Likha Meraki

Alicent Hightower — Dornish dress

Subterfuge | Ch. 7: Unbound Hours

A glimpse of the chapter:

Crimson silk against her skin.

Dornish red—looser, lighter, as though even fabric here refused restraint.

A faint rise of color at her throat, betraying more than she intended.

Daemon’s fingers caught a strand of her copper hair.

Not pulling. Not trapping. Just holding.

“You truly have no idea what you look like right now, do you?”

Alicent said nothing.

There was something worse than being seen.

It was being recognized.

“Divine…” his voice lowered. “As though the gods sent you down for my pleasure alone.”

One of the little things that shaped this story from the very beginning was the way I see Alicent.

This is entirely subjective, of course, but I have a habit of assigning characters to elements. It's a silly little psychology game I've been playing for years. Sometimes I use personality systems like MBTI, sometimes archetypes, birth signs, or other frameworks. None of it is scientific—I just find it useful when trying to understand how a character moves through the world.

Interestingly, canon Alicent has always felt like Earth to me.

Grounded. Dutiful. Enduring. Stable. Someone who absorbs pressure rather than redirects it.

But the Alicent in this story isn't Earth.

She's Air.

Not because she's carefree or whimsical, but because Air moves. It adapts. It slips through cracks. It travels where walls cannot. It changes the shape of a fire without ever becoming the fire itself.

That ended up influencing a surprising amount of how I wrote her.

Her decisions.

Her ambitions.

The way she approaches power.

Even the way she interacts with Daemon.

The funny thing is that I didn't sit down and consciously decide to write "Air Alicent." I only realized later that many of the choices I was making kept circling back to the same idea.

This song wasn't written for them, but somehow this part feels painfully Daemon × Alicent-coded in my story.

One small thing about my fancast for Alicent.

I know some people might wonder why I didn't use the actress who played young Alicent in the show and instead chose an aged-down version of Olivia Cooke for this story.

The simple answer is that when I picture my Alicent, this is the face I see.

For me, Alicent at this point in the story isn't just innocent or dutiful. There's a quiet wildness beneath the surface. Intelligence. Curiosity. A spark of defiance that she hasn't fully learned how to use yet. Someone who has spent her whole life obeying, but who is only beginning to realize she might not want to.

Olivia's face always carried that contradiction for me. Softness and calculation. Kindness and stubbornness. Vulnerability and strength.

When I look at her, I can believe she's frightened. I can also believe she might someday change the course of a kingdom.

That's the Alicent I wanted to write.

Daemon remained still, watching.

Waiting.

Until he saw her.

A cloak drawn too tightly. A posture too rigid. And then—when the wind shifted—copper hair slipping free.

Daemon moved before thought could intervene.

“Alicent.”

— Subterfuge, Chapter 4: Dive In Deep

Alicent Hightower arrives at Daemon's chambers before sunrise, exhausted, frightened, and with nowhere else to go.

Unfortunately for Otto Hightower, this may be the first mistake he has made that Daemon Targaryen cannot ignore.

Excerpt from Chapter 2: The First Bargain

🔗 AO3:

Subterfuge — visual introduction

This is a story that begins with misread intentions.

With questions history refuses to answer, and choices that might have changed everything—if fear had not spoken louder than desire, and duty louder than truth.

Alicent Hightower did not refuse her path.

Daemon Targaryen did not arrive in time to alter his.

And so the world called inevitability what was only delay.

House Hightower and House Targaryen do not remain distant in this telling. They collide, they linger, they change each other in ways neither can fully undo.

After all, fire does not remain fire when the wind refuses to leave it alone.

It spreads.

This blog is an archive for my AO3 work Subterfuge: moodboards, character studies, deleted fragments, and additional lore.

→ Read here: Subterfuge (AO3)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/85825461/chapters/226854381