@thygraves.

━━ㅤ𝐼𝙵ㅤ𝚆𝙴ㅤ𝓓𝙴𝙲𝙰𝚈, ㅤㅤitㅤ𝓌illㅤbeㅤd̲i̲v̲i̲n̲e̲ . . .

[thygraves]

▊ ♯ 𝒯𝙷𝚈𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄𝑺 : / / a private, mutually exclusive, and highly selective multi-muse blog ━━ with a singular focus on fantasy and historical settings. ⁎ ALL PORTRAYALS ARE HEAVILY PICKED APART, MIXED MEDIA AND HEADCANON BASED. ▃ sporadic activity. ( dead dove, do not eat ) . . . . . this blog will contain mature and triggering content ﹔ follow at your own discretion. minors do not interact.

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[thygraves]

super secret 5am vip early access @trailercreek

[thygraves]

spent all this time on a full beat of makeup just to not take any good pics. anyways! i’m getting ready to leave for a week! xo i’ll have my laptop in case it rains 💕

[petitsdieu]

She's never seen a naked man. She focuses on ... his hair, an erbium spill, is almost as long as hers but just as soft ⸺ she remember how it felt between her fingers. And then maybe clavicle bone. The meanness of his throat when he talks. How his seeing-eye looks harder than his gemmed one.

It is not her thighs his hands find but her throat and the breath it hitches, un-silently. She white-knuckles grips the tub's edge before his wrist can claim the space between them. A coaxed second sound cannot be stifled either. Not when he tugs her off the bone and reminds her she is a body atrophying from disuse. No one prepared her properly. Of all she was told of marriage beds and the brutality of husbands, the courtly eyes that will watch and be satisfied ... no one told her she could like it ... long for it. The way it was served.

She's had her time, vacillating the day away on feelings divided. She's left apotheosizing his hands, his mouth, his hips staking her soul to the altar-wall ⸺ assailing all that she knows. Can swoon-sick not count? She's had a whole night of tossing, turning, half-sleepless to attempt to swallow it. But desire does not feather in, it chokes.

It makes her tell her first mindful lie. And she chokes on that, as well.

❛ I don't think anyone recovers from you. ❜

In any sense of the meaning but mostly, the one most devastating. Her heart knocks three times to let her know how deeply it can gush.

The natal fruits of her arrival could be his greatest gift. So many in his bloodline lick the same wounds, felled into the same patterns. He'd do best not to wish for her recovery then. And her? A reluctant agree. Of all the stories she's heard of him, she can start believing the dragon one to be the trustest. He's a quick claimer.

She shys away back into her eyelids. Feels how he's stiff-formed that knot for her. Her body responds accordingly. A throb in a pearl, deep deep inside her. Her knee knocks into his left rib. One, twice ... as if testing the bounds of her own touch.

❛ I am ... not used to being touched. I am sorry. I will not feed you fabrication again. I promise. ❜

It doesn't suit her. Her character nor her marriage.

She looks again. As much as her body wants to squirm inside out, there is a strange, conflicting peace having him here with her. She sinks a little deeper to excuse pressing into the entanglement he started.

[thygraves]

i don't think anyone recovers from you.

he stills at that. not outwardly, as brief as it is ━━ but something in him arrests all the same. caught for only a breath between pride and something far more dangerous; and the words settle somewhere strange beneath his ribs now on display. FOR A FLEETING INSTANT, HE COULD RESENT HER FOR THEM. not because they are cruel... but because they are not. because she says it as a sort of confession rather than accusation [ ... ] and so he allows the ghost of a smile, something just a little smug and crooked if one decided to look close enough, touch the corners of his lips as his neck does the smallest of dips. a violet eye falls toward the water that ripples when he drags the cloth through it and rings it out with a single fist.

she speaks as though he is owed perfection from her already. as if he, too, isn't struggling to navigate the fleet that is marriage on the horizon. seeking some sort of normalcy in what was to come... so yes, perhaps soaking in each others filth would be what aided them in finding it.

❛❛ you apologize too often. ❜❜

( for being afraid. for wanting. and now for lying, ) but he doesn't need to list them aloud. it's easier, always, to be sharp. easier to wield clipped words and silence like a weapon and let others tremble against it... tenderness demanded exposure. it demanded he step forward unarmed. and she had already seen too much of him. he feels the hesitant knock of her knee against his side once, then again, and recognizes it for what it is: not rejection. NOT ENTIRELY FEAR, EITHER. but testing ━━ like approaching the mouth of a flame close enough to feel heat without yet knowing whether it will consume [ ... ] ❛❛ i am not so fragile a man that one lie about a fever will have me calling for punishment. ❜❜ there's a pause as his gaze lifts to keenly watch her retreat into herself and then force to look back regardless. ❛❛ though i prefer honesty. ❜❜

THE CLOTH STILL DRIPS WHEN HE BRINGS IT FORWARD ━━ lets the scented water trickle down her collarbone and in between breasts [ ... ] when he begins to languidly wash the slope of her smooth shoulder and neck. i am not used to being touched. the honesty repeats itself in his mind several times over before he speaks again. ❛❛ is that why yesterday you were clinging to me like a cat in heat? ❜❜ there's a hint of mockery there, though not exactly mean. his hand wraps around to the other side and inevitably carves a path of cleanliness toward her chest; while the hand still beneath the water grips at the crease where her thigh meets hip. squeezes. as if to remind her. ( to anchor himself... ) to suppress the urge to drag her onto his lap completely and line her up and let the slipperiness surrounding them do half the work.

❛❛ and now you're avoiding me. ❜❜

[thygraves]

⊱ ░ 𝕽HAELLA ₍ ? ₎ one or both muses have been pining for a while,  receiver body worships sender by kissing all over their body and giving them oral.

it's the sort of gown that no mortal man should ever lay his filth ridden hands on... torwyn had held velvet before ━━ spoils taken from greenlander ships, half ruined by seawater and smoke once back on land ━━ but never anything like this. THIS SILK THAT WHISPERED BENEATH HIS FINGERS EACH TIME HE DARED PUSH IT. women from the isles didn't wear dresses that closer resembled the hoard of treasure he so often sought, and he's removed many. they wore roughspun and sealskin, they laughed with split lips and shoved men harder than they fucked them... but this?

this fine as cobweb thread, pale beneath candlelight, stitched through with silver so delicate he briefly feared ( or hoped ) one careless touch might unravel it entirely [ ... ] IT DID NOT BELONG BENEATH HANDS LIKE HIS. hands scarred by rope burn, by salt, by the pull of nets and the grip of axes. and yet here @summerhells lied beneath him wearing it; as soft as something dreamt. allowing him to touch it. to touch her. even when his skin caught.

ironborn don't give, they take... and yet.

❛❛ gods, ❜❜ whispered, hoarse at the edges. his parted mouth seemed to be following a vein ━━ kisses hungry in their firmness but not quite hurried. a slow press of lips against warm skin instead; the center of her throat, a delicate collarbone he all but swallowed down the desire to bite. AND LOWER TOWARD THE DIP OF THAT EMBROIDERED NECKLINE WHILE HIS HAND CLUTCHING AT HER THIGH MOVED HIGHER, pulling fabric up with it. the dress and the flesh beneath it inhabited all the luxuries that belonged solely to her; her warmth, the evidence of her very life, and her scent he wished to lap up like water. something faintly floral, clean, ( expensive in a way he couldn't name ) rather than leather and sea salt. he could feel the quickened flutter of her breath ━━ the rise and fall beneath bodicework worth more coin than anything he had ever owned [ ... ] and it was not only hunger that guided him then, as he slowly lowered himself down the length of her body, but reverence. ❛❛ you are too fine a thing for this world... ❜❜

it's only once he could feel the soft skin of legs ( woefully hidden from him for far too long ) against his palm that he decides he couldn't possibly waste another moment outside of her skirts... and so rough hands that had been in the throes of practicing restraint would finally grab ━━ push. bunch what seems to him to be all the silk in the seven kingdoms up toward her waist until he's able to slot himself between thighs and settle [ ... ] IF HE MUST SUFFOCATE BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF DRESS AND TREMBLING SKIN ALIKE, SO BE IT. death between the thighs of a princess would be far more fortunate than how ironmen are more often than not destined.

❛❛ tell me to stop, ❜❜ he says quietly amidst trailing yet another wet line of kisses along her inner thigh ━━ cheek languidly pressed to the skin, blue gaze watching her from behind the dark hair that had fallen into them. THOUGH THE WORDS SOUNDED JUST AS STRAINED AS HIS TROUSERS. ❛❛ and i will. ❜❜

[holohedral]

i am not well understood. which is also my fault

[arenagods]

GARRETT HEDLUND as MURTAGH MORZANSSON in ERAGON (2006)

[lauraneedstochill]

Boy meets world, S7EP19 // post by @bookwyrminspiration // Michael Dickman, Killing flies // Margaret Atwood, Shapechangers in Winter // Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe // Better Call Saul, S1EP9 // unknown (x) // Glee, S4EP4 // Little Women (2019) // Dante Émile, After Abel // George R. R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons // Pietro Novelli, Cain Killing Abel // unknown (x) // Genesis 4:9 // Joan Didion, South and West // Sherlock, S1EP1 // 520 Studios, I Wanted To Feel Loved Without Feeling Like I Was Begging For It // by twitter user @/thehauntedqueen.

web weaving on: Jaehaerys Targaryen & the grief of losing a child // Sunfyre & his eternal devotion // Alicent & Gwayne (coming soon)

[thygraves]

⊱ ░ 𝓗ELAENA ₍ ? ₎ will you be disappointed if it is not a son?

the question pulls him from the haze of what swirled red in his cup and the firelight alike, his gaze lifting from where it had lingered uselessly upon the hearth. HE LOOKS EVERY BIT LIKE THE PRINCE PEOPLE EXPECT HIM TO BE━ reclined carelessly against the cushions, goblet dangling loose from two fingers. indolent, unbothered, half drunk on wine and avoidance... he gives a crooked sort of smile at it first ━━ the kind that usually comes before a jest too sharp to be mistaken for sincerity. ❛❛ a son would make grandsire happy, which is reason enough to pray for a daughter instead. ❜❜

an answer that comes easy, lightly. reflexively. but then he finally glances toward @helenaus... and suddenly the answer doesn't feel quite so simple, nor as easy to brush off as he believes he can most things. HELAENA SAT SO SMALL BENEATH THE HEAVY WEIGHT OF SILK AND SWELLING UNCERTAINTY, and it felt as though the query was asked whilst she tied a noose around her own neck. ( half curious and half afraid ) [ ... ] their father would be disappointed. their mother certainly.... but would he? the court would smile sharper for a boy, he knows ━━ and songs were always kinder to sons.

if it is a girl, they will be planning who to wed her off to before she can walk; and if it is a boy, they will put a sword in his hand before he is old enough to lift it... neither sound particularly fortunate. BUT PERHAPS A SON WOULD SAVE HIM. a little prince with silver hair and a dragon's name ━━ proof that he had managed, at least once, to become the man everyone demanded of him. ( a son meant legacy. ) it meant strength. it meant succession [ ... ] meant his mother would finally look at him as something forged instead of something failed.

his features scrunch as that previous amusement twists into something more akin to bitterness ━━ and he exhales through his nose as he sinks further into his seat. VIOLET GAZE DROPPING INTO HIS CUP, looking anywhere, apparently, at anything but her. ❛❛ no, ❜❜ he lifts the goblet closer to his parted lips then, letting the muttered honesty that comes next hopefully become lost within the wine.

❛❛ it makes no difference to me. ❜❜

[thygraves]

she has delivered children born of love, and she has delivered children born of fear... small babes swaddled up warmly in her linens while they took their first breaths and made their presence in the realm known with their sharp, shrill cries. THEY ALL SOUNDED THE SAME. were all loved by her gentle hands the same. and some were welcomed with smiles and kisses ━━ while others were hidden away before the break of dawn, and she'd never known how hers would one day be thought of. spoken of. ( some thought house ashworth ought stop having children at all. ) that they should end their uncanny bloodline once and for all [ ... ] lest another daughter grows into a lady with one foot in the grave and one hand in the Stranger's.

and yet when he speaks of it now...

⊱ ░ 𝕭AELOR ₍ ? ₎ i never wished to father bastards, but now that i look at the swell of your stomach each day, i cannot wait to be a father again.

one hand rests instinctively over the gentle curve of her stomach, lithe fingers spreading there as though to shield the precious life tucked safely beneath her ribs. the gesture is unconscious now ━━ one she has begun making without realizing. FOR A MOMENT, SHE SAYS NOTHING. outside, rain taps softly against glass, and somewhere in the quiet of the chamber, a candle crackles low [ ... ] and her gaze falls until lashes are shadowing her pale cheeks. ❛❛ when i was a little girl, i thought babes came into the world already carrying all the grief they would ever know. ❜❜ her thumb strokes slowly over the swell beneath her gown, and a smile as fragile as flowers pressed between pages touches her lips. ❛❛ i think perhaps it was because so many were placed into my arms crying. ❜❜

only then does she look up at @heartofchivalry. there is something terribly soft in her expression now; affection, certainly ━━ but also a kind of disbelief. ( the quiet ache of someone unused to being chosen without hesitation. ) ❛❛ i never thought mine would be spoken of with such joy. ❜❜ nor did she think something that has brought so much shame to noble houses could sound so gentle in his voice... though she does not voice the latter. instead her hand slips from her stomach, reaching for his; where cold fingers curled gently against the prince's palm as she drags it forward. the faintest trace of girlish amusement finally ghosts through her quiet melancholy.

❛❛ i think they know your voice now. they grow restless whenever they hear it... can you feel it? ❜❜

[thygraves]

the red keep had never felt so full of ghosts. they stalked its corridors in torchlight, in servants that fell silent when he passed. in the distant scrape of chairs within council chambers ━━ and in the memory of a boy's wide eyed terror before being caught between monstrous teeth above shipbreaker bay. storm's end had seemed to change the taste of the air itself; ( men now looked at him differently. ) AND AEMOND CARED FOR NEITHER THEIR FEAR NOR REVERENCE.

the prince had not slept. not truly.

an hour here, a moment there. enough to dream of dragon screeches and wake with blood beneath his fingernails that didn't exist. vhagar knew his unrest ━━ she had hissed and shifted within the pit upon their return, great jaws lazily snapping at shadows while rain battered king's landing black and cold. the beast was restless because he was restless... his eye had long since learned to see what others refused to; and as of late, it lingered upon his sister. HE HAD WARNED THEM. from the moment @ntrgyn had been chosen as envoy, something especially sour had settled in his gut. otto had called it unnecessary suspicion. aegon had laughed ━━ drunk, careless, dismissive. "SHE IS OUR SISTER." as though blood had ever guaranteed loyalty...

the house she had been sent to secure for aegon's claim had not declared for the greens, nor had they remained neutral. they had bent the knee to rhaenyra. ( another banner turned black. ) the look upon the council's faces when the news arrived had been confusion at first; irritation second. excuses came immediately after. "the lord was always sympathetic to rhaenyra..." "the negotiations must have soured. it is unfortunate, but hardly treason." TREASON. the word had sat heavily on his tongue. she had loved their half sister once... perhaps she still did. and aemond was well aware that love made traitors of people. the council thought him severe. bitter. suspicious by nature... perhaps he was.

but he was rarely wrong.

aemond stood before the crackling hearth ━━ one gloved hand clutching the parchment that bore the sigil of the very house he now wished to burn to ash, while the other flexed slowly at his side. he had removed neither his sword nor his riding leathers since his earlier dismount; and he had read the message three times on this viewing alone. THE WORDING REMAINS STUBBORNLY UNCHANGED. and yet he continues visiting it day after day since its arrival... ❛❛ tell me, ❜❜ he finally breaks the silence. quiet beneath anger as he turns to face her, lifting the letter like an accusation. he had spent weeks attempting to convince himself he was mistaken; and now he prayed she would lie well enough to let him continue doing so. ❛❛ how a mission entrusted to a daughter of the greens ends with another lord swearing himself to rhaenyra. ❜❜

[petitsdieu]

🦪... to join them in the bathtub ... aemond targaryen, @thygraves

Water's lipping at her decolletage in her supine position ( by all definitions ) … her eyes refusing him in any manner of acknowledgement. She tells a little lie, silently, by keeping her eyes closed and pretending to be too relaxed to notice him. Or to care. Or unawake altogether to avoid participating in this at all. It should be easy ... she's been sleepwalking through her womanhood entirely ⸺ her heart has survival wounds from muscle strain alone ⸺ Instead, she's never felt as naked as she does now.

It is no means a proper way to address a husband-to-be. But what is she suppose to do? To live on a bated breath of a yesterday's passion still felt between her legs is to live in a halfway world. It's tortuous firmament. It's inelegant skinning. The new beatitudes for auld faiths ... spilled seeds, divine fruits. God's hands on amorous clay pieces. She might die if he doesn't touch her again. She might die if he does. There's nothing she can do about it.

She opens her eyes. She watches him undress. She feels the weight of their cozy-fit-together in the otherwise roomy soaking tub. Her legs have to split for him. It's biblical owe. It's her owe, personally. Some would call this bathing together. But what they're doing is more akin to anointing one another in bath oil ⸺ soaking in each other's filth. They're sliding into roles made for them.

She does not want/need to hate him. Some part of her yet to be recognized wants/needs to love him. He's not squeezing in effortlessly.

Wide-eyed, she looks up to him. He's close enough now to trace the scar on his face. She does. Her own scar pokes through the water's surface. Her's on her knee. A knife wound as well. Non-accidental. She thinks of a third scar not yet in view nor existence. Will he bleed ichor, too? Are they destined to be the unequal parts of an even split? She overturns his hand to look at his naked palm and knows the next time she'll see it with this measure of intent, it'll match her hand. She doesn't look long. Her gaze finds the natural drift back to his. A breathe quiver her lesser lip before anything else.

❛ ... Were you not informed that I took ill today? ❜

Believable ... Transitions ( by way of illustration of travel or other new life adjustments ) can breed ailments. She can recall handfuls of guests back home that needed a day or two to recovery for their journeys and attune to new air. But she's suffering a different kind of sickness, evidentially, and she's got so little air whenever he's near. Either way ... she has a face that tells on her too much. She was never good at lying. She just didn't think that could transverse between messengers. Or maybe, her ailments don't scare him like they should. His face is hard to read. His body, however, transcends languages and her body converses accordingly. They talk so much when they rub.

[thygraves]

it isn't she that his eye looks upon the moment he enters. not her naked body submerged, nor the way her eyes seemed to be squeezed shut rather than naturally fluttered ━━ the faint tension at her mouth just there, betraying her if he had decided to look. instead, he notices the water. THE STILLNESS OF IT IS TOO DELIBERATE. too composed, he briefly thinks in that short moment. like a courtier holding breath through a lie and hoping silence might pass for truth...

aemond says nothing as he disrobes.

he had been told and witnessed many things of marriage over the years. of duty, of legacy. the quiet violence of two lives pressed into one. BUT NONE OF IT ACCOUNTED FOR THIS. for the way she seemed to refuse him without moving a muscle ━━ the way her stillness felt louder than defiance. ( the prince knows fight, ) knows the language of resistance... yet this was something far more insidious. it asked patience of him. interpretation. it asked restraint. and suddenly he, too, had never felt more naked than in this moment as he removes the last and only barrier that could potentially bring him shame. the leather patch lands atop his breeches without ceremony; as if the flimsy piece of fabric meant nothing at all.

the sapphire lodged into a scarred socket gleams against flickering candlelight as the bath shifts with his entry. blue is the gemstone, twinkling ━━ A PRETTY THING, IF NOT FOR THE CARCASS AROUND IT. the heat of the water laps at his skin, warmed once by fire and twice by her presence, and he does not rush to settle, nor to accommodate her comfort. if she must part her knees for him now, let her feel the necessity of it. let her understand the shape of what they are being made into. and let her look upon the man she will soon be tethered to ━━ the scarring. the ever tightness of his pursed lips. the silver hair now fully unbound and falling like silk over the boney slope of his shoulders.

❛❛ i was. ❜❜ he answers at last, voice low and even in the sanctity of a washing tub. and while he doesn't yank his hand away from her grasp as if she'd stolen something precious that belonged solely to him ━━ it does fall back. back into the water that glimmered with a film of scented oil, where he reaches for her thighs beneath the slippery surface. ❛❛ and yet, ❜❜ quieter still, he tugs her closer. IGNORES THE WATER LICKING FIENDISHLY AT THE EDGES. ❛❛ you don't appear to be ill. have you recovered so soon? ❜❜

his hand doesn't twist in order to shove itself between those very same legs as it had the day prior ━━ instead he merely lessens the gap between their bodies and allows their limbs to tangle beneath soft waves. a knot of bumping flesh and meat and bone... and the shadow of something lascivious in the rising tendrils of steam. ( he is only a man. ) no matter how badly it pains him to be betrayed. ❛❛ or am i to wed a liar? ❜❜ fingers escape the surface then, to reach for the washing linen dangling from the tub. ❛❛ if you mean to deceive me, betrothed━ you should begin by teaching your face obedience. ❜❜

[thygraves]

very secret inbox call while i finally eat an actual meal <3

[haydenchristensengifs]

[cemeterybox]

[thygraves]

⊱ ░ 𝓐ZRA ₍ ? ₎ they say you know plants that can change the body. something that makes a person stronger. faster to recover. do you make such things…?

the witch does not answer at once ━━ not as pale hands are occupied, slowly and carefully spreading dried leaves from their stems as though each piece mattered. ( meant something... ) and perhaps they did. SHE TAKES HER TIME BECAUSE SHE IS NOT ONLY THINKING OF THE QUESTION ITSELF, but of where it may lead. as that, to her, is always far more important than whatever it is that she may gain in return [ ... ] whether it was coin or the self satisfaction of helping those in need... it mattered little when tampering with nature. ❛❛ there are plants that will make you feel stronger. and others that will quiet pain enough that a person believes themselves unbreakable. ❜❜

her palms ran against the wooden top of the table she stood over, with its rickety four legs that nevertheless remained steady beneath her gentle touch. ❛❛ but the body always keeps its own accounting. ❜❜ she'll pause then, hands stilling as a green gaze lifts to finally meet @kaedrn directly since welcoming her into her cottage. NOT FEARFUL, NOT JUDGEMENTAL... only anchored and unblinking. but no matter how cold the color of her eyes appeared ━━ drained of saturation and haunted ━━ there was a distant, quiet kindness. ❛❛ i can give you something to wake the blood, if that is what you seek. to keep you on your feet when you ought to fall... but nothing that comes without cost. ❜❜ pandora inhales a breath through her teeth as her head falls again [ ... ] fingers returning to their task whilst dark strands curtain her like spilt black ink. ❛❛ faster healing often means the body takes from somewhere else... i have seen men walk on broken legs because they did not feel them break. ❜❜

A PAUSE, BEFORE SHE ADDS ALMOST REGRETABLY.

❛❛ they did not thank me for it. ❜❜

[petitsdieu]

Which of his transgressions is he transferring onto her? Cruor-lust or whatever else his knife has picked out, scaling his life in blood weight. It feels sacrificial where he's pressed her ⸺ a brazen altar then ⸺ all the blood in her drops, she feels like she could faint. And for where he tries to go, she just might still. She catches herself around his neck. His body pressed taut to hers pulls a squeal from her.

She does not know what prompts further escalation, or even the beginning of escalation. She knows she's lost in it. That his interest is invasive as it's visceral. ⸺ His hand is not on her thigh ... His hand in her thigh. This is where he goes.

As if affixed to a short string, her mouth chases the end of the kiss ⸺ series of kisses ⸺ despite not having the lung value to maintain it. Her chest puffs to recover; reenacting a mythology older than both of them combined ... is it better to breathe or to dine? He tempts enough for the both of them to risk the detrimental option. A virtuoso in seduction as well as blade ... trying to gauge the point of no return all the while teasing just outside of the boundary of it would be another fruitless conversation. How about the dialogue of her whimper? Or the undeniable shine on her inner thigh. Or the emergence of her ache.

If there was any amatorial and salacious feeling prior, it had been too latent and subtle to be felt. How sadistic it is to pry it from her now, indelicately and all at once ⸺ it would be a cruelty to flood her with this and then take it back, crueler yet to ask her to do it for him. But the cruelest thing yet has already been done.

This is where he goes. A spillikin in her rib.

❛ You want me to deny you? I'm afraid I do not have the strength to. ❜

She knows she should want to. That a greater woman would swat away his uncouth behavior. She folds because ... skin hunger allows her to ... because after going so long without, the way he delivers his affects reads to her well ... because she hadn't been born with the chance to deny such things.

[thygraves]

want and need are two vastly different things, he thinks to say.

both hideous little thorns, of course ━━ wicked beneath the flesh and unrelenting in their bloodlust. aemond wants a crown sitting atop his head. he wants to no longer feel the weight of secondborn duties crushing down on his sonly spine without the victory. and now he wants to hastily undo the laces of his trousers and fuck into her against this very wall named altar [ ... ] as though she were not meant to be the object of his affections, ( his soon to be bride to treat with the utmost care, ) but instead a mere whore found on the street of silk... AND YET IT IS THIS THAT CURVES THE COBBLED PATH TOWARD NEED.

because he needs her to be the crueler of the two in this moment where breaths mingled as one and the knots of control became precariously loose ━━ deny him as a woman ought. A MAN HAS LITTLE USE FOR THINGS SUCH AS PROPRIETY, it's only a pretty word oft thrown around in between turning the other cheek; instead of the leash of virtue tied too taut around the necks of daughters... he needs, he needs, he needs her to put an end to his crude actions. to his exploring hand that seeks daring entry between thighs ━━ because a very small sliver of him fears for her honor and the morals she may or may not wish to uphold beneath the fiendish wave of desire that begins low in the belly and swells into an ache... until it's white hot and trembling and growing teeth━

but above all [ ... ] he selfishly fears his own unraveling.

how quick a glance disarmed him. how quick a kiss unsaddled him. and while he may believe that his years of self discipline has separated him from the boys ━━ the way he presses himself closer against her now, close enough to feel the rigid outline woefully confined to his trousers, only proves he truly is no different than any other man [ ... ] HE ACHES THE SAME AS THE BEST OF THEM. he aches the same as she. his hand, now warmed by the embrace of her thighs on either side, finds the evidence with ease as a low sound gets caught somewhere in his throat; the slick betrayal that deft fingers grazed.

❛❛ if we are seen, ❜❜ it's a warning breathed hot against her skin as just barely there lips skimmed over her chin [ ... ] following the line of a delicate jaw. A NIP IS DECIDEDLY CLAIMED BETWEEN HIS TEETH THEN, the smallest of pinches that he immediately releases in order to soothe with a kiss. ( fortunately, it did not share the same rough treatment he provided just moments before. ) and those same fingers lacked just enough apprehension to boldly trace the seam of her ━━ while still in good conscious holding out on pushing past the point neither would be able to forget happened. ❛❛ it will not be my name that stays on the lips of others. ❜❜