manmademartyr

Perhaps he does not care for the food, he did take a full moment to complain about it before you mentioned the letter, after all.

"Does he jest...often in the letters he writes to you? Particularly of the lord who has raised him in the light of the Seven and with great effort?"

"Not as often as he once did when he was a mere boy, but he still mentions you fondly. Occasionally."

Ormund flexes his hand against the table, then his other against his thigh before straightening his spine against the chair, although it was already quite rigid. He bears good posture.

"...What else did he say, Princess? Does he say?"

You think. Ormund watches you, head tilting and lifted.

There ought not to be enough material concerning Lord Ormund Hightower stored inside that pretty little head to require consideration, sweetling.

"Well, let me see. I must admit, for me, your reputation preceded you in the letters from my little brother. There is a lot to sift through. Um..."

...Why do your eyes wander up while you search your memory? Why can he practically see you counting all the times Daeron has mentioned him to you, without praise and with insolence??

"Think hard. Take your time."

Perhaps Daeron has told you of the time his sire ordered his entire chamber stripped because he knew damn well that a mouse had died somewhere. Perhaps he told you about those oranges he has sent back because he was already softening when they were delivered.

Daeron had been three and ten, then. The little shit had sat silently at the table while Ormund informed the steward of what is common sense he should expect of an Oldtown steward---that softness always precedes rot.

Thinking of the moment now, there had been something suspicious about the boy's expression.

Had the two of you laughed at his meager desire for fresh fucking fruit?

"I do not remember anything cruel. Daeron is a kind boy---"

"Yes, I would know. But I am not asking for accounts of cruelty, Princess. I merely want to see how the young prince I have raised perceives me...and how he leads others to."

Sweetling Targaryen whore, Ormund is sure you would not know cruelty unless it threw you over its lap and began striking you across your thick ass.

From the sound of it, you might need just that.

"Oh. Well, yes." You nod and try to match his posture. Lord Ormund seems to be growing cross. It must be impatience with your poor memory. How ashamed you grow. "He said you mislike unpleasant smells."

Lord Ormund stares, lips curling before pursing slightly, eyes looking away and down at the wood of the table. That must not be enough.

"He told me you mislike them immensely---"

"I am aware of the degree to which I dislike them. It is a simple sensitivity to horrendous odors. Forgive me, Princess. I am considering why my ward considers this information worthy of dissemination throughout the royal family."

You only grow more confused.

Yes, why should you understand his...distress at this revelation that Daeron mocks him in letters? You, unfortunately, never got to be his near-daughter and watch your lord raise Daeron into something disciplined and worthy of pride, correcting his endless deficiencies from his Targaryen half until something divine emerged under his hand.

All the effort...the love he's put into raising the boy, and the boy has repaid nearly two decades of devotion with what? By...by---

"This is all very...amusing."

"Oh, it was. He drew a nose wearing a crown. To put emphasis on what he meant, I think."

Lord Ormund's eyes snap up.

By drawing crowned noses for his distant, harlot sister??

"He drew what?"

He must not have heard you. You smile at the memory. "A nose. With a little crown. Quite childish, but he has quite a talent for drawing."

Lord Ormund simply looks at you, the muscles of his jaws tensing. You suppose he is trying to imagine the drawing and finding Daeron's juvenille artistry as ridiculous as you do. You will search for the letter later to aide him.

That little nose, such detail!

"My lord, you must understand, I only laugh at the drawing," Your admission is followed by a grin you cannot help. "Daeron tried very hard to make it properly---"

You are interrupted by Lord Ormund rising from his chair. Quite harshly, you think.

Harsh enough that his chair flies behind him, striking and rattling against the floor before he slams his palms into the table.

"Lord Ormund---"

It is enough that you jump back for your own to scrape under you as it bumps your legs, and for these moments, you do not understand what has happened at all.

Men have been angry in your presence, of course. Aegon is your eldest brother. Aemond is your second eldest.

"Seven fucking helllllssssss!"

But men have never shouted at you. You are a princess! None have ever struck things with rage in your presence, at the very least!

And you cannot understand what has---what is happening, because you and Lord Ormund...

You thought you were having fun with him. As his friend. You do not understand.

"A fucking nose?!" He is no longer looking at you, but for your heart that finds your throat, perhaps that is a good thing. "A crowned. Fucking. Nose? That fucking boy! After all I have done for him---"

His voice comes crashing in volume and harshened on every other syllable.

He sweeps the plate of supper from the table and, with it, his wine. It spills all over the stone floor as the ceramic plate breaks in one blow.

"That ungrateful little shit!"

You go quiet soon after a gasp as Lord Ormund continues to rage, your hand closing around the edge of your chair and other to your throat. The door is behind him. You do not think he'll take kindly to you running. You would scream if you could be sure a guard would reach you before he could do anything.

You would run, yes? You scream, yes? If you could. You're sure of it. You just...cannot decide whether calling a guard would be unnecessary. He has not hurt you. Not yet.

He has only taken to kicking his leg through a wooden dresser.

"He will sorely be punished!"

A nose.

Daeron had sat in his household, eaten at his table, gifted great masters, toys, swords, received everything Ormund thought necessary to make a scholarly, heavenly prince out of him---and gone laughing to his sister. His sweet sister.

His beautiful harlot sister.

It must be you that infests the boy's mind, or else he has failed to snuff out his Targaryen blood!

"I can overlook observations, children are stupid and enjoy letting others know. That! Is understood. But a prince, my ward, ought eventually to acquire enough fucking judgment to know what is jesting and what is insolence! What is---what is making a mockery of your elder!"

"Lord Ormund---"

"You have indulged Daeron, I'm sure---"

"No!"

Ormund runs his palms over his coat before he flicks his hands, as if he's ridding himself of the disgust for the situation at hand. "To take a private peculiarity of his guardian and turn it into court entertainment is precisely the sort of careless familiarity that breeds disrespect. Something to give his sister a laugh!"

"I have never indulged him because he is nothing to indulge---my-my lord! And it is not court entertainment if you think otherwise. He only sent it to me---"

"Yes! Exactly!"

You flinch and grasp your chair as his voice echoes. Ormund halts his pace toward you.

He knows the look on your face. Servants have worn it. Stewards as well, along with knights and messengers who carry him displeasing news.

Daeron, when younger, before he learned that his sire's occasional bouts of anger are justified and only in need of handling. Yes, this is nothing so novel in his temper. It is swift and often productive for his mental bearings.

...But his sweetling harlot of the Red Keep has never lived with it, let alone even witnessed it.

"Princess," Ormund pulls on the end of his coat, his head lowering, his eyes small, his lips pursing once more. "I think I need to explain what has taken place here. Let me find myself. My bearings."

The cold his heart is beginning to bear isn't guilt, as that would mean his outrage itself was wrong. No, never. But he, Princess, has shown you his routine ugliness before he legally possesses the right to demand that you endure it.

That he can admit. He has never been blinded by ego.

Ormund is sure it would be easier to teach you if you were his ward or wife, bound to remain when the room becomes conventionally 'unbearable', but you are not, because, as he's said many times before, the Gods send their challenges to the strongest among the realm.

Too soon. This could surely turn you away from him, and he cannot have that.

Not when you have burdened him with your savor and beauty and potential for discipline. What fault he may have here, you would be a demonic temptress to leave him in the cold at this one harsh, premature moment.

Lord Ormund closes his eyes, and for a moment, there is only his and your breathing. You try to make yours quieter. Surely he will become angrier at being feared. In all, the spilled wine reeks, and so does the meat all over the stone beneath your feet.

You watch, with the bob of his throat, Lord Ormund reaching for his pomander. You do not blame him as he brings it toward his nose---

And your heart stops when he stops to look at you.

"What?"

You're only thinking that the silver thing belongs to Lord Ormund, your friend. He may become that man again if he keeps smelling it, as he does. It always seems to calm him.

You don't know why your eyes on it seem to put tension in his muscles again.

"Nothing, my lord."

Ormund lowers his pomander. "Why are you looking at me?"

...Even in a world where Daeron has not made the mistake of mocking the lord who has cared for him greatly, you have watched Ormund use the pomander yourself. You have witnessed his...one peculiarity.

Somewhere inside that guileless head of yours, there is an assessment of him. Perhaps you think him ridiculous or have snickered beside your ladies. All in feminine gossip about Lord Ormund's delicate nose.

"Princess, what has our Daeron precisely said about me misliking odors, save for a drawing of my lordly nose?"

He has never wanted you to be his ward so badly. You need a great spanking.

"Precisely? I can-cannot remember every word."

"You will have the lord of Oldtown in your debt if you try."

Even if his presumptions are not true, the fact that the possibility exists is enough justification for punishment! Enough for his anger to change direction, at the very fucking least!

"Well...all he has said about your mislike specifically is that you notice smells very quickly, and that you also mislike spoiled food."

This stern gentleness in Lord Ormund's voice frightens you even more so. Shouting and thrashing had at least told you what his anger looked like. You do not know what answer he wants. You know only that he wants one.

Perhaps giving it correctly will return your lord to who he was before.

"He said you prefer sweet-smelling scents when there is sickness in Oldtown, and I vaguely...I vaguely remember that you ridded your household of a servant cause he smelt of onion."

He watches your face for the sneer, for the suppressed amusement of a child, and it is your luck with the Seven that he finds none. Why do they reward you for your insolence? The answer must be in the way he'll one day be allowed to feel your belly swallow his cock whole.

Look, the filth you arise in him.

"It was as if he had eaten an astonishing quantity. Did Daeron write his account as simply that, an account? Or was there a need to humiliate his uncle throughout all his correspondence with you?"

"No, my lord!---"

"And what do you think?"

...Is this still an inquiry into Daeron's supposed misconduct?

"Of...of your habits, Lord Ormund?"

"Yes."

Oh, how Ormund despises how carefully he watches you, the anger and violence within it has left his posture taut, but he feels something near boyishness in its aftermath. He needs the answer.

Gods damn you.

"I did not think anything bad, I do not know what you want me to say."

Neither does he, really. He knows only what he does not want, but he doesn't think even you are simple enough to blurt out that you find him fussy or effeminate, and if you did, he'd rather tear the room apart once more than hear those words leave your trollop lips.

...But it is his right to know if they do, and in turn, to know that you are lying to his face.

"Do you find it...excessive?"

Your eyes widen slightly. You're not sure any answer you could give Lord Ormund would make him happy again. He turns away from you, gripping the edge of the ruined dresser, his head lifting.

"Do not be frightened, Princess. I only ask a question. Do not think me so callous to ever even think of harming a daughter of the crown. I had a momentary outburst...is all."

You take a cautious step toward him. How he can sound cross with you even now, you do know. It is why you are not even sure why you come closer to him at all.

Perhaps because he has turned his back and seems less dangerous that way, or maybe because standing across the ruined room from him makes the two of you feel like enemies, and you cannot bear not knowing when that happened.

He hears you make way to him, your slow feet against the stone. Your scent closing in.

The audacity you do not know you bear is fucking unbearable. How he has lasted this long without taking you to bed is only because of the strength the Seven have given him.

"When we were children, Daeron once wrote three whole pages detailing his anger with me because I had called Tessarion ugly. I only did so because he did not answer my last few letters, and I became cross with him...he would not make jokes about you, if you think they are jokes, if he feared you would cease loving him for them."

...This is manipulation for the sake of your brother. You are trying to say the boy from punishment.

Or do you genuinely interpret the boy's jokes not as disrespect, but as the security a child would have jesting about their good father?

Simple, simple girl trying her best, either way.

And in an attempt not to give the room another lashing and lose his head from your fear making itself known to a knight somewhere, he'll find that sweet and impressive rather than a whore thinking she can soothe him.

"You presume a great deal concerning my relationship with your brother---"

"You have hurt yourself, may I, my lord?"

Ormund looks to where his knuckles have reddened and scabbed.

The insanity of you, is this another attempt to demean him? Or to convince him that you will forget of this moment before you go running to your handmaidens? No, even if this only concerns principle, he cannot have a Princess doting on him so.

...Not with her soft, pretty hands, desperate to tend to him. Are you desperate to tend to him? That shall give Ormund a laugh.

And warmth in his heavy cock.

You will be punished for the filth you make a man bear out of wedlock one day, Princess, if the Gods are just.

"It is nothing, Princess. I do not require consilation, but I thank you---"

He turns to find that at his answer, you have taken to gathering broken pieces of ceramic. The hilarity he finds himself in.

"What are you doing? Put it down."

You obey. Good. At least there is still some order left in the realm.

"You are a princess. There are servants for this. There are...who knows you are here?"

He can tell by your trembling that you are still frightened, and servants or otherwho will return soon enough and find the wine soaking a ruined room.

They will find a scared little Targaryen princess in the middle of it, as if her blood isn't rife with cunning. But you are the expection to your savage race, are you not? Yes, it his mistake to assume you could handle his anger so immediately.

"My handmaid. And my mother. She might not be aware that I am in your guest chamber, but I did tell her that I meant to ask you about Daeron."

Of course you did. Your mama's sweet, simple grace.

Ormund's thumb pokes once into the tender ridge of his knuckle.

"And what do you intend to tell her when she asks how our conversation went?"

You glance at the broken dish. It would be easy if the answer might be lying among it. But your mother tells you often, the truth is just, and it is the best answer.

"That you became angry?"

"No, no." Lord Ormund smiles, and that is a return of joy that you enjoy yourself. His tongue makes a slight, wet smacking noise. His voice is now gentle, as it usually is. You are much relieved.

You are just not sure why he would ask you if he had an answer.

"You will tell her that we spoke privately of your brother and came to an understanding."

"...Did we?"

There is no suspicion in the question, which Ormund finds amusing, even after he's become well aware of how simple you are. It is merely hope in your voice.

Ah, sweetling whore. It is as if he was meant to guide you.

"I should like to think so."

Ormund turns your hand within his and encloses it, his palm warm over your fingers. A friendly squeeze.

Relief finds your whole face. It is almost shameful how little tenderness he must offer to produce it. But mostly concerning. Who else do you allow to steer you in such a way?

"I did not mean to embarrass you."

You squeeze his hand. Ormund allows it without much irritation, a friendly squeeze it also is. It is not like he can lift your skirts and take you by the tempting cunt if it was anything else.

"I know, nor would you wish a harmless childhood jest to become a source of discord between Daeron and me. If your mother hears I lost my temper, she will question you. If Daeron hears, he will know you repeated what he wrote in confidence. He may believe you wished to make him appear disloyal.”

Your brow creases, and your lips part in confusion. "I would never.”

"Naturally. But once a private matter is carried beyond a room, we cannot govern what other people make of it. This, my dear princess, began with a confidence between brother and sister. You are sound enough to let it end as such."

You look down at your joined hands.

"Are you still cross with me?"

Oh, how that question nearly undoes all his careful work. Ormund lifts his chin, smile growing wider.

"I was never cross with you."

You glance at the table his hand struck. He tightens his fingers around yours before the evidence can instruct you differently. Do not act as you if you have any intelligence in your head now.

"My anger concerned Daeron's judgment. You merely happened to be the one who brought it to my attention. I would not have your mother distressed by some embellished account suggesting otherwise, nor your brothers imagining they must defend you from an injury you did not suffer."

...You had not considered Daeron receiving some accusing account of what happened here and discovering the old drawing he entrusted to you has caused trouble with Ormund. All because you repeated a harmless jest.

"I will tell no one, Lord Ormund. I promise."

Not even Lord Larys, though you are sure he would understand the situation much better than Aemond or mother would.

"Good." His thumb passes once over your knuckles. "Then we understand one another, don't we?"

You smile. Everything is mended. Although it doesn't feel as if all his anger was solely for Daeron, Ormund has told you the anger was never meant for you. It seems unkind to disbelieve him after he has allowed you to understand.

It does not occur to you that Ormund has apologized for nothing.

"You will not punish Daeron for a jest he made when he was a child, will you?"

"...He will be made aware that I know of his humorous nature with his sister. I have yet to see it so...vibrant with me."