Pt I here - pt II here - pt III here - part V here
MASTERLIST - SEND PROMPTS - AO3
TW; aftermath of violence and wounds.
Four agonising days pass. Time drags by, crawling low and begrudging on its belly. Your condition barely changes.
You heal but the fever is slow to leave. You burn. Sweat and thrash. You mumble in your sleep. Dipped into milk of the poppy. Dreams blur the spliced concept of your reality.
You wake, unseeing. Eyes still glazed. Glossy as a dolls. Hands fist the bedclothes. Call out names for people who weren’t there- his, and your children mixed among them. Old names too. House Swann. House Dondarrion.
The wound on your shoulder festers with an angry heat. Infection setting in.
Slait has to have Lyonel to help pin you down as he cleans it best he can. Salve of green nettles smeared over it. Makes the whole thing look sickly. But the heat recedes. Somehow the old fool did something right.
It breaks his heart anew to see you squirm and moan in pain. Throat bared back on the pillow. Glistening a film of fever sweat. He has to grit his teeth through it. Turn his head away as you thrash and cry under his pressing palms.
You had the wound, but your struggling cries lodged an arrow into his heart-
He sleeps in fistfuls. Bits gathered up here and there like loose threads. Fitful starts and stops when he thinks he hears your breathing change or when you shift and moan in your sleep. Sheets twisting adound your body in your sweat-wicked linen shift.
Mostly he’s in a hard oak chair. By your bedside. Sometimes stretched across the small cushioned settee seat in front of the fire if his back or shoulder seizes in pain too much. Boots propped on the end.
When he thinks of your children seeing you this way, his heart sinks like a stone. He’s been so preoccupied in here, watching over you. He knows they must be feeling the sting of his neglect by now. It is an unintentional hurt.
The spare moments he had, went to eating very little, a heel of bread. A wedge of hard cheese. Or gulping down too much wine. He hasn’t had a full nights sleep since they brought you back. He feels it’s his due punishment.
Ser Seldan had come in yesterday and stood near him. Wrinkled his nose in a grimaced sniff. Told him plainly that he stank. Thus offered to take watch as Lyonel went off. Hastily dunked himself in a sudsy bath. Scrubbed himself like he didn’t care if he took skin off. Storming back in. Still pulling on a shirt, skin wet, and calling Seldan a fussy wolf cunt.
Jory had seen you for a handful of minutes put together. Lyonel insists with a stubborn tongue and a fatherly glare, that he not shirk his lessons. Or his time in the training yard with Seldan.
His sons face when he breaks that news to him; he’ll never forget the expression. The pinch of his dark brows, and the saddened scowl that begged to understand. A child’s reasoning left wanting.
“She wouldn’t want you to hide yourself away. Fretting. She’d want you out there on a ship in the fierce winds. Or in the yard with Seldan. Or engaged wirh your tutors for your lessons. So you get to tell her of all the glorious things you did, when she wakes up.”
He saw the fight rise on his tongue; the want to contradict. He opened his mouth to argue. And promptly swallowed. Words never making it past his teeth.
“I don’t want her to think I don’t care about what happened.” Jory mumbles. Eyes, dark and wet, slither across to the bed where you lay.
“Jory…” Lyonel sighs. Lovelorn. “She could never think that of you. My heart. You are her child. She would tell you it’s not your place or your duty to dwell on such things.”
Jory peers across at you again. Eyes remarkably sincere. Hurt still banked in then. Something he doesn’t know how to weild as yet.
“Will you find who did this…” He searches his father’s face. Boyish. Gently almost. Yet his voice held an affronted slither of iron. A stomping hoof of a little stag.
“Aye.” Lyonel nods. “I will.” He palms his sons shoulder. Lean growing bones under his padded black surcoat. Gold stag on the breast. He looked mollified. Though not by much. Lyonel knows true enough the insult they all felt as to your grevious injury, poisoned like sour leaf on all their tongues.
“Now—“ he commands. Leaning down to press a kiss to his sons tufted curls of hair. The way it falls, bouncing curls across his eyes like his own does. Hand cupping the back of his strong neck.
“Out of my sight young stag. You’ve a master of arms waiting upon you.” He guides him quietly to the door. Jory looks back. Wanting to better grasp all this.
“Disobey me at your peril.” He warns. Voice growing mighty. The voice that could split a room. The one he used to silence dissension in a heartbeat.
Jorys sighed. And off he is sent.
Lyonel Baratheon did not give. He sends his grieving son away to action.
He heard not an hour after, his Castellan reported Jory broke two wooden training swords, and a practice dummy has been disemboweled of all its straw innards. Thanks to his sons rage. Seldan took him by the shoulder and told him what a fine job he’d done.
Lyonel wants his son to work. Work on the rage as his father had taught him. Baratheon men held tempers that’s true enough- blustery, wild things. Things that couldn’t contain them.
Jorys has lightning fury and a storm held in his blood. He needs the outlet.
Lyonel was shown to direct the anger into his hands. Go to the yard and knock five men sideways. Train with swords until his knuckles and fingers bruised. Take to his ship and sail towards the nearest, devious looking storm cloud. Not to mope. He didn’t wish it upon his boy to rot every second waiting for news, like he was.
His daughters have their diversions too. He’s seen to that. He allows them brief visits. So he can see them too. And to let them dote on you if they wished. Liri brushes your hair for you. Ceres tucks a different doll each day under your covers.
They keep going to pick flowers with Septa Laurane. Blooms sit now drooping in the glass jar on your bedside. Wildflowers from the headlands. Blooms that cling on stubbornly to crags in the unbreakable rocks. Vicious, determined little things. Stung with sea salt on the petals. Smells like home.
Septa Laurane informed them, there was nothing more desolating in spirit, than leaving flowers to rot when someone is unwell.
Ceres took this advice on as a personal life or death duty. This sickroom now reeks of flowers. Each day they bring you new bunches.
His youngest would come and plonk herself artlessly on his lap. He’d reel her in for a hug. Sit her on his knee. Liri was too old for that now. It cheers him to know one of his girls isn’t too grown as yet to not need embracing.
“Papa. You look bad.” Ceres declares. Seeing him from up close. The eye bags. Eyes reddened and bloodshot. Beard and hair in equal disarray.
Lyonel smothers a yawn. Eyes drooping like a bloodhound’s, and they can all see it. “That’s kind. Sweet pea.” He offers in mock offence.
He doesn’t smell of his usual cloves and oranges. The oils he uses in his beard that smears and lingers when he kisses their heads. There’s none of that.
His shirt is the one he wore yesterday. His beard needs a trim. His hair is wild amd tugged about from his fingers, and the curls droop. He smells of sea salt and sweat. Rumpled clammy cotton. Worry.
Liri wades in on the discussion. “Truly. You don’t look well. Father.”
“I could go off you both. You know.” He narrows his eyes to them. The dynamite flick of his humour surfacing. It never was far.
They didn’t mean it. They were just near enough to see the toll this has taken.
Ceres sits, fidgets on his lap. All bony elbows and jutting knees. Fiddling with her doll. Asking if she can talk to you-
“Can mama hear me?” She asked of him. Turning back. Trepidation living on her voice.
“She can always hear you. Bug.” He assures. Clearing his throat. Smoothing a tired, careful hand over her babyish thin hair. It tumbled in wavy thick coils to her shoulders. Baratheon ink black. Soft as silk.
He may aswell have opened the floodgates. She rabbits on and on about her days events, like a little songbird.
Spouting about how she got her sums wrong. Septa Laurane told her off for not concentrating enough. How she didn’t much care for lamprey pie. That her embroidery work, which she did not excel at, looked like something that she’d done using only her feet. Or teeth.
Olira drew his attention. Where Ceres was all babble and spilling over with calm natured animation. His eldest daughter bore a silence that captured his notice.
She wore her worry as heavy as a widows veil. Sat at the end of your bed with a look that felt like she had all the seven kingdoms heaped on her rounded shoulders. Her mouth pressed into a firm line. Scared.
He takes pause for a moment. As Ceres finally ran out of words to describe her favourite cheese to you.
“Olira?” He seeks.
She turns to him. Expression still glum. Tears ribboning fat, scored trails down her cheeks. “Why won’t she wake?” She asks. Sounding very resigned to tear-logged sorrow.
Lyonel’s face falls to a sombre expression. He tries the hollow courtesy of explaining.
“She’s had a lot happen to her. My sweet. When injuries are severe like this, the body can take its time to recover. She needs rest.”
He spied the tell tale wobble of her lip as he explained.
“I don’t want to be without a mother.” Comes spouting out of her, just as the tears do. Big and falling like heavy pear-drop shaped gems down her cheeks.
He stands and puts Ceres down. Next to her on the bed. Clumps them side by side together. Gets them both captured in his arms.
His tongue curls up in his mouth. Fear shrivels it. But he endeavours to remain hopeful in his answer.
“We’ve done all we can. We just need to be patient. And trust your mother will make her way back to us—“
“If she dies. You’ll have to marry someone else… I’d hate that. I would hate anyone who wasn’t her. They’d detest us and send us away because we’re girls. Septa Laurane told us noble Lords must have wives to have lots of male heirs. You only have Jory.” Tears grow and hysteria mounts her voice. She’s picking at her dress in her lap.
Lyonel listens to a very young terror take his eldest daughter. Smothers her right into his chest with a hand stroking the back of her head. Carding down the bend of her dark hair.
“Easy. Easy. You’re alright.” He soothes. Letting her cry it out. Every frustration vented. Wet little sobs muffled on his shirt. Tear stains blooming on the fabric. He pulls back and makes sure she sees him. Eyes sinking to her own. Wet and dark.
He won’t pretend her fears aren’t valid. She’s given form and voice to the worries that flash their shining teeth at him, in the night when shadows fall darker. And hope feels brittle as burnt twine.
“No one is sending you anywhere whilst I draw breath. Nor am I now, or ever, marrying anyone else. There’s not another fucking soul on this earth that could replace your mother, and put up with me. You hear me?” He asks.
She nods. Wiping her dripping nose on the back of her hand. He produces a crumpled kerchief from his pocket. One that did smell like orange soap. Knights were always supposed to carry one. For young ladies. He’s too old to break the exception now.
She dabs her eyes with it.
“Come now. She wouldn’t want to see you in tears.” He tried to cheer. Hand soft on her upper arm. Ceres lovingly pressed her ragged doll into Liri’s lap. Something to help bring comfort.
“Thank you. Ceres. That was kind.” He proffers. She nods. A jut of her chin that made her look wise beyond her five years.
“Don’t cry.” She urges toward her sister. Small and chirping. Reaching a little hand out and shaking her sisters thigh. As if she could rattle the tears away. Sink the words into her skin by touch alone.
“Mama will be ok…” Ceres parrots. Holds his his gaze a moment. “She hates when you’re upset.”
“Yes. She does.” Lyonel adds. Tacking on to the very wise words of his ebullient five year old. “In fact. I think she’d forbid it.” He japes.
Liri smiles. It’s faint. But he’ll take it. He scrunched the handkerchief up in her hand. Both his cupping over hers.
“She’ll come back. This I swear.” He nods. And he puts such stock into believing it.
Because he can’t even begin to entertain what will happen if you don’t.
Part V here
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TW: death and violence, blood, but this angst does have a happy ending !
It finally took enough of his returned food trays back down to the kitchens, for the Head Cook, Lonna, to furiously take it upon herself to stamp back up the stairs, carrying a refreshed tray with her own two hands.
A battle axe on the warpath.
Cooks cap covering her hair. Coils tamped down, sticking out of it stubbornly, behaving like twirls of silver shaved metal. Frown as stormy as any weather native to the Stormlands. Only twice as scouring.
She opened the door to the bedchamber. Crossed the rugs and stones like hells own silent fury.
She dumped the tray down on the table next to his seat, with a fierce thump. Cutlery and crockery, rattling together, as if loose teeth in a drunkards skull.
He jumped out his very fucking skin. Mid snore.
So much so, he bolted from his seat with a cry of“Son of a cunting whore.”
The blanket he had draped on his shoulder fell to his lap. His boots slapping the flagstones. Alarm still bleeding through him. Night had fallen. It had felt like but an hour since the girls left.
Lonna fixed on him a glare that could turn even a stout wilding, into a cowering maiden.
Bony hands braced on her hips. Nobbled knuckles and scarred hands and arms. More scars criss-crossed on her arms than a wonky butchers block. The knowledge that with said hands she could dissect a pig carcass, or joint a hen with minimal fuss rather set him on edge. A woman who knew how bones behaved, and could pluck them apart if needed. Frightening power indeed.
“Ugh. Gods. It’s you.” He bemoans. Realising who’d dared wake him in such a manner. He rubs the sleep out his dry, bleary eyes.
“Who let you out the cooking room.” He sasses.
She ultimately ignores him. Glares venom for his cursing. Same way she did when she was a young lording. Caught with his sticky thieving hands on the honey cakes. Or when she’d threatened to swill his tongue with soap, when she caught a foul word fall from his mouth.
“You’re no good to her, starving away to skin and bone. Stop asking for more fucking wine. Eat something.” She growls.
“You do remember I am the Lord of Storms End, Lonna…” Lyonel sighed. Feeling like a green boy being ticked off by his mother, yet again. He wiped a hand down his brow.
“I can remember thrashing your bony sorry arse with a wooden spoon, when you misbehaved as an errant child. Shall I try that again?” She threatens. Eyes narrowing. Coming closer.
He feels the need to shrivel back under the blanket and protect himself. He’d need a shield for that. Mere fabric is no match for this old sea monster.
“You’d have to catch me first. Dear heart.” He flashes his best tired grin. Picking the blanket up off his feet with a strained groan. Chair cracking and creaking under him.
She barks a sound that could have been a dry old laugh on anyone else. Brittle as metal scraping on itself. She stands with hands on her hips. None of his nonsense tolerated.
“I could make mince meat of you. Boy. Don’t test me.”
Lyonel let’s a small smile take his lips. Always a tonic. His dear old Lonna.
She’s known him man and boy in this house. And possibly even before that. When he was no more than a burgeoning lump under his mothers dress. One of the first to hold him, so she was.
His ornery cook nods to the bed. “How is she?”
“Much unchanged.” He confesses. Hope lived as a burning kernel on his voice.
“Don’t let that doddery witch feed her anymore of his potions and tonics. Shes over the worst. Now she needs to get her strength up. Good strong beef broth. And sugared tea. That’ll see her right. You mark my words.” She points a bony finger at him in warning.
He feels thin. As run through, scraped dry, as he’s sure he looks. Hollow as a dragon bone.
“Consider them marked.”
“What she gets from that muck he pours down her. I don’t rightly know. Weeds most like.”
“Tis a good thing then. That you are not a maester.”
He watches her cross the room. She had a way of walking that could flatten army commanders. Every step struck with purpose. She moved the way a dagger did. No nonsense. All carve. The kind of figure that strolled through rooms filled with knives, scalding iron pots, and open flames without so much a wince.
She stands by your bedside. Lovingly pats the covers by your hand. Her dry, marred back of her fingers seek your brow. Tests the warmth leeching off you. Still not quite right.
“Aye. I’m not a maester. But I’ve seen more spring sickness and poxes fall on this house than you’ve had lovers. I know what a body needs for strength and nourishment. She’s pale still. Poor thing.” Lonna laments.
She swings round and checks. Scrupulous eyes swiping at him. As gouging as red hot pokers. “How fares you?”
“Never better.” He lies. Stacking humour and charm in front of his pain.
The laughing storm has blown through. This weak, drunken and starved shell of just Lyonel, is all that’s left.
“There’s pie there that needs eating. Don’t let it grow cold. Venison. Leeks and greens too. Eat every last bit. You need the iron. I’ll have broth for her made, and sent up soon as.” She orders. Made him feel like a squire again in his own bedchamber.
He doubts he had the energy or appetite to even lift the fork to his face. “I’m not hungry.”
“You need fuel. You fool. Get it down ya.” She urges.
“I’ve no appetite.”
“Grief makes you hollow. You’ll need something filling.”
“Do you pray? Lonna?” He asks. Sudden.
“I do.”
He’s never really been one for the gods. He toasted to them in mockery and spat in their face without fear. His whole life had been an endless insulting jab at their expense. Roaring parties, men and women in his bed for a good time only. Fighting and jousting worthy foes. The only time he ever went near a Sept, was for a wedding, or a burying.
Faith had never been his ally. He tucked his head down and bashed his path out in life with a sturdy set of antlers. Carved it out of blood and bravado.
Nothing he gained was ever due to something whisper thin as prayer. He was lucky. He was an heir, and enjoyed well all the spoiled privileges that gave him. Hope and praying were things he never had need of.
Until now.
“Faith was always something that seemed to happen to other people. Maybe those more blessed and deserving than me.” He reaches for the wine goblet. Makes her jaw crack in grit annoyance.
“I’m not sure I can pray much more than I have. For her to be spared. An irony, it seems, asking gods to be merciful when I believe them to be the opposite.”
Lonna considers him carefully. Firelight twists copper in her eyes. Turns their pallid grey to hammered steel.
“I’ve been praying for her. To the mother. Each night. Every morning.” She tells.
Coming to a stand before him. Clasping her bony hand around his where it lay on his lap. Gripping it so tight his bones and knuckles grated. She wasn’t capable of any sort of gentleness. Held hands as if she were kneading dough. Only knew how to plough through and pack a punch.
“As have I.” Lyonel adds. “I’m not precisely sure they’re listening.”
“Course they are. Lad. And I’ll have none of that. She needs you. As do those little stags of yours.”
“I comfort myself with one thing. Shall I tell you? She led her life being a good mother. A dutiful wife. A great, respected lady of Storms End. I pray the gods spare her. Because they can see how she is still needed. How valued. To rob this house of her would be cruel. Aye. It wouldn’t be good sense. So I have faith they’ll see this right.”
“Now. Eat.” His cook barks.
He wishes he could say her bark was worse than her bite. But both were pretty terrible in actuality.
“I shall. Lonna.”
Her jaw tightens. Now.
“I won’t leave this spot until you do.”
He takes in her expression. Resigned. Stubborn as old iron. “You’re not kidding are you?” He checks. Goblet halfway to his mouth.
“You see a smile on this face that kids?”
“No. But that’s normal.”
Her eyes narrow. No way are his arms and wit strong enough to parry with his cook.
“Who exactly do you think is going to come remove me?” She asks. Crossing her sinewy arms.
Of course no guard would dare raise a hand to her. She oversaw the feeding of every mouth in this place. That was a sacred thing to soldiers. The bread she baked. The stews she slaved over. Men marched on their stomachs, and she knew this to be holier than scripture. That gave power.
“Ser Seldan?” Lyonel threatens. Questioning.
She tilts her head. As if.
She’d thrash that wolf to heel, like we was a fucking pup.
He sighs. Defeat it is.
She would fucking stand here til the plate was empty of every last crumb and smear of gravy.
He stands the wine down with an unhappy thunk.
Taking the knife provided, he cuts the pie. The crust gave with a delicious crackle. A tendril of steam uncurls. Flaky butter pastry falling to the steaming gravy and meat within. The smell of rich dark meat and pastry was singing fucking sonnets to his starved body, he can’t deny it.
He spears a bite. Chews it. Warm food filling his stomach. Another bite. And another. The vegetables too. He didn’t fancy her force feeding them down his gullet.
“You are an inhuman terror.” He proclaims. Mouth half full. Brushing pastry crumbs from his beard.
She rolls her eyes over. “Takes one to know one. Mi’lord.”
She does hover until the plate is empty. When he’s sat back wiping his mouth on the napkin. Throwing it down across the plate with flourish. Only then does she come across to take it.
“Less of the fuss next time. If I have to come up with your porridge and kippers come the morn. I really will thrash your sorry arse.” She threatens.
“I don’t doubt it.” He remarks. Snatches the wine goblet before she runs off with it. He doesn’t fancy chasing her down stairs for it.
“They’ll give her back. Lad. Enough of your moping. She needs to wake up and take you to hand. Mopey sod.”
Then she pats his hand. Hauls the tray up to her hold. And marches out as fast as she came.
He didn’t know where to laugh or cry. But he does sleep easier with something warm and solid weighty in his belly.
The knowledge of even her prayers, hang in the room like a tapestry. Chasing the dark thoughts into the corners.
He wakes to thunder. Their drums pound deep and true. Roll across the roof like an army closing in. A heavy battalion of iron heavy clouds take the sky. Unleashing grighteningly strong rain upon the bricks. Weeping at the stone to be let in. The sea roils and breaks. Hungry and spitting foam from the curling waves, like a salivating maw.
He wakes. Neck stiff. Candles near burnt out. Puddling low to melted gold wax pools. Fire a dim mush of grey ash with very little copper embers dwindling, a faint orange held in his antler fire grate.
The room is chilled. Not only washed with the kind of sleepy blue that came before dawns true pinks and copper light, but also the cold, dozy darkness that only a storm brought along. Thick and suffocating.
He blinks himself awake. Eyes immediately darting to your figure in the bed.
Eyes closed. Sweat still on your brow. Chest bloating and sinking. Deep calm breaths. Smooth as a glass sea.
He urged himself out the chair. Back screaming. Neck stiff. Eyes sore and heavy. Mouth stale. He cares not for his rest.
He comes to the bedside. Blinking sleep away. Crusting at the corners of his vision like a stubborn old ox. He lays his hand on your cooled bare upper arm. Tugs the bedclothes over the round hill of you there.
“You seem a better temperature now. My storm.” He remarks gently. Looking down at you. Voice not awake yet in his throat. It climbs out husky and unused.
He leans down. Cups his hand over your brow. The boiling, nasty heat that belted out your skin, is no more. Calm, easy body heat met his palm. A turning point.
He closes his eyes. Sighs. Tips his chin skyward. “Thank the blessed fucking mother.”
His eyes flick back onto you. “Now what’s say you stop this foolish nonsense at once. And come back to us. Lady Storm... I’m really fucking unhappy with you like this. In case that wasn’t clear enough. You listening?” He chastens.
Once the words come, he can’t seem to stop them. They spill out.
“The children are scared out their wits. I really can’t stand that. Ceres has plucked enough flowers for you to outfit a king’s funeral. Liri seems to think they’re going to be whisked away any minute to be imprisoned in a tower, so I can swoop another bride in to remarry. Balls to that by the way-“
“And our boy. Jory-“ he sighs. “My god. There won’t be a thing left in this castle he won’t break in order to sate his anger.” He thinks aloud.
“I’m really. Not…” he breathes out, but it’s shaky. Rubs a knuckle into his eye til it burns. “Really not alright. Without you. My savage storm.”
He sniffs. Ugly truth comes sliding off his tongue.
“I never should have let you out my sight that day. Rest assured you’re not leaving this keep ever again. You’re going nowhere that isn’t stuck with me. I don’t care how mad that will make you. Tough fucking luck. I will chain you to my side.”
He looks down through blurred eyes. “Just come back. You must. I forbid you to go anywhere that doesn’t involve me. If you go to the gods, I will crack open hell with my bare hands, and fight every last one of the cunts to bring you back. So don’t even fucking dare think about going.” He nods.
Lifting your limp hand up to his lips to kiss it. Placing it back down on the covers. Folding a sweat logged lock of hair out your face.
“Come back.” He whispers. Feeling one tear slide down his cheek. Dropping down his face, to his doublet.
He swallows. Touches the side of your face. Watches the dark dawn capture itself in the gleam of sweat on your cheek.
Footsteps come fast up the stairs from beyond in the hall. In a way that makes his chest pulse. Eyes swinging to the door.
It is hastily pushed open from the other side. Not a polite maid - for there came no knock to warn. This was urgent.
This was a soldiers summons.
The whine of the wood seems a loud screech to the dull morning. Lyonel presses his eyes to the gap. And sees Ser Seldan’s stout, blocky shape take up the other side.
His expression was grim as a crypt. About as lifeless as one too. Eyes sharp as dragon glass. Mouth chiselled in a grim line.
He doesn’t have to say a word. His stance bellows it.
Lyonel stares him down. Well?
“Got them.”
Lyonel’s entire chest calcifies. Ribs moulded together with sticky black tar. Heart hardened to a shard of flint. Rage bubbles in his blood like sea foam. His body dropped into a pit of venom and fury.
He’ll remind them there’s a reason they call him a storm made flesh.
Jaw grit. He stands from his chair. Knocks it clean over. Tunnel vision narrowed to rage. Crosses the room in strides that eat the distance like it was nothing.
He takes his long sword off the wall by the fire.
Sedan holds the door open for him. Eyes hard as severe granite, but understanding.
Lyonel pushes past. Hard enough to break bone. He’d flatten any poor soul who crosses his path in this moment. Seldan can only follow the gathering tempest of his Lord. Pray he can keep up.
“Speak.” Lyonel bites. As they ascend he stairs. Boots slap at every step. Crack in the air like a fierce whip. He bolts through the shadows of his home like a dark spectre. Fueled on little sleep and grief. Haunted, grey and gaunt with it.
Seldan must now bare him the ugly truth.
“Our scouts received word of a wagon train from Massey’s Hook this night just gone, carrying silver, grain, and barrels of salted cod from the coast, they came under attack on the same stretch of road. This time we were able to outman them. We had an ambush party of near fourty laying in wait.”
He somehow senses there’s more. He stops his dark, dangerous march on the stair. Side eyes the Knight. Eyes still bloodshot and red. Made him look the terror he was rumoured to be. But there’s no laughter in sight.
“They happened in darkness on the exact location of that wagon train. That takes planning.” Lyonel snaps.
“They had a spy in your house. A maid. The new one. Mayra. She’d been reading reports and ledgers. Gleaned information from parchments. Servants. Guards and the like.”
“She deceived us to be hired here. Was passing messages via one of their own posing as a merchant. They would pass information via gutter snipes out of the stables or kitchens in the early hours.”
“There is more my Lord.”
“Well? Fucking speak it….”
Seldan sighs. A boulder lodged in his throat.
“She is married to the man who attacked Lady Baratheon. The leader. He’s the one we caught. The one who stabbed her.”
Lyonel’s resulting smile is watery. And utterly terrifying.
“Alive. As I asked?” Lyonel seeks.
Seldan knows that look on his face. He fears for it. But he doesn’t begrudge it. Not even for one second.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good.” He spits.
By the time they come to the courtyard, the rain is still pelting. Soldiers gathered. Braziers smoulder to ash at the sides of the yard. Wind howling round all the figures and soldiers stood waiting. Watering horses. All scored in Baratheon yellow.
The caught bandits are on their knees, in the pouring rain, socketed in the dirt. The maid and her bandit. Both in iron shackles.
Lyonel stalks right up. No time to waste. Takes a look at the pitiful pair. Rain drenched the back of his neck and his hair already. No one speaks. They let their lord survey this scene.
The woman he did recognise. No more familiar than another face who served wine or changed the sheets. Still in a ochre maids dress. Kneeling in the mud. Truly she was a plain thing. Dark hair swept into a maids cap. Cheeks crying with rain. Dripping off her sharp chin.
Something he spies about her, chills the blood.
The knife edge of cruelty in her eyes. The lack of remorse across her face for what she’d done. She looked near glad. She’d bled men from this house. Allowed information about you to be bartered. Maybe she even proposed you with a leer as a soft bellied target. One dripping gold and jewels. Maybe she laughed as she let the note slip through her fingers to the bandits. Thinking with greedy eyes of all the riches they could rob from you.
The bandit beside her is scowling. Sneering up at Lyonel. Seldan remains by his side as he steps from person to person. Rain forming puddles under his fine boots. Hammering down on his head. Curls stuck down. Clothes soaked through. But he moved like it didn’t phase him.
“My lord. Are you sure. I’d be happy to dispense justice on your behalf.”
Lyonel is not below getting his hands bloody for this.
“Yes.” He offers. Eyes solidly on the tattered man on his knees.
He throws the scabbard off his sword. Launches it aside. Steps to the man and lays his sword point to crook of the man’s shoulder. Not enough to cut. But he did flinch.
It looked, ironically, as if he were performing some sort of knighting. One held in rotten regard and spilled blood.
“You’re certain this is the man who attacked my wife?” He asks. Voice cutting plainly through the rain. Dripping through the hair swinging to curl in his eyes.
“Positive.” Seldan confirms. Iron surety in his gaze. A death knell curling off his deep, strict voice. A stony faced, northern angel of death.
He nods slowly. “I. Lyonel Baratheon. Of House Baratheon. Lord of Storms End. Sentence you to die.”
The bandit snarls. A smile missing teeth and others festering black. Simply states “Mercy. My Lord.” Though not much meaning it.
Maybe believed Lyonel didn’t have it in him. This pretty lord in his fine clothes and perfumed oils. He was all gold jewellery pretence. Curls stuck black wet, and hanging heavy in his eyes.
Storm and lightning overhead from over ship breaker bay, gets caught in his dark pupils like a new white vein. Highlights the living rage.
His face fell when Lyonel smiled down at him.
“Mercy?” He laughed.
Seldan held his breath.
This inconsequential man had no idea that death had just smiled at him.
Lyonel, now the laughter was done with, planted his boot on the man’s shoulder with a grunt, kicked him onto his back. He had jo choice but to yield. Thumped back to the mud.
Then he stepped over him, and with both hands, drove his sword straight into the man’s gut.
The maid screamed. The storm lashed. Sky split.
Lightning stung the sky after its thunder bellowed like death drums.
Lyonel felt his sword kiss the cobbles. Rain dashed down. Forming a growing red puddle. He’d driven his sword right through him. Delighted in the wide eyed awe on the scums face. Blood gurgled out his mouth. Rain patted it away kindly to the earth.
“What mercy did you show to her? To my men you slaughtered.” Lyonel asks. He made sure to twist the sword. Just a little. The man reached in shackled, cut his fingers on the blade trying to cup it.
He watches the bandits eyes grow cold. And still. Dead glass. He yanks his sword out the body when he’s sure all life has left. He hopes his rotten soul festers with the stranger. Crimson coats the blade.
He stands and surveys the way rain beads off the corpse. It satisfied his furious soul. But not even Storms End rain could cleanse this man of his sins.
“Chuck his body in the sea. Or let it hang as an example to feed the crows. I don’t care which.” He commands.
“The maid, my lord?” Seldan asks.
Watching her scramble and fight in the dirt. Grit under her nails. Fighting the iron hold of the soldiers who clamped her back. Teeth bared like an animal. Tears shine in her wet eyes. Crying and cursing his name and his very being.
Lyonel surveys her. Coldly. Weighing her terrible, deserved choices in his head. Her fate rested in his palms. He won’t raise his blade to a woman. No matter how much he’d like to visit death on her. To send her to the Stranger.
“Get her out my sight. Lock her in the dungeons. Lose the key. If she doesn’t like it, she can join him.”
Fester her with the rats and skulls in the dungeons. Let her live with the terrible stain of treachery. Let everyone know what happens to those who betray this house. Allow the word to spread.
Willard chases the turn of his Lords retreating back. “My Lord…”
He stops. Turns his head. Willard approached him. A cloth held in his soaking hands. One he spreads open. Items within shine bright in the dim.
Lyonel spies that his hands are caked in filth. Dirt under the nails. As if he’d been scrambling around up to his knuckles in the earth.
“I searched the roadside for many hours. But, lo and behold, I finally found it. It got lost in the fray you see. It was dropped. They didn’t have a chance to sell it. I know not what happened to the other jewels, I’m afraid. I thought this one mattered more-“
Lyonel steps closer. Spying the familiar simple plain gold band of a wedding ring laying pure and simple in the cloth in his stewards palm.
He stands there. Blooded sword dripping crimson to the cobbles. Plucks the dirty band of gold from the man’s palm.
“I thank you. Willard. Truly.” He supplies gently. Touched. Ring curled in his fist.
This man had crawled around on hand and knees for hours in the dirt, because he knew what the loss of this meant to the both of you. He’d seen how fiercely you’d fought to protect that token of your marriage, and all it signified.
That was the purest kernel of loyalty he’d ever seen.
Willard nods. Prideful. Rain pasting his hair to his forehead. Other arm clutched like a broken wing to his chest with a sling.
Lyonel walks inside out of the storm. Body cooling on the cobbles behind him. And he doesn’t look back as the maid bellows and curses his name, crying damn near louder than the storm.
He goes straight back to you. Still dripping with rain from the storm. Still with fury warring in his heavy lbones.
He doesn’t even change. Not even taking the time to dry off. To wipe the blood away. He comes to you in his rawest form.
Rests his bloodied sword at the edge of the now lit hearth. Stood dripping crimson down onto the stones.
The candles have been attended. Refreshed to talk tapers of wax again. They glow with lit flame. Breakfast steaming on the side table. Linens over your body refreshed. The silent, kind attendance of a maid.
Dawns light begins to purple the ceiling. Rising up the colour of rose petals, pink and peach, to chase away the drowsy blue. Another day coming.
He doesn’t think he can stand anymore of this.
He rounds the bedside. Clumsily gets on his knees. Bones aching already on the hard stones. Takes your hand, limp still. But warmer and softer to the touch.
He cleans the ring on his shirt sleeve. Before he slips the cold band back onto its rightful place on your finger. Locks his cold, wet fingers through your own. He’s shaking.
Then he falls to the bed. Wet curls resting by your hip as he sets his brow to the covers. He finds tears come. Unbidden. Rushing out of him. Chest bobbing with emotion as it floods from his tired, angered bones. Sobs the pitiful anger out.
He doesn’t care that he feels weak. For the first time in his life he lets himself be just that. Like he’s been drawn through, and scraped raw by this whole thing. He’s not certain he can survive another day without seeing that brilliant flash of your smile. The lulling cadence of your voice when you speak.
He’s happy to stay here and rot by your side because that’s all he knows how to do. That’s all he cares to want.
He’d watch over your bedside for the rest of his natural life if he must. If it meant you’d wake, he’d entomb himself in this room without laughter or fun for the rest of his days.
He’d give anything to have you back. He’d do anything. He’d slaughter ten more men if that’s what it took.
Dawn raises itself even higher in the sky. Brushing away the night. He sobs himself dry. Must have fallen into a shallow bout of sleep again. Time stolen away for a brief black few hours.
He only wakes when he hears the rustle of bed linens. A soft hand tentatively brushes over the top of his head. Weaving sleepy fingertips through the damp silver curls.
“Lyonel.” You croak. Voice weak. Raw with too many days of heavy drugged poppy sleep, and an unmoistened throat.
His head shoots up so fast, it’s dizzying to watch. Mouth agape he looks up the bed.
Your eyes, open and clear, though hooded, are looking down at him from the pillows. He’d never reckoned he’d see their colour again.
For a thundering few heartbeats, he just stares at you. Unfathoming this as real.
Was dreaming still? If so this was the cruelest one yet.
You see his eyes are red-rimmed, salt stung, and bloodshot, shadows bruised and bullied themselves into the puffy bags beneath them. His beard is thicker silver, and untrimmed to an unusual shape. A lack of care or graces to maintain it. His hair stands in wild coils, half flattened wet. Styled if he’s run his hands through it a hundred times, which he has in despair.
Tears shiver at his red lash line. Mouth falling on a cry. You’d never seen Lyonel look as defeated as this. The conquered, bold stag of your husband. Baratheon strong and unflinching.
This is his grieving echo. But it’s him.
“Fuck.” Trips out his wild mouth in a sob before he can stop it. “My storm.”
He raises on his bruised knees, and swallows you right up in his arms. Mouth in your neck. Crushed tight in a hug like a wrapping python. Arm slithered under your neck. Hauling you to him.
You sigh. A weak happy sound filtering from your lips. Painful where he’s clipping your wound where he scooped you up. You splay your uninjured arm across his damp back. Black wet leather soaking your skin.
“Thank fucking gods.” He cries watery. Still stuck in your neck. Stroking your hair out of his dry mouth.
He doesn’t give one shred of care to the fact that you’re filthy. Soaked through with sweat to your shift. Hair unwashed and by now probably clinging with sleep and grease. Breath fouler than a dragons. Haven’t been bathed properly since your return. Dragged through rain, mud and blood. He embraces you like you’ll fall off this earth if he doesn’t. Like you’ll slip back away to that dark void where the gods can take you.
He draws back and cups your face. Dry, callused hands on each of your cheeks. Your tears soaking into palms. “You ever, ever, scare me like that again, I will lock you in this bedchamber for the rest of your days. I bloody mean it.”
You throat crackles on a swallow. “I’m so sorry. Lyonel. I’m so sorry.” Your breath hitches. His name a reverent hymn on your lips. Water logged.
“You must be so angry with me. I tried to diffuse them. I tried to bargain and let us travel in safety and it all went so wrong. So quick. I couldn’t stop it.” You babble. Tongue running dry. Eyes running wet.
He shakes his head. “No. No. None of it. I’ll hear none of it.” He presses his mouth to your slick skin. Sweat kissing his lips. Taste of salt and you on his tongue. He sags to you with pure, naked relief. You smell of old dull copper and whatever green, sharp herbs Slait basted you in.
“You did every right thing.” He assures. Hand sweeping to hold one side of your neck. “From what Seldan told me. My blame is with them. They hurt you for the gold you wore. Nothing more.”
Your shoulder throbs. A deep and persistent pain. A pull under the bandages that’s all tight new skin held with tugging stitches. A heat shifts under the bandages. A small hitch of pain hisses on your intake of breath.
“Are you in pain? You shoulder?” He asks. “Let me send for someone.” He places himself on the bed by your hip. Hand pulled into his on his lap.
“It’s fine. Reminds me I’m awake. Can grow used to feeling my own limbs again.” You flex your fingers.
Milk of the poppy robbed you of all full sensation. Left you with fevered mad imaginings draped over the walls. Seeing things and people that were never there. It slaked you in its fine, swirling distortion for the first few days. That and the fever dreams. Icy and burning all at once. Skin pebbled with goose flesh from being chilled, yet you’d never been so hot.
“My love. You look terrible.” You remark, rasping. He huffs a bittersweet laugh as he tugs your hand to his bristled beard lips.
“You’re no bush full of butterflies yourself, Lady Storm.” He answers back in kind.
A weak laugh breezes through your ribs. He spies heaven in the weak stretch of your grin. There were dark hours preying on his mind when he feared he’d never see it again.
You share a look that’s so poignant, when you spy the wedding band slid back on your ring finger.
“I thought it was lost- they took it.”
He cups over your hand. Fingertip rubbing the gold. The one that matched his own. “This was one thing they could not take from you.”
“How-“ you croak.
“Willard. He went back and searched for it. Bless his sentimental heart. That’s what becomes of a man expecting his first babe. Terribly emotional that one.”
“I must thank him.” You decide. Looking down in painful memory at your hand. Lost under his. Tucked safe again.
“That’s sweet. You think I’m letting you out this room anytime in the next month. Adorable.” He beams.
He helps you manoeuvre yourself enough to shuffle and sit up. Stuffing pillows behind you. Letting you sip from a wooden cup of water. And another and another. So thirsty for it some drips down your chin that he mops away with his fingers.
“The children-“ You seek gently.
“They’re about as alright as I am.” He decides.
You look suddenly tired with the weight of that. Shifting in the bed and pulling the covers to your hips. “Let me bathe and rest awhile before you send for them. I don’t doubt I’ll be half mauled when they know I’m awake.” You grin.
“Rowdy things. Those staglings of ours.”
“Wonder where on earth they get that from.” You remark. Cheekily.
“Now, now.” He chides happily.
“I shall feel more like a human and not a festering wound after a bath and some food.”
He listens to you speak. Watching your eyes close tiredly. Slumping yourself back to the bed. “Anything you wish my love. I shall fetch your food myself.”
He spies the growing bruises that spider web outwards from the wound tucked under your bandages. He shifts the hair off the crook of your neck to better see. An ugly mottling of bottle blue, bruises marring.
Your eyes fall across the room. Landing on the bloodied sword that drips rusty crimson to the flagstones by the hearth.
Your head tilts. Suddenly the world seems very sober.
Your sparkling eyes flick over to him. Stony and taking on the grave seriousness of the situation. His face betrays nothing but stoic gentility.
Ours is the fury.
“Let me get my strength. Then tell me all. Leave nothing back.” You command. Knowing you won’t much like the answer of why his sword is bloodied.
He settles in close. Presses his lips to your brow. Kisses you slow and gentle. “Your wish is my command. Lady storm.”
Your arm comes around him. You breath him in deep. Old leather. Faint old orange soap. Sleep and sweat. Just as ragged as he looks.
He holds you. Close and steady. Hand on the back of your hair. Nose buried in your neck. For the first time in four days, he can breathe deeply again.
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Lyonel not being able to get you (his wife) pregnant, so he gets Dunk to breed you.
“You gonna breed my wife, Ser Duncan? Finish so deep and full inside her. Storm Lords giant bastard children. Fuck! You like when Dunk breeds you, my sweet wife?”
Wife!reader just taking it from behind. Dunk doesn’t stop until Lyonel says.
Dunks full of sweet praise and thanks the whole time
Listen, as a proud member of The House of Halsin Honkers, I appreciate his glorious pecks. But if I had to choose, I'm a Halsin sculpted back girlie... and so is Ceridwen
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Imagine being a vampire living in one of the castles Claudia and Louis searched. You’re in the middle of your decades long nap, and suddenly there’s some random teenage girl throwing the lid of your coffin open and firing question after question in your language (albeit broken and heavily accented) while a man that’s visibly teetering on the edge of his sanity awkwardly stands behind her.
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you know that trope where it’s princess + knight, but they’ve both been captured by the bad guys and the princess is now gripped by the jaw by the villain, receiving a thin cut to her cheek while remaining completely still with a defiant look in her eyes even as a droplet of blood begins to trickle out of the wound, all while 3 people AT THE VERY LEAST need to have their hands locked on the knight because he’s thrashing around like a wild animal, trying so so so desperately, violently, to get to her?
dunk doesn’t realize how kind he’s raising his child to be until he comes back to you horrifically wounded. he’s leaning on a stick because he nearly lost his leg, his face is entirely numb, and his head hurts to the point he can’t move for too long, or he’ll collapse from dizziness. egg had to keep him upright on thunder; otherwise, he might not have returned as quick.
the hedge knight had faced death once more, yet he is too helplessly bound to you to die.
to die is to give you up, and he’d rather suffer for the rest of his life than welcome the next stage without you at his side.
to die is to leave you with your little boy, and the gods know this child needs his father. you need your knight, and westeros needs ser duncan the tall.
he’s willed his way onto the chair near the fire, his gaze vacant as the flames licked away at the wood. you had roasted an entire chicken for him, but his hunger hadn’t returned. so, you left him where he was, hoping he'd find a bit of peace in the comfort of your quiet cottage. you took your child out to soak in the sun and watch over egg as he fed the horses.
it had been some time since you left. dunk could hear the babbling of his son, and your soft coos in return. the pounding ache in his head softened, even when he heard egg’s voice carry over to tell you he was to go fishing.
after some time, the door opened with a creak. dunk didn’t move, assuming you were coming inside with the children in tow.
“papa?” the small voice was a squeak, a sound of worry that he was too tired to acknowledge just yet. “…papa?”
in the boy’s hesitancy, dunk slowly turned his head. he watched with hazed vision as the little one came over, hands holding onto a few flowers he’d picked. you were nowhere near.
“papa,” he said again, “flowers?”
despite the pain, a tired smile formed at dunk’s lips. his voice was rough, the vibrations tearing at his throat, “flowers?”
“for you.” his boy was gentle, “flowers.”
"...thank you," dunk murmured, watching as the boy lay the flowers onto his thigh. “that's...kind of you, rafe."
"mama says its good,” he chirped.
“good,” dunk echoed. “aye, she’s right.”
“you like them?”
dunk chuckled, and suddenly, the pain felt a little lighter. “yes, i do.”
the boy sat himself down at dunk’s feet, beaming with a smile that made him look exactly like his father. he never knew the hedge knight enjoyed the simplicity of flowers. he hoped to remember it later, but for now, he was quiet. he was content with being close—he'd always been that way, needing to be near you and dunk through every sunrise and nightfall.
that feeling intensified now more than ever at the sight of his father. rafe understood that dunk was badly hurt, understood that he couldn't do much without help. you tended to him, and rafe wanted to follow in your footsteps.
perhaps on the morrow, he’d offer his father the grass itself.
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