhaps each and every one since King Viserys had died. It had become all the more so since the tragedy that had befallen the king and queen, and all present in the castle that night, courtier and servant alike, still carried the weight of that ordeal on their faces.

Everyone walked the halls in near silence, as though more than whispered conversations would upset Helaena’s grief or trigger Aegon’s temper, who had taken to the drink even more than before and raged at every hour of the day and night. 

While war was by definition never a peaceful, gentle affair, the sheer horror of what had occurred had changed your perspective rather, and you longed for the days of your youth where the capital was quieter and the future did not seem so grim.

As a cousin to Aemma Arryn, you had come from Vale alongside her to serve as company when she had wed Prince Viserys, and remained at her side when he had ascended the throne. Year after year you had witnessed the births that tore her apart and brought only grief, with only the joyful occasion of Rhaenyra’s birth, until the very end and the birth of her son that took her. 

As such, you had always been protective of her only living child, and when Rhaenyra had suggested you return to the capital after a decade at the Eyrie mourning your cousin, you complied. She had been in need of eyes and ears, a supporter who would look out for her best interests. 

The one thing you had not expected was to find yourself married, to the Hand no less. However the match was advantageous, and secured your position nearer the king, as you knew affection for a former lady of his first queen would only sustain you for a short time. 

Otto Hightower was intelligent, his conversations in private were agreeable, and while you had always suspected he never shared more than he was comfortable with Rhaenyra knowing, trust was built over time. 

The Hand’s chambers were cold as you entered that night, and empty. A fire had just been lit, the maid scurrying out of the room as you came in. Picking up a shawl you had left the night before, you wrapped it around your shoulders and sat near the hearth, a soon forgotten book on your lap.

Forlorn thoughts would not leave you, questions and doubts, and you had no outlet for them. While your loyalties had been with Rhaenyra, and only your marriage to the Lord Hand had protected you in the early days of the war, you now doubted where you truly belonged. You had let your discontent and sometimes outrage known in private, but it had grown cold as ash since the death of Jaehaerys, and you could hardly reconcile what you knew of Aemma’s daughter to that horrific act.

“If you have come to argue with me tonight, I would request that you leave,” Otto’s voice came from the doorway, pulling you from your thoughts. Setting the book aside, you rose, a retort on your lips, but it died upon seeing his appearance.

He looked weary, as though he had aged a decade in a matter of hours since you had last seen him. It took you a moment to realize what looked so different about his person. It wasn’t the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, nor the downward line of his mouth—it was more of an absence than the sudden appearance of something new—at his chest, the Hand insignia was gone. 

“The king has dismissed you,” you said with a frown, oddly sad.

Otto sighed but nodded, stepping into the room to pour himself a cup of wine. “He feels I can no longer advise him.”

Your grief took over even though he had requested for a peaceful evening. “Perhaps for good reason. The funeral procession was cruel, and unnecessary,” you accused, shaking your head at the memory of poor Helaena, shaking with grief. 

“I shall agree with the former, not the latter,” your husband replied severely, setting the pitcher down and turning to you. “It is right for the people to know, and the realm to see the usurper for what she is.” 

Anger rose in you again, despite your better judgement. “She is not. She would not,” you protested, clinging to a weakening hope.

Otto’s face softened at this, and somehow it made him even more tired than he had. “The two rat catchers were clear in their confession,” Otto reminded you, not unkindly. “I am afraid your affection for her late mother blinds you.”

“And your hatred for her husband blinds you,” you replied, but you could see the argument had come to an end.

“We are at a stalemate, then,” Otto said with a sad smile, picking up his cup of wine and walking towards his desk, stopping in front of it abruptly, as he thought he had only now remembered that he no longer had duties to attend to. “And anyway, it matters not now. Aegon has named this imbecile Cole as Hand.”

“Aegon is grieving. He might yet realize his mistake,” you reasoned half-heartedly—you both knew he would not, and it was a frightening prospect to have a man filled with grief on the throne, for enemies and allies alike.

“It is out of my hands now,” he simply replied.

Otto took a careful sip of wine before discarding the cup on the edge of the desk, uncaring that it might spill on his correspondence, and sat in the chair at the foot of the bed. When his eyes rose to yours once more, you were struck with how changed he was. 

The line of his shoulders showed the weight of the years and the weight of a fractured realm, of no less than four decades of serving king after king, and the weight of what might have been mistakes or regrets.

He seemed painfully human and frail, in this new light. While you had known when the match had been made that you were not marrying a man, but an office, it somehow only became clearer now that he was stripped of it. 

Perhaps tonight was the first time you were truly meeting your husband. “I have watched you rule in the king’s incapacity, and while I have not always agreed with you, I know you have always done what you believed to be right for the realm,” you conceded. 

Otto looked at you then, noticing the way your eyes were rimmed with red and how troubled you seemed, under your anger. He felt he had played a hand in it, and this regret came to join a long line of those who kept him awake at night.

“I am aware that in the years we have been married I have made a poor companion,” he admitted, to which you gave him a sad smile. “I often preferred my duty to the crown than my duty to you.”

At that, you shook your head. “You loved the king and I loved his daughter,” you said, sorrow rising in your eyes. “I don’t fault you for serving him just as I have served her.”

Otto sighed, appreciating the position you found yourself in. “Indeed.”

There you were, bound to him by marriage, and bound to Rhaenyra for the love of a woman dead two decades prior. Now both sides had shed blood, each in horrendous ways you could not support. 

“Tonight is perhaps the most honest we have ever been with each other,” you said before he could speak again, pulling the shawl from your shoulders and setting it over the back of the chair, as you always did when you were preparing to leave his chambers and return to yours.

“Let us forget about it all, for a few hours at the least,” he suggested, reaching to unlace his boots. “Night is here and the realm will still be at war on the morrow.”

To his utter surprise, you did not take your leave, but instead came to him and knelt, pulling at the leather laces yourself. “Allow me,” you murmured, setting the boots aside once they were pulled off, and reaching for his coat, making him stand.

Piece by piece, you revealed more of the man under the layers. The coat went first, then the belt, closely followed by the heavy doublet where the insignia used to sit. It was the second time in his life where he was being dismissed, and still it carved into his chest all the same.

“Might I say, despite everything, that I am grateful that you are my wife,” he said then, as quiet as a confession.

“You may,” you replied, just as quietly, pressing up on your toes, and he accepted your kiss gladly. It was chaste and fleeting, not nearly enough for him to feel your warmth, but he took it gratefully nonetheless, as the gesture of peace it was. 

Then, your hands found the hem of his undershirt and rose it over his abdomen, guiding him to remove it entirely. Otto sighed when you dropped your forehead to rest against his chest for a moment, and the two of you simply breathed together, finding solace in the silence of the room. Words still lingered between you, some cold, some jagged and cutting, but they would be spoken later.

“Come, and let us rest,” he said, walking to the bed and settling against the pillow. 

He watched as you pulled the laces of your gown and draped it over the back of the chair, over the shawl that had taken residence in his chambers—in that moment he thought that he would miss the sight of it, the simple presence of this scarf in his rooms when he came in at night, heavy and weary with the burden of the realm. 

It was rare that you bared yourself to his gaze fully, and yet on this night you did, setting your cotton shift atop your gown and coming to him without any fabric to hinder his eyes or his touch. Without a word, afraid to startle you into retrieving your shift and hiding yourself from his gaze again, he admired the curves of your body. 

Kneeling on the edge of the bed, you allowed him to run his hand up from your knee to your hip with a sense of wonder, the back of knuckles then tracing a line from your navel to the valley between your breasts. 

Everything felt different now, somehow, more solemn. Whether it was forgiveness or the calm before the storm, he could not say. The only truth he knew in that moment was the softness of your skin and the quiet whisper of your sigh when you climbed beneath the sheets, settling astride his hips, your cheek against his heart.

“One day mayhaps, we will forgive each other,” you said, barely loud enough for him to hear, the words whispered against his skin.

“There is no need for that,” he replied, his hands cradling your back. In the crook of your most intimate place, you felt him harden, not out of desire, but out of the simple comfort of holding you, and it felt more precious than any moment of passion you had ever shared.

Slowly, with no rush towards any destination, you rocked against him until a gentle wave of heat had taken the both of you, and it made you wonder whether there was a peaceful plain somewhere between love and hatred, and you had reached it—perhaps it was where forgiveness lived. 

Otto held you carefully as you ground against him, taking his body into yours with a shift of your hips, his hands wandering across your skin all the while.

He basked in this new state the both of you found yourselves in, husband and wife outside of the constraints of the duties you had both chosen, fully knowing it would not last, and dawn would bring war back to his doorstep.

On the morrow he would leave King’s Landing behind, and the grandson he had spent the better part of twenty years raising in preparation for the crown would be standing without sane counsel. Whether his greatest endeavor would prove to be his greatest failure or not, only time would tell—and mayhaps, in time, you would find it in you to forgive him.

Dividers by @zaldritzosrose. Requested by @ilariyalavorowrites.

Otto Taglist: @thedarkwhisperstome @targaryen-madness @lovexbunny

Please consider reblogging if you enjoyed, this is how we keep stories alive on this platform. Likes and comments are equally appreciated.

Comment to be added to my Otto taglist.

[sylasthegrim]

Quiet Before the Storm

Pairing ✶ Otto Hightower x Arryn reader

Tags ✶ arranged marriage, enemies to lovers (sort of), wartime angst, mention of b&c, grief/mourning, hurt/comfort, soft smut (barely)

Wordcount ✶ 2,090

Once a lady in service to Queen Aemma, you returned to the capital years later as instructed by Rhaenyra, who needed a trusted ear in the Red Keep. Married to the Hand, what should have shattered your marriage when war broke out, instead brings you closer together.

Otto Hightower Masterlist

The Red Keep was dreary that night, as it had been the previous night, and perhaps each and every one since King Viserys had died. It had become all the more so since the tragedy that had befallen the king and queen, and all present in the castle that night, courtier and servant alike, still carried the weight of that ordeal on their faces.

Everyone walked the halls in near silence, as though more than whispered conversations would upset Helaena’s grief or trigger Aegon’s temper, who had taken to the drink even more than before and raged at every hour of the day and night. 

While war was by definition never a peaceful, gentle affair, the sheer horror of what had occurred had changed your perspective rather, and you longed for the days of your youth where the capital was quieter and the future did not seem so grim.

As a cousin to Aemma Arryn, you had come from Vale alongside her to serve as company when she had wed Prince Viserys, and remained at her side when he had ascended the throne. Year after year you had witnessed the births that tore her apart and brought only grief, with only the joyful occasion of Rhaenyra’s birth, until the very end and the birth of her son that took her. 

As such, you had always been protective of her only living child, and when Rhaenyra had suggested you return to the capital after a decade at the Eyrie mourning your cousin, you complied. She had been in need of eyes and ears, a supporter who would look out for her best interests. 

The one thing you had not expected was to find yourself married, to the Hand no less. However the match was advantageous, and secured your position nearer the king, as you knew affection for a former lady of his first queen would only sustain you for a short time. 

Otto Hightower was intelligent, his conversations in private were agreeable, and while you had always suspected he never shared more than he was comfortable with Rhaenyra knowing, trust was built over time. 

The Hand’s chambers were cold as you entered that night, and empty. A fire had just been lit, the maid scurrying out of the room as you came in. Picking up a shawl you had left the night before, you wrapped it around your shoulders and sat near the hearth, a soon forgotten book on your lap.

Forlorn thoughts would not leave you, questions and doubts, and you had no outlet for them. While your loyalties had been with Rhaenyra, and only your marriage to the Lord Hand had protected you in the early days of the war, you now doubted where you truly belonged. You had let your discontent and sometimes outrage known in private, but it had grown cold as ash since the death of Jaehaerys, and you could hardly reconcile what you knew of Aemma’s daughter to that horrific act.

“If you have come to argue with me tonight, I would request that you leave,” Otto’s voice came from the doorway, pulling you from your thoughts. Setting the book aside, you rose, a retort on your lips, but it died upon seeing his appearance.

He looked weary, as though he had aged a decade in a matter of hours since you had last seen him. It took you a moment to realize what looked so different about his person. It wasn’t the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, nor the downward line of his mouth—it was more of an absence than the sudden appearance of something new—at his chest, the Hand insignia was gone. 

“The king has dismissed you,” you said with a frown, oddly sad.

Otto sighed but nodded, stepping into the room to pour himself a cup of wine. “He feels I can no longer advise him.”

Your grief took over even though he had requested for a peaceful evening. “Perhaps for good reason. The funeral procession was cruel, and unnecessary,” you accused, shaking your head at the memory of poor Helaena, shaking with grief. 

“I shall agree with the former, not the latter,” your husband replied severely, setting the pitcher down and turning to you. “It is right for the people to know, and the realm to see the usurper for what she is.” 

Anger rose in you again, despite your better judgement. “She is not. She would not,” you protested, clinging to a weakening hope.

Otto’s face softened at this, and somehow it made him even more tired than he had. “The two rat catchers were clear in their confession,” Otto reminded you, not unkindly. “I am afraid your affection for her late mother blinds you.”

“And your hatred for her husband blinds you,” you replied, but you could see the argument had come to an end.

“We are at a stalemate, then,” Otto said with a sad smile, picking up his cup of wine and walking towards his desk, stopping in front of it abruptly, as he thought he had only now remembered that he no longer had duties to attend to. “And anyway, it matters not now. Aegon has named this imbecile Cole as Hand.”

“Aegon is grieving. He might yet realize his mistake,” you reasoned half-heartedly—you both knew he would not, and it was a frightening prospect to have a man filled with grief on the throne, for enemies and allies alike.

“It is out of my hands now,” he simply replied.

Otto took a careful sip of wine before discarding the cup on the edge of the desk, uncaring that it might spill on his correspondence, and sat in the chair at the foot of the bed. When his eyes rose to yours once more, you were struck with how changed he was. 

The line of his shoulders showed the weight of the years and the weight of a fractured realm, of no less than four decades of serving king after king, and the weight of what might have been mistakes or regrets.

He seemed painfully human and frail, in this new light. While you had known when the match had been made that you were not marrying a man, but an office, it somehow only became clearer now that he was stripped of it. 

Perhaps tonight was the first time you were truly meeting your husband. “I have watched you rule in the king’s incapacity, and while I have not always agreed with you, I know you have always done what you believed to be right for the realm,” you conceded. 

Otto looked at you then, noticing the way your eyes were rimmed with red and how troubled you seemed, under your anger. He felt he had played a hand in it, and this regret came to join a long line of those who kept him awake at night.

“I am aware that in the years we have been married I have made a poor companion,” he admitted, to which you gave him a sad smile. “I often preferred my duty to the crown than my duty to you.”

At that, you shook your head. “You loved the king and I loved his daughter,” you said, sorrow rising in your eyes. “I don’t fault you for serving him just as I have served her.”

Otto sighed, appreciating the position you found yourself in. “Indeed.”

There you were, bound to him by marriage, and bound to Rhaenyra for the love of a woman dead two decades prior. Now both sides had shed blood, each in horrendous ways you could not support. 

“Tonight is perhaps the most honest we have ever been with each other,” you said before he could speak again, pulling the shawl from your shoulders and setting it over the back of the chair, as you always did when you were preparing to leave his chambers and return to yours.

“Let us forget about it all, for a few hours at the least,” he suggested, reaching to unlace his boots. “Night is here and the realm will still be at war on the morrow.”

To his utter surprise, you did not take your leave, but instead came to him and knelt, pulling at the leather laces yourself. “Allow me,” you murmured, setting the boots aside once they were pulled off, and reaching for his coat, making him stand.

Piece by piece, you revealed more of the man under the layers. The coat went first, then the belt, closely followed by the heavy doublet where the insignia used to sit. It was the second time in his life where he was being dismissed, and still it carved into his chest all the same.

“Might I say, despite everything, that I am grateful that you are my wife,” he said then, as quiet as a confession.

“You may,” you replied, just as quietly, pressing up on your toes, and he accepted your kiss gladly. It was chaste and fleeting, not nearly enough for him to feel your warmth, but he took it gratefully nonetheless, as the gesture of peace it was. 

Then, your hands found the hem of his undershirt and rose it over his abdomen, guiding him to remove it entirely. Otto sighed when you dropped your forehead to rest against his chest for a moment, and the two of you simply breathed together, finding solace in the silence of the room. Words still lingered between you, some cold, some jagged and cutting, but they would be spoken later.

“Come, and let us rest,” he said, walking to the bed and settling against the pillow. 

He watched as you pulled the laces of your gown and draped it over the back of the chair, over the shawl that had taken residence in his chambers—in that moment he thought that he would miss the sight of it, the simple presence of this scarf in his rooms when he came in at night, heavy and weary with the burden of the realm. 

It was rare that you bared yourself to his gaze fully, and yet on this night you did, setting your cotton shift atop your gown and coming to him without any fabric to hinder his eyes or his touch. Without a word, afraid to startle you into retrieving your shift and hiding yourself from his gaze again, he admired the curves of your body. 

Kneeling on the edge of the bed, you allowed him to run his hand up from your knee to your hip with a sense of wonder, the back of knuckles then tracing a line from your navel to the valley between your breasts. 

Everything felt different now, somehow, more solemn. Whether it was forgiveness or the calm before the storm, he could not say. The only truth he knew in that moment was the softness of your skin and the quiet whisper of your sigh when you climbed beneath the sheets, settling astride his hips, your cheek against his heart.

“One day mayhaps, we will forgive each other,” you said, barely loud enough for him to hear, the words whispered against his skin.

“There is no need for that,” he replied, his hands cradling your back. In the crook of your most intimate place, you felt him harden, not out of desire, but out of the simple comfort of holding you, and it felt more precious than any moment of passion you had ever shared.

Slowly, with no rush towards any destination, you rocked against him until a gentle wave of heat had taken the both of you, and it made you wonder whether there was a peaceful plain somewhere between love and hatred, and you had reached it—perhaps it was where forgiveness lived. 

Otto held you carefully as you ground against him, taking his body into yours with a shift of your hips, his hands wandering across your skin all the while.

He basked in this new state the both of you found yourselves in, husband and wife outside of the constraints of the duties you had both chosen, fully knowing it would not last, and dawn would bring war back to his doorstep.

On the morrow he would leave King’s Landing behind, and the grandson he had spent the better part of twenty years raising in preparation for the crown would be standing without sane counsel. Whether his greatest endeavor would prove to be his greatest failure or not, only time would tell—and mayhaps, in time, you would find it in you to forgive him.

Dividers by @zaldritzosrose. Requested by @ilariyalavorowrites.

Otto Taglist: @thedarkwhisperstome @targaryen-madness @lovexbunny

Please consider reblogging if you enjoyed, this is how we keep stories alive on this platform. Likes and comments are equally appreciated.

Comment to be added to my Otto taglist.

[ilariyalavorowrites]

This was everything and more than I could have imagined. I feel the conflicted feelings torn between past and present, between what once was and a distant future, blurry and unsure.

As a second first meeting builds, I'm captivated. This was a beautiful depiction of the quiet spaces that grief fills.

[sylasthegrim]

I'm relieved it turned out like you wanted, because even though I loved the request, it ended up being quite complex to write and I struggled to find the right tone and the right words.

Thank you so much for the reblog, I am so happy you liked it ♡

[sylasthegrim]

Quiet Before the Storm

Pairing ✶ Otto Hightower x Arryn reader

Tags ✶ arranged marriage, enemies to lovers (sort of), wartime angst, mention of b&c, grief/mourning, hurt/comfort, soft smut (barely)

Wordcount ✶ 2,090

Once a lady in service to Queen Aemma, you returned to the capital years later as instructed by Rhaenyra, who needed a trusted ear in the Red Keep. Married to the Hand, what should have shattered your marriage when war broke out, instead brings you closer together.

Otto Hightower Masterlist

The Red Keep was dreary that night, as it had been the previous night, and perhaps each and every one since King Viserys had died. It had become all the more so since the tragedy that had befallen the king and queen, and all present in the castle that night, courtier and servant alike, still carried the weight of that ordeal on their faces.

Everyone walked the halls in near silence, as though more than whispered conversations would upset Helaena’s grief or trigger Aegon’s temper, who had taken to the drink even more than before and raged at every hour of the day and night. 

While war was by definition never a peaceful, gentle affair, the sheer horror of what had occurred had changed your perspective rather, and you longed for the days of your youth where the capital was quieter and the future did not seem so grim.

As a cousin to Aemma Arryn, you had come from Vale alongside her to serve as company when she had wed Prince Viserys, and remained at her side when he had ascended the throne. Year after year you had witnessed the births that tore her apart and brought only grief, with only the joyful occasion of Rhaenyra’s birth, until the very end and the birth of her son that took her. 

As such, you had always been protective of her only living child, and when Rhaenyra had suggested you return to the capital after a decade at the Eyrie mourning your cousin, you complied. She had been in need of eyes and ears, a supporter who would look out for her best interests. 

The one thing you had not expected was to find yourself married, to the Hand no less. However the match was advantageous, and secured your position nearer the king, as you knew affection for a former lady of his first queen would only sustain you for a short time. 

Otto Hightower was intelligent, his conversations in private were agreeable, and while you had always suspected he never shared more than he was comfortable with Rhaenyra knowing, trust was built over time. 

The Hand’s chambers were cold as you entered that night, and empty. A fire had just been lit, the maid scurrying out of the room as you came in. Picking up a shawl you had left the night before, you wrapped it around your shoulders and sat near the hearth, a soon forgotten book on your lap.

Forlorn thoughts would not leave you, questions and doubts, and you had no outlet for them. While your loyalties had been with Rhaenyra, and only your marriage to the Lord Hand had protected you in the early days of the war, you now doubted where you truly belonged. You had let your discontent and sometimes outrage known in private, but it had grown cold as ash since the death of Jaehaerys, and you could hardly reconcile what you knew of Aemma’s daughter to that horrific act.

“If you have come to argue with me tonight, I would request that you leave,” Otto’s voice came from the doorway, pulling you from your thoughts. Setting the book aside, you rose, a retort on your lips, but it died upon seeing his appearance.

He looked weary, as though he had aged a decade in a matter of hours since you had last seen him. It took you a moment to realize what looked so different about his person. It wasn’t the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, nor the downward line of his mouth—it was more of an absence than the sudden appearance of something new—at his chest, the Hand insignia was gone. 

“The king has dismissed you,” you said with a frown, oddly sad.

Otto sighed but nodded, stepping into the room to pour himself a cup of wine. “He feels I can no longer advise him.”

Your grief took over even though he had requested for a peaceful evening. “Perhaps for good reason. The funeral procession was cruel, and unnecessary,” you accused, shaking your head at the memory of poor Helaena, shaking with grief. 

“I shall agree with the former, not the latter,” your husband replied severely, setting the pitcher down and turning to you. “It is right for the people to know, and the realm to see the usurper for what she is.” 

Anger rose in you again, despite your better judgement. “She is not. She would not,” you protested, clinging to a weakening hope.

Otto’s face softened at this, and somehow it made him even more tired than he had. “The two rat catchers were clear in their confession,” Otto reminded you, not unkindly. “I am afraid your affection for her late mother blinds you.”

“And your hatred for her husband blinds you,” you replied, but you could see the argument had come to an end.

“We are at a stalemate, then,” Otto said with a sad smile, picking up his cup of wine and walking towards his desk, stopping in front of it abruptly, as he thought he had only now remembered that he no longer had duties to attend to. “And anyway, it matters not now. Aegon has named this imbecile Cole as Hand.”

“Aegon is grieving. He might yet realize his mistake,” you reasoned half-heartedly—you both knew he would not, and it was a frightening prospect to have a man filled with grief on the throne, for enemies and allies alike.

“It is out of my hands now,” he simply replied.

Otto took a careful sip of wine before discarding the cup on the edge of the desk, uncaring that it might spill on his correspondence, and sat in the chair at the foot of the bed. When his eyes rose to yours once more, you were struck with how changed he was. 

The line of his shoulders showed the weight of the years and the weight of a fractured realm, of no less than four decades of serving king after king, and the weight of what might have been mistakes or regrets.

He seemed painfully human and frail, in this new light. While you had known when the match had been made that you were not marrying a man, but an office, it somehow only became clearer now that he was stripped of it. 

Perhaps tonight was the first time you were truly meeting your husband. “I have watched you rule in the king’s incapacity, and while I have not always agreed with you, I know you have always done what you believed to be right for the realm,” you conceded. 

Otto looked at you then, noticing the way your eyes were rimmed with red and how troubled you seemed, under your anger. He felt he had played a hand in it, and this regret came to join a long line of those who kept him awake at night.

“I am aware that in the years we have been married I have made a poor companion,” he admitted, to which you gave him a sad smile. “I often preferred my duty to the crown than my duty to you.”

At that, you shook your head. “You loved the king and I loved his daughter,” you said, sorrow rising in your eyes. “I don’t fault you for serving him just as I have served her.”

Otto sighed, appreciating the position you found yourself in. “Indeed.”

There you were, bound to him by marriage, and bound to Rhaenyra for the love of a woman dead two decades prior. Now both sides had shed blood, each in horrendous ways you could not support. 

“Tonight is perhaps the most honest we have ever been with each other,” you said before he could speak again, pulling the shawl from your shoulders and setting it over the back of the chair, as you always did when you were preparing to leave his chambers and return to yours.

“Let us forget about it all, for a few hours at the least,” he suggested, reaching to unlace his boots. “Night is here and the realm will still be at war on the morrow.”

To his utter surprise, you did not take your leave, but instead came to him and knelt, pulling at the leather laces yourself. “Allow me,” you murmured, setting the boots aside once they were pulled off, and reaching for his coat, making him stand.

Piece by piece, you revealed more of the man under the layers. The coat went first, then the belt, closely followed by the heavy doublet where the insignia used to sit. It was the second time in his life where he was being dismissed, and still it carved into his chest all the same.

“Might I say, despite everything, that I am grateful that you are my wife,” he said then, as quiet as a confession.

“You may,” you replied, just as quietly, pressing up on your toes, and he accepted your kiss gladly. It was chaste and fleeting, not nearly enough for him to feel your warmth, but he took it gratefully nonetheless, as the gesture of peace it was. 

Then, your hands found the hem of his undershirt and rose it over his abdomen, guiding him to remove it entirely. Otto sighed when you dropped your forehead to rest against his chest for a moment, and the two of you simply breathed together, finding solace in the silence of the room. Words still lingered between you, some cold, some jagged and cutting, but they would be spoken later.

“Come, and let us rest,” he said, walking to the bed and settling against the pillow. 

He watched as you pulled the laces of your gown and draped it over the back of the chair, over the shawl that had taken residence in his chambers—in that moment he thought that he would miss the sight of it, the simple presence of this scarf in his rooms when he came in at night, heavy and weary with the burden of the realm. 

It was rare that you bared yourself to his gaze fully, and yet on this night you did, setting your cotton shift atop your gown and coming to him without any fabric to hinder his eyes or his touch. Without a word, afraid to startle you into retrieving your shift and hiding yourself from his gaze again, he admired the curves of your body. 

Kneeling on the edge of the bed, you allowed him to run his hand up from your knee to your hip with a sense of wonder, the back of knuckles then tracing a line from your navel to the valley between your breasts. 

Everything felt different now, somehow, more solemn. Whether it was forgiveness or the calm before the storm, he could not say. The only truth he knew in that moment was the softness of your skin and the quiet whisper of your sigh when you climbed beneath the sheets, settling astride his hips, your cheek against his heart.

“One day mayhaps, we will forgive each other,” you said, barely loud enough for him to hear, the words whispered against his skin.

“There is no need for that,” he replied, his hands cradling your back. In the crook of your most intimate place, you felt him harden, not out of desire, but out of the simple comfort of holding you, and it felt more precious than any moment of passion you had ever shared.

Slowly, with no rush towards any destination, you rocked against him until a gentle wave of heat had taken the both of you, and it made you wonder whether there was a peaceful plain somewhere between love and hatred, and you had reached it—perhaps it was where forgiveness lived. 

Otto held you carefully as you ground against him, taking his body into yours with a shift of your hips, his hands wandering across your skin all the while.

He basked in this new state the both of you found yourselves in, husband and wife outside of the constraints of the duties you had both chosen, fully knowing it would not last, and dawn would bring war back to his doorstep.

On the morrow he would leave King’s Landing behind, and the grandson he had spent the better part of twenty years raising in preparation for the crown would be standing without sane counsel. Whether his greatest endeavor would prove to be his greatest failure or not, only time would tell—and mayhaps, in time, you would find it in you to forgive him.

Dividers by @zaldritzosrose. Requested by @ilariyalavorowrites.

Otto Taglist: @thedarkwhisperstome @targaryen-madness @lovexbunny

Please consider reblogging if you enjoyed, this is how we keep stories alive on this platform. Likes and comments are equally appreciated.

Comment to be added to my Otto taglist.

[fanby-fckry]

Send me 📝 in an ask to get a random WIP snippet.

[sylasthegrim]

📝 aegon pleaseplease 💚

Your wish is my command ♡ I'm warning you though, this is filthy...

“Have you ever touched yourself, down there?” Aegon asked, teasing the swell of your inner thigh with a stroke of his thumb. “Yes, your grace,” you whispered shamefully. “Weren’t you told it is not proper?” he teased, kissing the dip between your breasts. “Why do you disobey?” he said, following the crease of your hip under your smallclothes until it reached the side of your folds. You gasped as a swirl of heat licked up your core, shifting despite yourself, chasing his touch. “Uncle—” His tone turned darker, more insistent, but no less kind. “Tell me.” “Because it feels nice,” you said quietly, your breath turning into a sigh when he swiped his thumb over the crease of your fold, then pressed up, effortlessly finding your most sensitive place.  Aegon rested his head in your neck again, his lips following the line of your throat, exploring the dip behind your jaw where the back of your ear was flushed with pleasure. All the while, he teased and tried, finding the pressure and rhythm that made you gasp and grind back into his hand, enjoying the wetness that spread beneath his fingers. “As good as this? As good as your king touching you?” he asked, and you could only shake your head, lost to the sinful experience.

[sylasthegrim]

📝

Thank you for sending this ask ♡

“I am to be crowned, on the morrow,” Aemond murmured into your ear, like the caress of a lover, and it was an offer more than anything else, the words hanging over you. Slowly, he brought his hand up your arm and shoulder, following your collarbone until he found the delicate skin of your neck, and loosely wrapped his fingers around your throat, feeling your pulse under his palm.  “Everything you could not give him, you shall give to me,” he said, savoring the way your throat fluttered under his hand, like the gentle beat of a bird’s wings.  “Only if you give me what he never could,” you replied, leaning your weight back into him subtly, your own hand coming to rest atop his, not to hinder it, only to hold. He trailed his fingers up to your jaw, then her lips, pressing into the plush flesh almost tenderly, and you sighed.

[sylasthegrim]

Is the lion giving Lannister reader maybe? And a velaryon reader for the aemond story?

Yes for one, no for the other... and it's not a lion, but a tiger 😏

[sylasthegrim]

I guessed that the top one was aegon (partially because of the crown), middle was aemond, and bottom was cregan…how accurate am I?

Perfect score, my dear 😏 I'm curious if anyone can guess the pairing or some of the plot...

[sylasthegrim]

Do you think you might eventually publish all three? I voted for the one I guessed was aegon but he is very much losing and I miss him lol

I miss him so freaking much so don't worry, I will be posting it as well.

The Cregan idea is actually the shortest one of the three options, with only three chapters, so I'll be able to move on to another fic soon after ♡

I'm very curious what you think that Aegon fic could be, based on the emojis... 👀

[sylasthegrim]

Looks like cregan is currently winning by a wide margin

🥰😍 It's the angstiest fic of the three so yay!

[willgrahamscock]

as a tumblr veteran, what advice would you give staff?

stop banning trans women and start banning ai 'artists'

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

We Walk The Plank On A Sinking Ship

Series summary: After Queen Helaena is murdered during Blood and Cheese, the devastated Greens scramble to arrange an advantageous match for Aegon. They settle on you, the sister of Dalton Greyjoy, to forge an alliance with the Red Kraken and his fleet. But when you arrive in King’s Landing, the Usurper is not who you imagined him to be...and to fulfill your purpose, you must give him everything.

Series title is a lyric from: “Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am?” by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter 1: All The Lovers With No Time For Me

Chapter 2: We’re The New Face Of Failure

Chapter 3: I'm Alright In Bed But I'm Better With A Pen

Chapter 4: Get Me Out Of My Mind And Get You Out Of Those Clothes

Chapter 5: I Thought I Loved You

Chapter 6: It’s A Goddamn Arms Race

Chapter 7: Stomp Out This Disaster Town

Chapter 8: The Tombstones Were Waiting

Chapter 9: Baby, Seasons Change But People Don’t

Chapter 10: Do You Remember The Way I Held Your Hand

Chapter 11: I’m A Stitch Away From Making It

Chapter 12: The Cause, The Kid, The Course, The Charm, And The Curse

Chapter 13: The Only Thing I Haven’t Done Yet Is Die

🦑 All of my writing can be found HERE! 🦑

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Only took 4 months but she is complete 🥹🦑

[sylasthegrim]

Hello everyone ♡

I've been working in secret on short series (3 to 5 chapters) and I'm hoping to post one while season three airs. I thought I would let you choose which one speaks to you the most...

Based on emojis alone, which fic interests you the most?

☀️🔥🏝️🐯👑

🗡️🩸💎🌊⚓

🐺🗡️🏰❄️👶🏻

Remaining time: 6 hours 26 minutes

[sylasthegrim]

https://www.tumblr.com/sylasthegrim/818430568375156736/how-do-you-think-aemond-would-react-at-being

good morning ez! i think that the reason for the refusal would be: be on different sides of the war (but to a deeper level, she think that nyra should be queen and that the usurpation is only link to her sex even tho aegon is worse. her indipendent mind and intellect was one of the thing he appreciated the most) or maybe they are on the same side of the war but she refused to wed him because of his cruel action (luke’s death + what he did to the strong after talking harrenal, that is killing everyone including children and old people).

in both case he would be devastated.

Agree with everything you said, in any case I don't think Aemond would be very lucky in love with the war and/or the cruel way he's behaved.

I have half a mind to write something with him being rejected by a lady he genuinely loves, and going through the heartbreak, the grieving... Only for this lady to be married to him as part of an alliance pact during the war.

Would he try to court her, to make her fall in love with him? Or would he ice her out? I think he'd either take it as a challenge, or feel humiliated to be married to a woman he knows doesn't love him...

Tell me what you think?

[sylasthegrim]

I love you

Sorry for the delay, I saw this just now! Much love back to you ♡♡