a princess wed to a dashing knight should be living a fairytale—but gwayne hightower is also the son of the schemer who would soon plunge the realm into civil war. how long can you resist his charms... when he proves time and again that his affection is as genuine as his honor?
genre/warnings:
arranged marriage, unrequited love, hurt/comfort, yearning, jealousy, mentions of injury & blood, fluff and lots of kissing afterwards, sunshine!gwayne and grumpy!reader, political drama, targaryen!reader (reader is rhaenyra's younger sister), spoilers! takes place in season 1 of house of the dragon
notes:
gif by @/bladeofdreadfort. wc. 4.5k ! hotd s3 is finally here and so does my man gwayne <3 i really loved writing this so i hope you’ll enjoy it!
For the longest time, Gwayne had known that the matter of his marriage were not his to ponder. As the son of the Hand of the King, his future was a tapestry woven by him in a series of cunning, calculated moves.
Yet, he had never truly expected to be betrothed to you—a princess of the realm.
The young princess for the queen’s brother. By every measure, it was a masterful stroke of politics and his father had once again outdone himself. After binding his sister to the king, it was now his turn to seek the heart of the realm’s most coveted maiden after the Princess Rhaenyra.
However, to Gwayne, you were more than just a political alliance. You were a paragon of beauty, the girl haunting his dreams, the princess who has stolen his heart—
But seven hells, were you also one hard lady to entice.
Every charming smile he threw your way was met with an arched, unimpressed brow. Every poetic compliment he rehearsed tasted like ash and shattered against your coldness. You didn’t swoon like the ladies at the tourney grounds, nor did you soften at his obvious attempts to woo you.
Instead, you looked at him as if you could see right through the nervous man underneath.
Your assessing gaze was currently fixed on him from the shade of the courtyard gallery. Down in the dirt, Gwayne was sweating through his padded doublet, trying his absolute best to look formidable as his sword clashed against his squire’s shield—because he knew you were watching.
He has to look good. Your wedding was in three weeks, so he was fighting to impress—determined to give you a show of how your betrothed was as dashing as the realm claimed him to be.
With theatrical flair, he executed an aggressive sequence before driving his squire back with a heavy strike, deftly sweeping the poor lad’s legs out from under him, and sending him sprawling into the dirt with a breathless thud.
Breathing heavily, Gwayne smoothly rested the point of his sword near the fallen boy’s chest in a classic pose of victory.
“You are just dead,” he declared with his signature grin, before turning to where you were.
You leaned against the stone balustrade, looking down at him with an expression of mild, patronizing amusement. He flashed you a hopeful, boyish grin that begged for even a shred of your approval.
And as if deciding to grace him with your presence, you descended down the stone stairs. Gwayne’s smile widened, and he met you halfway as you reached the bottom.
Ignoring the staring stableboys, he dipped his head and took your hand, placing a kiss on it.
“Princess,” he greeted, his dark blue eyes meeting yours with an excited crinkle.
“An impressive display, Ser Gwayne,” you replied, smoothly pulling your hand back from his grasp. He was giddy, about to thank you for the compliment, when—
“I must commend your passion. It takes a truly remarkable knight to exert such effort against a boy half his size who is actively paid to lose to him.”
Gwayne winced slightly, but the grin quickly returned to his face, refusing to let your sharp tongue deter him.
“A knight, no matter the age, must practice for all manner of foes. It shall be a good lesson for my squire to learn,” he countered softly. He had always been a naturally courteous man, but he had been practicing an extra measure of gentleness ever since the betrothal was announced, even when you remained frosty.
He hoped that you would recognize it—that you would see he was willing to bend his pride just for you.
However, you merely lifted your chin higher, your eyes flashing with a challenge.
“Is that so? My, what a chivalrous soul you are. I suppose I shall sleep soundly knowing you are defending the realm with your immense prowess and formidable army of squires.”
One thing he could never truly understand, though... he hadn’t asked for this match any more than you had, yet why did you look at him as you would a liar?
And it hurts because... he remembers how the more innocent, younger you, who had wiped blood from his face, hadn’t looked at him as you do now.
“We are to be married in no less than a moon,” he reminded you, still with a smile. “Tell me, Princess... what must a man do to earn a genuine compliment from his bride?”
You held his gaze for a beat, letting the silence stretch just long enough to watch the slight twitch in his jaw. Then, a devastatingly sweet smile graced your lips as you tilted your head.
“Compliments are but wind, my good ser. If we are to marry soon anyways, what use would flattering you with empty words do?”
Gwayne let out a defeated chuckle. “I shall just continue striving to become a man worthy of your hand, then.”
You had just insulted him and mocked his swordsmanship in the same breath, and yet, somehow, he still found himself tethered to you still.
What a fool he was.
He didn’t give up just like that, of course. Gifts was also Gwayne’s language of affection.
He had commissioned a seven-pointed star necklace for you in Oldtown, crafted from the finest silver and diamond. He had watched his late mother and sister find such profound comfort in it, and so he had believed it would make a fine gift for you.
Yet, now that he presented the gleaming jewelry to you, you were rendered silent.
“You do not like it,” he realized, a note of disappointment building through his usual confidence.
“It is exquisite. Truly,” you started, your voice gentle but lacking the reverence he had anticipated. “But... you must not expect me to wear it often.”
“Is it the design? If it offends your sensibilities, I can have it redone, or—”
“I assure you, I know your intentions are kind,” you looked at him, a certain sternness in your eyes. “It is just a matter of preference, is all. I treasure this necklace from my mother rather greatly, and wearing it is how I keep her close to me.”
The tragic death of Queen Aemma was not so easily forgotten, least of all when you resembled her so much. Gwayne’s smile faltered, the enthusiasm in his eyes dimming when his gaze found the sapphire necklace of Arryn falcon on your neck, a heirloom passed down.
He looked down at the silver star resting in the wooden box, suddenly finding it so plain, before forcing himself to meet your gaze again.
“I just want you to know that... you are in my thoughts, constantly,” he murmured, his gaze rising to meet yours again. “Whenever I see something I consider beautiful, I think of you. I want you to have it. You should know I have no underlying intentions other than that.”
You gave him an appreciative nod, pursing your lips together. “Your kind thoughts are much appreciated.”
So he had failed, again. Sigh.
What better way to impress your betrothed and prove to the entire realm that you were worthy of her hand than by claiming victory at the King’s nameday tourney?
Even you would at least bestow a real smile upon him. That was what Gwayne was after.
Or at least, it was until his gaze drifted to the edge of the battlement grounds where the knights were assembling. There, he saw you.
With Criston Cole.
The sight struck him. You, who usually looked at him with indifference, were attentive, your eyes bright in a way Gwayne had never managed to make them. Cole, in turn, had a reserved smile, his attention entirely locked onto you.
It could have been anyone but Criston—the Dornishman!—Cole. Why him?!
A sharp spike of resentment flared in his chest. He decided right then and there that this cannot stand, and marched towards you both.
“Good day, Ser Criston,” Gwayne greeted with a forced smile, his voice dripping with a courtly cheer that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Cole returned his greeting, and he turned to you then. “My betrothed, fancy to have found you here. You shouldn’t have to sully yourself with the dirt.”
“I was merely wishing Ser Criston luck in the lists.” As always, the corners of your lips curled into that faux smile whenever facing him. “The competition looks fierce today.”
What about him? You hadn’t thought of wishing him, your own groom, luck?
“Fierce for some, mayhaps,” Gwayne nodded, his smile sharpening as he took another step forward, deliberately cutting off Criston Cole’s line of sight to you. He reached out, his gauntleted hand gently but firmly taking yours.
“But I sure do not fear a crowd of knights of modest beginnings and second sons. And I have hoped that I might find you in the stands later, and you would bestow upon me your favor to assure me of my victory.”
He looked down at you, the forced arrogance in his eyes momentarily cracked. He wanted you to look at him the way you had just looked at Cole, really.
But cruel, relentless you never granted it so easily.
“Your romantic sensibilities are commendable, ser.” You let out a soft sigh, as if lamenting, “but victory is still guaranteed by skill and the favor of the Seven, and not merely from a scrap of silk.”
The rejection was subtle, but in the presence of Criston Cole, it felt like a public execution.
“It is said even a scrap of favor from one’s bride can turn the tide of many battles,” Gwayne replied, his voice dropping an octave as the last traces of courtly cheer evaporated. “Unless, of course, your favor has already been promised to someone else?”
His eyes flicked towards Cole, searching for a reason to draw steel before the tourney even began. And that Dornish wretch had the gall to look at him in the eyes and retorted:
“May the best knight win, ser.”
Your betrothed had become terribly displeased and you knew it. Your hollow smile deepened, you stepped forward and smoothly slid your hand into the crook of his arm.
“No, no. You are free to ask me for it later, of course, my dear.”
Gwayne knew better that the honeyed words held no real affection. Yet, like a moth drawn to a flame, he couldn’t help but fall for it each and every time.
You held his leash, and you knew exactly how far you could play with and stretch it. But as he looked at you, a quiet ache settled in his soul.
Is it truly so wrong of him to seek your heart? How much longer would he have to endure this torment, giving everything while his affections remained completely unreturned?
“From today to the day we breathe our last, all that I am is yours.”
That was the first thing he told you when the betrothal was announced. In a den of vipers, Gwayne Hightower was entirely his own man.
He didn’t possess the calculating ambition of his father, who viewed every living soul as a piece in his game of thrones. Nor was he prudent like his sister, Queen Alicent, whose motto in life was duty and sacrifice.
You know that. You really knew that your chosen betrothed was everything but unkind. He was everything the songs promised a knight should be— genuine, posh, with a touch of arrogance that made him charming. He held you in high regard, and his attempts to make an impression on you were sweet.
Despite how you behaved around him, the truth was... it took everything in you not to fall for Ser Gwayne Hightower.
But he is still Otto’s son. You hated the Lord Hand with every fiber of your being—the man’s thirst for power had already forced your childhood companion Alicent into your father’s bed, turned your sister Rhaenyra into a scheming cynic, and your own betrothal to Gwayne was just another piece of his grand design.
However, watching the tourney unfold from the royal box, your thoughts swirled with guilt and anxiety. In the end, he hadn’t asked for your favor at all. Ironically, his sudden silence unsettled you far more than his persistence ever had.
Looking back on your interactions, the weight of your biting marks pressed heavily against your chest. You had rejected him so many times, using your faux smiles and sharp wit as shields. Every time you remembered the look of hurt that crossed his face before he masked it with a patient smile, a fresh wave of guilt washed over you.
Did he deserve to be punished just for pursuing you? Was it fair to make him pay for his father’s sins?
Down in the dirt, Gwayne rode beautifully, unseating two seasoned knights from the Reach and splitting lances with a Lannister to thunderous applause from the crowd. For a moment, watching his silver and green armor gleam in the sunlight, a spark of pride flared in your chest.
Then, Ser Criston Cole rode onto the field.
The tension between the two men was palpable even from the high stands. They charged— one lance shattered, then a second. By the third pass, it was clear it was a matter of pride.
And on the fourth pass, the collision was catastrophic.
With a terrifying crack that echoed across the grounds, Cole’s lance struck dead center. Gwayne was violently unseated, flung from his saddle to hit the earth with a sickening crash.
A collective gasp sucked the air from the stands. Through the rising dust, you saw your betrothed lying completely still. Cole’s lance hadn’t just broken— it had compromised his armor. His steel breastplate was shattered to pieces, the shards visibly lodged into his chest, dark blood already pooling through the fractures.
Your breath hitched, your hand flying to your mouth in horror.
Six years ago, a similar scene had paralyzed your heart the very same way. Blind to the rules of propriety, you bolted from the royal box. Pushing past lords and ladies, you sprinted down into the arena—desperate to reach him.
The maesters and several squires had already swarmed him, unbuckling the undamaged pieces of his armor with hurried hands. Gwayne was propped up against a wooden barrier, half-conscious, his head lolling to the side as his eyes struggled to hold focus.
“Will he be alright?” your voice cracked, almost shrill, the composed facade of a princess shattered as you hovered over the maesters working on him. “Tell me he will be alright.”
“The steel hasn’t pierced the heart, Princess, but we must move him to immediately to extract the shards,” one of them mumbled, wrapping a temporary cloth around the wound to stem the bleeding.
Gwayne let out a low, guttural groan at the pressure, his eyelids fluttering. Through the haze of pain, he recognized your voice. He knew you were there.
Driven by a sudden, overwhelming surge to comfort him, you dropped to your knees beside him. Your hands were trembling as you reached out, using the hem of your sleeve to wipe away the grime and blood that smeared his pale cheek.
But before your fingers could trace his jawline, Gwayne’s gauntleted hand came up. With a sudden burst of remaining strength, he swatted your hand away—
“Do not touch me,” he rasped.
The words were raw and bitter, dripping with an icy venom you had never heard from him before.
. . .
Gwayne refused to meet your gaze. He pressed his eyes shut, his jaw clenched so tightly the bone practically strained against his skin.
It wasn’t just the physical agony tearing him apart. It was the suffocating, absolute humiliation.
He had lost. He had been unseated and laid low in the dirt in front of the entire realm—and worse, in front of Criston Cole. He couldn’t bear to see the pity in your eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at the woman he loved and see confirmation that he was exactly what you always thought of him: unworthy.
“I’m— fine,” he choked out then. “So... go back to the Keep.”
It was funny how this was the same thing that had happened to him six years ago, during the Heir’s Tourney. He had been brutally unseated by Daemon Targaryen then, and just like now, you had come running to him, wiping the blood from his broken nose with your kerchief.
He fell in love with you then... and he has been in love with you ever since.
The girl holding his heart was a princess, and he had never dared to hope for more, never dreaming his conniving father would actually arrange your hand for him. He had thought it a blessing.
But his pursuit of you the past three moons had yielded nothing but a bitter truth— you despised him.
So he preferred to choke on the blinding pain, to let it consume him entirely, rather than suffer the indignity of your comfort.
You are in love with him.
You had spent weeks trying to resent the circumstances that led to your marriage with Otto Hightower’s son, reminding yourself over and over that he had fractured your family, sowing seeds of rebellion that would break once Alicent’s son came to age, and it would spell disaster upon you all—
But the wounded knight with broken nose six years ago had long since owned a part of your heart, and one week without Gwayne Hightower persistent on your heel, you had found yourself... sad.
“Mrawgh...”
“I’m not lonely,” you mumbled petulantly, brushing a hand against Grey Ghost’s silver scales as the dragon curled up, blinking his golden eyes shut to rest.
To occupy yourself, you spent the days with your dragon in the Dragonpit. Tending to Grey Ghost made the long hours pass faster— he was a recluse and not keen on flying often, but his quiet presence matched your somber mood.
Leaving him to his slumber, you walked away lost in your thoughts, entirely failing to notice how slippery the stone ledge had become.
Your foot caught on a heavy iron ring embedded in the floor. The world tilted as you stumbled backwards, losing your footing entirely. You braced for a painful impact against the stone floor, but a pair of strong arms wrapped securely around your waist, arresting your descent.
A sharp, ragged gasp left your savior’s lips. As you stabilized, you realized your hands had instinctively braced against his chest—pressing right over the bandages of the fresh wound.
“Steady there,” the redhead managed, a strained smile tight on his lips as he gently set you back on your feet. His green tunic made you realize who he was—
“Gwayne!” you breathed. Your hands hovered over him, trembling, almost terrified to touch him again. “Why are you—your wound! I didn’t mean to—”
“I am fine, truly,” he assured you, his voice softening as he offered a warm, comforting smile. “It is but a scratch, Princess. It takes more than a clumsy tumble from you to injure me.”
Just like a hundred times before, Gwayne Hightower sought you out. You could see the sheen of sweat on his forehead and how he looked pale still—
From today to the day we breathe our last, all that I am is yours.
“You are supposed to be resting!” Your voice rose despite yourself. “Why are you here?!”
This wasn’t what you wanted to tell him. You wanted to tell him a lot of other things! Like he was a fool, and that you would forbid him to enter the lists once you two were wed, that you couldn’t bear the thought of losing him—
His blue eyes crinkled with that familiar kindness as he reached out, softly tucking a stray strand of your loose hair behind your ear.
“If I wasn’t here, then you would take a fall.” His voice a soothing balm to your frayed nerves. “I can’t very well let my betrothed hurt herself before our big day, can I?”
This was the first time since King Viserys announced your betrothal three moons ago that you looked genuinely worried for him. It made something inside him burst with joy, even if it was tinged with a bitter aftertaste.
Gwayne’s thumb gently brushed across the back of your hand that was still pressed against his chest.
“Tell me... Is this the only way I could truly have your attention? Must I be grievously injured, a step away from Death’s door, for you to look at me like this?”
Your eyes widened by a fraction. Precious, precious girl. He chuckled softly, a teasing glint brightened his eyes.
Just this once, could he be allowed to be just a little bit cruel?
“Even if you keep looking at me with those beautiful eyes...” he whispered, his smile turning a little wistful, “...my heart might just run out, one of these days.”
He gave you one last, kind smile—a look of affection that no longer held expectations, or reeked of the politics that bound your families. Then, he gently gripped your hand, pulling it away from him before turning on his heel to leave you to your own devices.
When your fingers fell limp into the cold air, a stinging realization pierced through you like a dagger:
Is this how he feels? Is this what he endures every time I evade him? How has he survived it over and over?
As his warmth retreated into the shadows of the Dragonpit, something sharp tore deep inside your chest.
You didn’t want him to go. The walls you had spent weeks building to protect your heart against the Hightower name crumbled into dust. Your eyes burned with tears that blurred his retreating figure.
He was nearly out of the pit when you gathered your skirts, abandoning your pride, and ran after him.
“Ser Gwayne!”
Before he could turn back, you lunged, throwing your pride and your fears to the wind. You crashed into his back, your arms wrapping tightly around his waist, burying your face against his spine. He stiffened, almost flinching—
But then he heard you sob.
“Princess...?” he asked softly. His tone shifted, turning from startled confusion to a protective concern as he carefully turned around within your embrace. He reached up, gently tilting your chin up, only to find your cheeks flushed and wet with tears.
Realizing you were truly, genuinely weeping, Gwayne’s breath hitched in his throat.
He didn’t think. He didn’t let past rejections dictate him. He immediately wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close against his uninjured side.
“Shh, please do not weep,” he said in your ear, his own voice suddenly thick with emotion as he rocked you slightly. “Darling... please.”
Darling. Why did the word sound so devastatingly sweet in your ears? As you clung to him, you realized with absolute certainty that you wanted him to call you that for the rest of your days.
As he held you, feeling the warmth of your hands anchoring yourself to him, the pieces finally fell into place:
Has she... returned my feelings?
When your sobs finally quieted and your breathing turned calmer, you gently pulled back just enough to look up at him. Your eyes met his, and an ache settled in your chest.
He was such a beautiful man. Red hair, blue eyes, with ghost of dimples— still the very same wounded knight you had secretly harbored affections for with all those years ago.
Driven by a clear wave of clarity, you didn’t wait for him to speak. Reaching up, you stood on your toes and pulled him down by his collar—
—and pressed your lips to his.
Gwayne went rigid at your sudden boldness. But as your fingers tangled into his soft hair, any lingering shock vanished. With a low groan, he leaned into you, capturing your mouth in a kiss that felt like the bursting of a dam.
He drank in your sighs, his lips moving against yours with a desperate longing, as if he were trying to memorize the taste of you. He pulled you closer, his hands tilting your head back, anchoring you to him.
“You really are—” he growled against your mouth, his breath hot and ragged, “my utter undoing, Princess.”
Before the words could even fully register, you gasped as he gathered you up and hoisted you backwards, setting you down onto the broad stone railing.
Gwayne stepped between your thighs, pinning you to the ledge as his mouth descended on yours once more, even more ravenous than before. The kiss became a blur of lips, tongues, and breathless gasps—
His hands left your face to map the lines of your body, his palm sliding down the column of your throat to the curve of your shoulders. In his mind’s eye, he was already stripping away the heavy, suffocating layers of your gown, picturing the soft, aching swell of your breasts and the intoxicating dip of your waist.
In less than a week... as soon as you swear your oaths before the Seven, he would be graced by that sight.
Gwayne dragged his lips down from your mouth, leaving a trail of scorching kisses along your jawline before burying his face in the crook of your neck.
“Ser Gwayne—” your voice came hitched, and that what brought him back to reality.
He bit softly at the sensitive skin there, swallowing the fire that was about to consume him. When he finally pulled away to breathe, his lips lingered against yours.
“Well, you did kiss me first, Princess,” Gwayne murmured, his eyes twinkling, voice delightfully raspy as his arms settled loosely around your waist. “If I had known a broken rib would finally get you to kiss me, I would have marched up to Grey Ghost and asked him to toss me by the tail weeks ago.”
“Please don’t,” you giggled, circling your arms around his neck.
“Ah, but think of the romance— a dashing knight, battered and bruised, crawling back from the Dragonpit just to collapse into his bride’s arms.”
A breathless laugh escaped your lips, giving way to a very sweet, genuine smile. To Gwayne Hightower, this was the prettiest you had ever been, and his heart throbbed.
Oh, so she does, he realized, a quiet reverence settling into his soul. She does return my affections.
Gwayne leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, finally certain that his heart was safe in your hands.
“You might not know it,” he whispered, “but I have been in love with you for a very long time.”
You looked up at him, your eyes bright with unshed tears, and he met your gaze with a look of such devotion it stole the breath from your lungs.
“So let me say this once again. From before, now and until the day we breathe our last, all that I am... is yours.”
In that moment, you couldn’t have known that the realm would soon be plunged into a senseless civil war, pitting your sister against his in a dance of dragons and blood. You couldn’t have foreseen the ashes, the betrayals, or the heavy price the Hightower green and the Targaryen black would have to pay.
None of that matters right now. All you wanted was to lose yourself in his embrace and savor the fragile perfection of your wedding to the man of your dreams... for as long as it would last.
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- ser gwayne hightower x rhaenyra’s daughter!reader
synopsis. Ser Gwayne Hightower is tasked with escorting you, the sole daughter of the newly anointed Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, across the Reach and into the Crownlands as part of a deal securing amnesty for House Hightower. Along the way, you realize you do not hate him as much as you thought.
contents. smut, angst, slowburnish, reader is rhaenyra’s eldest daughter (around the same age as aegon) and silverwing’s rider and is so spoiled that she has never seen a baby chick before, enemies to lovers, mutual pining, grief, show elements but also canon divergence, sex pollen, oral (f recieving), fingering, p in v, loss of virginity, multiple orgasms, cum eating, bath sex, reader is comically oblivious at some points, gwayne needs you so bad
a/n. 13.5k words wow big day for me, spoilers for the show?, inspired by a request i got (thank you very much anon wherever you are), inspired by the film lady chatterly’s lover at some points, takes place directly after jace dies and rhaenyra takes the throne
part two
It was a glum day, the day you were told your brother was dead, and you were alone with the usurper’s uncle. The dread—that feeling that something was just wrong—settled deep in your stomach before the words came out of his mouth.
The Hightower army had found you many months prior, nearly deceased following an attack on your dragon, Silverwing. You had told her to fly home to Dragonstone, to leave you, and you have lived off of the hope that she made it back safe.
They took you as prisoner that day, and in spite of all you thought of them, they did not treat you too horribly. You believed it was like preparing a pig for slaughter, though, so you never wavered in your loyalty to your mother. You would die as a Black. It was not going to take the threat of death to let a word of the Green agenda come from your mouth.
Surprisingly, it was your cousin, Daeron, who offered you the most kindness. He was the only person you could yield to in the entire Hightower base. You could only pray he wasn’t relaying every conversation you’d had back to the Lord Ormund Hightower.
Everyone else treated you like you were common. Specifically Ser Gwayne Hightower.
He was rude—and vain—and arrogant. He was irritating. When he would try to make conversation, you would always end up in a fight. And it was just your luck for him to be the one instructed to take you on a multiple-week-long journey from the Reach and back to your rightful home in the Red Keep.
He was the one to tell you that your mother had taken King’s Landing back. You assume your mother saw it fit to have the Queen Dowager’s brother be the one to accompany you, because maybe she has something in store for him when you make it there. Perhaps a beheading? He could do without the ability to speak.
Then he was the one to tell you that you would join her in King’s Landing. That you were finally going home. It was the only thing to come from his mouth that made you joyful.
You overheard chatter that by you departing the Reach as soon as the letter was received, and by you making it back unharmed, House Hightower would be granted something close to immunity for their role in the war. You knew it was something a lie. Your mother and stepfather would never let the Green beasts live with what they had done—not only to you, but to her son too. To your mother herself.
The thought of what your mother might be doing to the Dowager Queen now gave you anxiety from being excluded. You should expect that they’ll be calling for Daeron’s capture too, though perhaps you will be able to put in a good word for him—get him sent to the Wall instead of hanged.
Speaking of Daeron, he was already somewhere distant when you had finished gathering your belongings, even though the things you owned in the encampment were scarce. You had said your goodbyes to each other not long ago—he claimed he had to prepare for something with Lord Ormund, and that he would not be available the next morning, for your departure.
You were, as expected, ready to leave. You had wanted to lie down and rest so that the next morning would come sooner, but Ser Gwayne had called you into his tent for one final word.
“There was something else written in the letter. Something I believe should have been saved for a calm moment, such as this,” he begun, and held up the refolded parchment which illustrated the clemency that would be provided to House Hightower upon your safe return to King’s Landing. “Would you prefer to read it, or shall I?”
The glint in his eye was one of compassion. You did not like it.
You shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Proceed.”
He raised his brows, pressing his lips together before giving a heavy sigh and opening the parchment back again. The fingers that gripped either side of it seemed to waver. His eyes quickly found the line he had so desperately wanted to read.
He inhaled a heavy breath. “The Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne Jacaerys Velaryon was slain in battle against the Triarchy Fleet. He was struck down by crossbow fire alongside his dragon, Vermax, in the waters off the Gullet.”
Gwayne let his hands drop slowly, and he sealed the parchment back. He looked back up at you.
Your head was shaking back and forth. Denying his words, maybe. The movement had come naturally, and you could not stop it.
“Is this a jest?” you exhaled a small laugh, hoping it would work to quell the distress already coursing through your veins.
You knew it was not a jest.
You knew if the war did not end soon then he would die in some violent, gruesome way, but to hear it confirmed was something entirely different. To hear it confirmed by a Hightower was something worse. The primal need for the man before you dead, perhaps in such a way your own brother was killed, washed over you in an instant.
He remained silent at your question. "It pains me, though your brother's death does not alter our course,” he said instead. “We shall depart at first light.”
It pains him?
You will show him something that pains him.
There was a lengthy distance between the two of you already, but you quickly closed it as you rushed across to smack him across his cheek.
Your hand stung, yet you did not wait for his reaction. Instead, you turned on your heel and left the tent.
Jace did not hit you until the fresh air did, and you let yourself shed the tears that you had pushed back into your sockets. The tears that you could not—would not—let fall in front of the enemy.
day one
You never liked Gwayne. He was arrogant, and he would treat you as if you weren’t the daughter of the Queen—or more importantly to them, the granddaughter of King Viserys, and the niece of their usurper.
The ride up the roseroad so far had been silent. He had tried, but you did not speak a word in response. It pains me, he had said, and then he practically told you to get over it and go home! He is moronic, and conceited. It pains you that you have to make this journey with him.
If need be, you could be doing this by yourself. You’re fierce enough to ride alone—gods, you’re essentially already riding alone, Gwayne’s useless self.
Your brothers taught you to be fierce, in spite of their age. Jace had always insisted on letting you spar with them in the yard of the Red Keep, and you learned quite well from it. You certainly couldn’t beat a knight with your skills, but it had helped you gain a certain confidence that princesses tend not to have.
Aegon had never liked you practicing with them. Neither did Ser Criston. You did beat the usurper once—caught him off guard and swept him out from under his feet—which must have bruised his ego in the process, as he felt it just to push you to the ground when your back was turned right after. That earned him a clout in the ear from Ser Harwin.
You chuckle to yourself recalling the memory—specifically Aegon’s stupid face when he realized who had hit him, and more specifically when Ser Harwin did not get in trouble for it—and you notice Gwayne looking at you in your peripheral. The smile is wiped clean off of your face.
“Does something amuse you?” he mutters.
When you look over to see him, he is glowering at you, his upper lip lifted with judgment.
“I understand you may not have many fond memories to look back on when times are tiresome, but I do.” You look forward at the road ahead.
He scoffs out a laugh. “I have many fond memories.”
“Tell me one,” you counter.
All you can hear is the wind blowing through the trees. Ser Gwayne Hightower, the parentless knight, no recollections to look back on fondly.
Gwayne sucks in a breath. “I do not have to.”
“That is what I thought.” You smirk to yourself, and lightly kick the side of your horse, forcing it forward and ahead of him.
day two
You were unsure if you should speak the words you did, but they had just slipped out at a certain point.
“I take it you did not care much for Jace.” Your gaze had already been trained on the head of your horse. It seemed hard to look anywhere else.
You and Gwayne had been mindlessly trekking forward all morning, both of your eyes still heavy with the slumber that you had lacked, sleeping in an inn on top of stiff beds.
“What makes you say that, princess?” he asks.
“You are a Hightower. Your sister is the Dowager Queen. Your nephew is the usurper. You kill for them—” you look over to him. He has been staring at you the whole time, and he looks quite furious.
“I believe you will find I do not have much of a choice in the matter,” he interjects sharply.
Your head shakes. “Everyone has a choice.”
He huffs. “What do you reckon I do? Desert my army? Get caught and hanged for treason?”
“I would.” You look back at the road ahead. “I should.”
Gwayne sighs, and returns his attention to the road as well. “We both have duties, my princess. Duties one cannot simply run from once they get to be too demanding.”
“Essos is said to be nice this time of year.”
A short laugh escapes him. “Essos is said to be nice all times of the year.”
You let out a heavy, deflated sigh. “Would it not be nice? I’m sure they don’t care about who we are there. We could be free. You could be a sellsword, and I…” your thought trails off. You cannot think of what you would be somewhere like Essos.
“You could be a scribe,” Gwayne says sincerely.
You nod. “I could.”
The idea of a life in Essos, perhaps with Gwayne, seems appealing at the very moment. The lack of sleep much be getting to you.
It does seem nice. Abandoning your name, as much as you are loyal to it, could be the best decision that you have made. He seems to want the same, if you convince yourself his words weren’t just tactical, some way to earn your empathy so that you will convince your mother to spare him once you reach the Red Keep.
If the war would not come to an end with her taking of the throne, you would have to escape there yourself. And if Gwayne wanted to come with you, if he was still alive by the time you left, you might just be willing to take him with you. Silverwing—who had surely made it back to Dragonstone—was large enough to saddle two.
day three
The inn you would stay in tonight would be much worse than the last. Not only because of the stiff beds, but because of the lack of them too.
Gwayne knew of the ones that would not ask any questions while not costing all the coins in his possession. So far they had been shit, but they had been true to their history of keeping quiet with matters that did not concern them, as far as you both knew.
You would remain outside with your cloak hood pulled tight over your head and your body facing a wall until Gwayne would come fetch you to take you to the room.
He would refer to you as his squire to the innkeepers and guests who questioned your presence. If they had questioned your demeanor, he would call you reserved and paranoid. Nobody had asked anything past that, but if they did, he was prepared to tell them that you had been tormented by some childhood event.
When Gwayne had taken you to your room that night, you had not expected to be faced with a singular bed.
“Have you gotten your own room?” you had asked, not realizing until you had drawn off the cloak from your head that there was only one mattress before you.
Gwayne only shrugged. “It was all that remained. The innkeeper told me that puppeteers are traveling in town, and all seem to be staying here.”
You could not contain your fury at the thought of sharing a bed with him. Or making him sleep on the floor. “How many fucking puppeteers are there?” you demanded, body tense with unreasonable anger.
He scoffed out a laugh. “My princess, it isn’t exactly the largest inn.” He had already begun shucking off his armor, as well as ridding himself of his gambeson and chausses. “You will live. I will sleep on the floor.”
“Are you sure? Can’t you speak with the innkeeper?”
“There is no need to draw any more attention to us. And what, princess, will you be sleeping on the floor in place of me?” he mocked, already in knowledge of the answer. “Do not fret over it. I have slept in worse places.”
You were silenced at that, and had called him for help with undoing your dress. The whole ordeal was strangely impersonal. He had done it the night before, and you felt nothing. Perhaps it be the exhaustion both of you had carried.
The two of you had retired to your respective sleeping areas shortly afterward, both clad in just your smallclothes.
Later that night, you found yourself wide awake, shivering in the relentless cold that seemed to break in past the shut windows.
Gwayne had been sleeping on the floor furthest from where you were lying on the bed. You assumed he was sleeping as well, but it was strangely silent. You had expected to hear the soft breathing of someone consumed by their slumber, though all you heard was the whistling of wind outside.
And your heart still held unpleasant sympathy for where he had been forced to rest. If your thoughts were true, he was not sleeping at all.
“Ser?” you whisper.
“Is something wrong?” you hear from below.
You smile at his voice. No, at being right. You do not smile at his presence, you smile because you like being right. You rolled over then, the mattress groaning beneath you, to stare at the dim expanse of the side where he lay.
“Are you comfortable there, on the floor?” you question, smile piercing through your words.
He scoffs. “You jest, princess, but I have no doubt that this floor is just as soft as the mattress you lay on.”
You were hit with a flurry of breathless laughter at his words. It must be your lack of sleep. You could hear him chuckle too after some point, but both of you had been slowly silenced as the seconds passed until you could only hear the commotion outside again.
Perhaps you should invite him to sleep alongside you. You are not without mercy. Of course, it would be strictly unromantic, not like how a wife and her husband might find one another on restless nights such as this one.
“Would you like to put that to the test?” you say without a second thought.
Gwayne clears his throat. “I would not want to invade on your solace, princess.”
“There is plenty of room for you.” You crawl across the bed to see him.
Your eyes find him as he thoughtlessly fiddles with the edge of his chemise, and as he freezes once he meets your gaze.
You beam down at him again. “And it would bring me solace, knowing you were sleeping the slightest bit easier.”
“Are you sure of it?”
“I am.” You think it is the sleep deprivation deluding you. You would never act like this normally. He can sense it too.
He slowly rises from his position on the ground, and multiple bones crackle once he stands.
You roll back over to your side of the bed, watching as he joins you. He seems tense, especially as you join him under the covers.
The two of you lie in bridled silence, neither one of you able to fall asleep. A chill runs through you from the temperature, and Gwayne’s head swivels to look at you.
You turn over on your side to meet his gaze, expecting him to say something. He does not, and looks back up at the ceiling instead.
Your brain, clouded by the fact that you are simultaneously freezing cold and devastatingly fatigued, opens, then pauses as you search for the words.
“Are you cold as well?” you mumble.
Gwayne shrugs nonchalantly. “Slightly.”
You chuckle mirthlessly. “I am.” The sheets suddenly feel rough against your skin. “More than slightly.”
“I can ask the innkeeper for another quilt.”
His earlier words flash back to you. “There is no need to draw any more attention to us,” you repeat.
You see the corner of his lip turn upward. “What do you reckon I do, then, princess?” he asks, and you reach out to touch his arm.
The muscle quickly tightens under your hold.
“You’re warm.” You move closer to him. “If we lie close together, we might just make it through the night.”
That is how you ended up huddled next to Ser Gwayne Hightower for the rest of the night.
You were unaware of the fact that he was lying frozen next to you, and that he did not get a wink of sleep, especially as you mindlessly slung an arm around his middle in your slumber. And as your nipples, solid from the cool breeze that had seeped in through the windows, brushed up against him as you shifted throughout the night.
day four
Gwayne had stopped to relieve himself when you heard them.
The myriad of chirps from some kind of birds had caught your attention, and you had jumped from your horse in an instant, following the sound.
You found yourself on the edge of an open field, behind some bushes, as you looked down to some small yellow birds that weren’t flying away. You deduce that they must like your presence.
It wasn’t long before Gwayne anxious voice interrupted your calm, calling your name just moments before stumbling upon you.
“What are they?” you whisper.
“Chicks,” he responds, in a normal tone. At your silence, he continues, “baby chickens.”
“Truly?” you question, head cocked to the side, watching them.
Gwayne stares at you. “Have you… never seen chicks before?”
“No, only…” you turn your head to him, “chickens.” You shrug.
He shakes his head with a theatrical sort of despair. It would have seemed real if the corners of his lips were not upturned.
“You truly are a princess,” he mutters, and crouches down to the ground.
You stoop down alongside him, watching as the chicks run past one another, chirping quietly.
“Can I touch one?” you mumble.
He gestures with a chin toward the chirping bunch. “Go on, then.”
You reach down to one of the animals, but you can’t quite seem to get a good grip on it. You don’t really try to grip it. You do not find the chance to. Instead, your hand just lingers hesitantly above the crowd of them.
Gwayne’s hands come down to meet yours. He grabs one of them, effortlessly and gently, cradling it in his hands.
Your hand is still lingering beside his, still in a motion as if you were going to grab one, as he did, so he brings the chicken in his hands to yours. You bring your free hand to join the other and cup them together.
He lets one hand release the chick into yours, and it comes down below the two of your hands as if to hold it steady. The other covers the chick to prevent it from jumping out of your hold.
The hand that is under yours touches it, and urges it to close. “Gently,” he murmurs, and you’re holding the chick on your own now, gently and effortlessly, just like he was.
His hands withdraw from yours. He watches as your lips curl up, a pure joy that he had yet to ever witness fill your face, do exactly that. His own mouth mirrors something similar.
You shudder nervously as the chick twitches around in your grip. It comes out half in the form of small chuckles and half in struggled exhales.
Your brows draw together. It seems impossible to relax them, and you feel a panic settle in at nothing in particular. Perhaps it be that your brothers are dead, maybe because you are with a man that you have such complicated and mind-boggling feelings for, or that you were just held as a prisoner for the Greens, and that man is a Green, he is the Green, the Hightower Green you have been conditioned to hate—
Gwayne has stopped smiling. You feel tears running down your face. The chick flies out of your grip once you try to see it closer, and you try your hardest to catch onto your breath, to catch it as it runs from you, but you cannot. You are sobbing before you get any sense to stop it.
“My princess?” he leans closer to you, a wavering hand inching dangerously close, and you push yourself from off the ground. He follows.
“I’m sorry,” you manage through heaving breaths, smoothing down your now wrinkled dress. Why are you apologizing? You do not know why you are apologizing. He is a Green. He should be apologizing to you, for being on the side of the war that killed your brothers—oh, gods, your sweet brothers. Your sweet, young, desperate, dead brothers.
“It’s all right,” he mumbles. His hands, still, are reaching toward your arms, yet not touching. Never touching. Just hovering near yours, always, like he wants to touch you, but he doesn’t.
You wipe your eyes, but the tears keep falling. You mutter something again. Sorry, you hear yourself say again, and then your body moves for you. You wrap your arms around his neck in an embrace so tight you might be strangling him.
He stumbles back slightly, arms still hesitating beside you, and then finally you feel it. He folds them gently around your waist. As gentle as he held the chick.
“Don’t cry,” he comforts.
You do not obey. You would if you could, but for now, you remain in his hold. You, regrettably, enjoy it.
day five
Gwayne did not like to see you cry.
He had first seen it the moment you realized you were captured by the Hightowers. You hadn’t been conscious enough when they found you to care about where you were being taken. He hadn’t enjoyed the sight then, not as his belligerents did, and he does not like to see it now.
He was the one to convince his fellow commanders to spare your life and to instead take you as a hostage. He was the one to have you held in a tent next to his own in the encampments with his two most upstanding soldiers posted outside, and not in those grimy cages fit for animals. He was the one to have you ride your horse directly next to his when on the road with the rest of the army—much to your dismay—as to prevent any dishonorable conduct from occurring. He would never tell you these things, of course, but they live with him.
Gwayne would tell himself that he did all of these things because it was right, that he would do it to any other female prisoner-of-war, given the shocking lack of honor among his knights who vowed to defend it. He had done a good job separating the wheat from the chaff when he became a commander, but there were only few he truly trusted to never harm the young, an innocent—and those who cannot protect themselves. Like you.
You liked to put on a front. And it somewhat worked with others, but not with him. He wishes it would, for some odd reason. Maybe he would not see you the way he does, if it did. He would still treat you with mercy, but it would not be to the level it is. He would never have accepted your hug. He thinks he would have pushed you away.
He wouldn’t have, but he believes he would have.
Since he had finally felt your touch the afternoon previous, the road to the Red Keep had been as quiet as the first day of your journey together. He suspected you had been embarrassed after letting him see your emotions, as you had been combative toward him every day since you had woken up from your comatose state.
He had expected it to come at some point, the unveiling of your feelings, but not in that way. He had expected to hear you sniffle from beside him while on your horses. He would have stayed silent, and he would have let you cry. He believes he would have let you cry on your own if you hadn’t come to him for comfort first.
The fact that you did had brought him joy. It made him hopeful, in some strange way he did not feel himself familiar with.
“You are betrothed to Lord Samwell Blackwood, are you not?”
You look at him, puzzled. “He has been with the Stranger since the war begun.”
Gwayne nods curtly. “So I’ve heard.”
“Then why have you asked?”
He inhales a heavy breath. “I feel it my duty to tell you of this.” He clears his throat. “Before your mother took the throne, there was word among our commanders to betroth you to your cousin, Prince Aemond.”
“You jest.”
“I do not.”
You cock your head to the side, wetting your lips. “And what did you have to say in the matter?”
“That is unneeded for you to know.”
“Why? Because you encouraged them to?”
His voice picks up immediately where you left off. “No, because I fought against it.” He scoffs a laugh. “The One-Eyed Prince is… he is mad.” At your gawking laugh, he turns his head to you. “You must know it too. He is simply and utterly mad.”
“You are his uncle.” You would never tell of his treasonous words to any other, but you feel you must remind him.
“Are you going to betray me and inform my army of the fact?”
“I do not have loyalty to you, though I will not speak of the words to another.”
“Good. Now you tell me something in confidence,” he presses.
You shake your head at the sheer audacity of him. “Why would I do that, ser?”
“What else will we converse about? It is a long and arduous road ahead of us.” His eyes peer into yours, and you feel a sudden urge to tell him everything you have ever kept from him.
“Alright then,” you look to the sky in mock ponder. “When I was young, I would pray to the gods each and every night for a gallant and true knight to take me away from the Red Keep and off to some distant land. There was this one knight, he had belonged to our Kingsguard, who I absolutely adored.” You sigh on the memory, oblivious to the fact that a true and gallant knight was riding right alongside you. “I was just a girl then. It was a silly dream. And the gods do not always play in my favor.”
Were you jesting? Or were you truly so oblivious?
“Do you remember his name?” he asks.
“It has lost me. But I remember his face. He was gorgeous, that one, and very gentle, too. Back then he was the same age as my brother is now.”
He does not let you sit with the fact that you mentioned your brother as if he were alive. “That’s quite young, isn’t it?”
You nod. “Indeed. He was the youngest of every knight in the Keep. Perhaps the youngest in history.”
“What happened to him?”
You exhale a breath, and look down to your horse’s head. “He was in the fire that killed Ser Harwin. I do not know why he had been called to Harrenhal, and I suppose I shall never know. Are you yourself betrothed, or married, ser?”
He huffs. “Gods, no. I was, and remain, of little use as a political pawn for House Hightower, my father being the second son.”
“Therefore if you were to wed, you would do so for love,” you state.
“I suppose so.”
day six
The hood of your cloak was pulled tightly over the upper half of your face, seemingly ritual for whenever you made it to inns, and you felt a tap on your shoulder.
You turn, expecting to see Gwayne, but in his place stood a knight in armor, donning a Hightower sigil on his gambeson.
It is your luck to see Gwayne rushing up from behind him to fetch you.
“Squire, let us retire to our room, yes?” he says, and you nod eagerly, pulling the hood further over your face. The two of you attempt to move forward, and you make it past the knight—
“That is no squire,” the man interjects, grabbing onto your wrist, stopping you. “That is a girl.”
Gwayne steps in between you and the knight, forcing him to release your joint from his hold. His gaze flicks down to the man’s gambeson.
He takes a step closer to him and lowers his voice. “If it pleases you, she’s my distraction for the night, ser. Not worth your notice.”
The knight clears his throat, and Gwayne steps back.
“Blessings upon King Aegon.” He smiles, turning back to the inn entrance.
His hand guides you forward, lingering on the small of your back, surely for the sight of the knight behind you. And then it trails down, over the curve of your back end, and you feel the slightest grip onto it before the door behind you closes, and his hand immediately falls away.
The walk to your room is silent.
Gwayne swallows painfully once you make it to your room.
“I’m sorry—” he begins.
“How may I distract you tonight, ser?” you interrupt, smiling stupidly at his lie, and he sighs one of relief at your lack of offense.
He breathes out a laugh, and swiftly moves to shed himself of his armor. He has been struggling on his own each time he has done so. You only noticed it the last night, and offered help, but had been rejected.
You would not ask this time, you would simply do. Your fingers were desperate and untrained in their efforts, but they did the trick in time for him not to deny you, and he was rid of the metal captivity.
You turn as he does, ridding yourself of your heavy cloak and pushing your hair out of the way of the laces of your dress. He pulls them loose without a word, and the warmth of his body behind yours would surely prove the most effective thing of the night, you decide as you gaze at the thin quilt on your bed.
As your gown slides down your body, you can hear the shuffling of Gwayne removing all but his linens behind you. If you took just a step backward, you would be touching him.
“It is a terrible coincidence, the Hightower army resting here,” you mumble, your hands fiddling with the light cloth around the your wrists.
“It is,” he agrees solemnly.
You retreat from his warmth and sit on the edge of your bed, your back up straight and your fingers clasped together in your lap. You weren’t particularly tired this night. Maybe it be from the surge of adrenaline at the knight outside, and it had already raged through your limbs, rendering them restless the moment the door to the inn had shut behind you.
Gwayne’s hand was close to you then, to an area you regarded as most private among you, a maiden. The memory of it twinged deep in your stomach. It was an unfamiliar feeling.
He had joined you in sitting on the edge of a bed, albeit his own. His own stature had mirrored yours. All tense and surged with the possibility of a fight.
“It is rather cold this night,” you mutter.
Gwayne nods curtly. “It is.”
Your gaze lowers to watch your fingers be relentlessly picked on by those of the other hand. “I fear one of those knights will bust through the doorway, and take me away with little fight, you being so far from me,” you whisper. The night was silent enough for him to hear it.
“I fear the same.”
You look up at him. “If he were to do so, it would certainly raise suspicion if your whore was sleeping in a bed adjacent to yours.”
He takes a turn to meet your eyes. “If you wish to sleep in the same bed as I, you need only ask.”
Your tongue darts out to wet your lips. “May I sleep in your bed tonight, Gwayne?” you muster.
“As you wish, my princess.”
day seven
Your horse stops before you instruct it to.
In the distance lies a field of flowers, pink and purple, some yellow, and all illuminated by sunlight. It was nearly time for it to set.
You cannot still be in the Reach, you think. It has been much too long, but thank the gods if you are. What a sight to see.
You want to see it closer. Gwayne will be okay with it, you declare, and you hop off of your horse and begin walking in the direction of the field.
“No, princess,” he says, exasperated. “We cannot go off trail again.”
“The flowers,” you breathe. “It is beautiful.”
The scent in the air is intoxicating. It is rather pungent, the closer you get to it, and the air seems more sultry than just moments before.
You remove your cloak from your shoulders, letting it drop behind you as you continue forward. It is the slightest bit relieving from the heat, but your body quickly acclimates to it again, and the sweat begins beading. It is no wonder. The sleeves under your dress are long. It makes you question why you decided to wear such a stupid thing, in this climate.
Once you make it to the field, it envelopes you. The fever. It starts in your lower abdomen in a heavy thrum and travels up the rest of your body.
Where is Gwayne?
You turn around. He is just a few steps behind. He has been trailing behind you the entire time. It was hard to notice, with the pull of the meadow, but now that you are here, he is all you can think about. All you can focus on. You do not like that.
His hair illuminates in the sunlight, much like the flowers. Your skin tingles.
He froze in his movements the moment you did. You continue further into the field. His feet fall in step with yours, and you think you can hear his breathing, all shaky and uncertain.
You make it to an empty patch of the meadow, and stop once again.
“Ser?” you turn back to face him. The scorch of the sun worsens with each passing second. Sweat gathers on your brow. “My dress... please… help me get it off.” You raise a timid arm to your back, accepting defeat once you find yourself unable to reach the laces.
Gwayne’s thumb twitches toward you. His forehead glistens. He must be burning too.
You spot the clench of his jaw, and take a wary step toward him.
“Stop—” he holds a hand out, body turning away from you. “Do not move. Please. Just stay there.” He avoids your gaze.
“What is it?” you ask. You know what it is.
You know what he is feeling, because you feel it too. It presses hard and deep in your abdomen, and it just wants to be relieved. You want to be relieved. And Ser Gwayne Hightower looks rather handsome in this light, surrounded by the pink and purple—and was it red?—flowers. He seems close to pouncing on you like a wild dog. Gods, may he?
He had always been alluring. May it be your frustration that you could never have him in the way you wanted that made you so combative, or the fact that he is a Green—it is probably both, but neither seem so important now. Not when you feel the heat of a thousand suns burn through you, all the way to your core, and then all over again.
The man himself looks close to releasing in his braies just by looking at your face. It brings you some ease, yet also further discomfort, to know that he feels the same as you. You had blocked out the idea, seeing yourself as delusional and unrealistic for thinking he would ever show any form of attraction toward you.
“Gwayne—” you exhale, though it releases itself in the form of a groan. “It is sweltering.” You bend over to clutch the end of your dress, and you are close to pulling it off yourself, if fate was willing. Something halts you.
“Please, don’t.” His voice sounds pitiful. It is all low and whiny. “I do not know if I can handle that. Not now. Not when… fuck.”
You want to keel over and die.
You release the cloth from your grip and let the dress fall back down. You rise back up, slowly, and flatten down the wrinkled fabric of your middle with your hands.
Your lips tremble. “What do you want to do?”
“I am unsure.” He still cannot look you in the eye. “It is impure, and unchivalrous for me to be thinking of you this way.”
“I am all right with it.” It is then that you realize how you sound. Desperate for a Green, as if you were a common whore, which is probably what he thinks of you as. At least he tries to fight it. You should fight it too. You are fierce enough to fight whatever it is that is welling up inside of you.
Your eyes are squeezed shut, and the shame tries to conquer the hunger—but the hunger wins in the blink of an eye. The blink of your eye, in fact, as you look back at Gwayne.
“We cannot,” you mumble. “We should not. I am a maiden. You are the opposition. We cannot.” You repeat the words to yourself, over and over, like a mantra. If the shame did not prevail, perhaps distraction will. Your eyes shut tight again, and you repeat the words. We cannot. We should not. You are a maiden. He is the opposition.
We cannot, we should not, you are a maiden, Ser Gwayne Hightower is hard by simply standing in your presence—
Your eyes snap open, and you find that you are standing directly in front of him. You must have been inching closer to him with each sentence you repeated.
Your gaze flicks down to his crotch. Sure enough, your thoughts did not lie to you. Perhaps your dragon blood has given you the gift of prophecy.
He finds it appropriate to look at you, finally, and you realize how close you are to one another.
In specific—how close your lips are to one another. So, so close, yet so far. You almost want to give in, and you lean just a little closer. He stays still, though when you stop moving, his head moves closer too, close enough that you can almost feel his breath fanning into your own mouth.
Your noses are touching, that is how close you are. You could just slot your lips right onto his. It would be so easy, so incredibly simple, if you would just move forward, just a little—
His hands reach up to cradle your face in his hands, thumbs on either side grazing your cheekbones. They move down your face, down to your lips, and one of the thumbs strokes over the bottom lip. And he closes the gap.
You feel his lips envelope yours first, and then you feel his tongue inch into your mouth. Your lips close over one another’s, and he moans. Ser Gwayne Hightower is moaning into your mouth, and it feels like you have been sent to each of the seven heavens and back again. Your head is pushed backwards with the force of his kiss.
Your hand reaches around to brush over his nape. His hands travel further down your body, one finding itself wrapped around your waist, the other petting your breast over your dress. It seems that the true touch of it pacifies him, as it allows you to push deeper into the kiss, letting your tongue slide into his mouth.
You only break away to lower yourself to the ground. He follows, as though the answers to every challenge in his life were held on your lips. He hikes your dress up your legs, your smallclothes with it, until they both pool at your waist.
He lifts two fingers to his mouth, coating them in spit before reaching down to your bare cunt and thrusting them inside. You let out a shrieking moan, letting your head press into the dirt below you and thrashing back and forth in pleasure.
“Look at me,” Gwayne instructs. You let your eyes lock onto his, you try, but the deep press of his fingers inside of you makes it hard to focus. His lips, hanging open, hover just above yours, and he moves forward to bring you and he together again.
It is breathing moans into each other’s mouths and pathetic, desperate mashing before you finally get the hold onto his lips, or perhaps him onto yours. His fingers cease, and slip out swift enough for it to go unnoticed for a single moment.
He breaks apart from your mouth, and wastes no time in sliding himself down your body. The disappointment at the loss of his fingers does not last long, as his lips lock onto your cunt.
Gwayne snakes his arms under your legs and he yanks your body closer to him. Your fingers curl in his hair, and he only laps harder at you.
“Y—yes, ser—” you cry, your thighs squeezing his head, clit pulsating under the assault of his tongue.
He breaks away for just a moment, big blue eyes locking onto your weak ones. “Not ser. Gwayne. My name is Gwayne.”
And he dives back into you, gathering your wetness on his tongue in a torturous swipe from bottom to top, one that earns a sweet little whine from the depths of your throat. It reminds him, in that moment, of the sounds you would make when you did not get your way back in Oldtown—the sounds he would shamefully think of as he fucked his fist late at night, the sounds that he would repent about for thinking and acting on with such humiliating vitality, and more importantly, for not regretting any of it in the slightest.
The sheer relief you get from his mouth onto yours is unlike anything you have felt before, because you have not felt it before. You had heard word of the act in song, and in gossip spread around by your ladies-in-waiting, but to experience it was the greatest decision you ever made. A true, gallant knight between your legs, satiating the hunger that spread in your loins and his alike, yet he is only focused on your release now, latching his tongue on your clit and sucking hard.
His fingers graze your folds and glide around the edges, already slick with your wet. One finger probes, just the slightest bit, and you shudder at the contact.
You let out a loud cry as it presses itself fully inside, without warning. Perfection, you think you hear him say. The words vibrate on your clit, agonizingly so.
His finger pumps in and out of you, and his mouth works on your cunt all the same. The fire in your veins only grows stronger as your climax approaches.
Your fingers tug and pull on his hair, and somewhere in the middle of your gratification a second slim finger of his joins the first, pressing deep into your cunt as they allow him.
The sounds coming from your mouth you do not think you have ever made before. They approach from deep in your lungs and are hoarsely ripped from your throat.
It creeps closer, that unfamiliar thing called release, and your walls tighten around his fingers. Gwayne only sucks harder, and pushes his fingers further into your cunt, his knuckles pressing into your folds.
The feeling floods your body in an instant. It feels prickly, for some odd reason, and it nips your limbs, but blissfully so. Your brain feels fuzzy, and you cannot think of anything but him. It is a way that makes you crave for it immediately once it ebbs.
You let out a little sob once his fingers slip out from inside you. You didn’t know you were crying, and a few stray tears fall from your eyes before you realize.
Gwayne licks a stripe up your cunt, collecting whatever fluids he procured down there into his mouth and swallowing them with the gulp of a man who might just be dying of thirst.
He is up your body and has his wet lips on yours by the time you tear yourself away from the sight. It is then that you feel how truly hard he is under his linens. His cock presses against your spent core, and he nearly jerks back at the contact.
“Gwayne,” you breathe, and his head shoots up to look at you.
“What is it, sweet girl?” he mumbles, suddenly winded by the sweet sound of his name on your tongue.
“I want you to fuck me.”
He is frozen solid at your ask. Your arousal on his mouth glistens with each slight twitch upward. “You’re sure of it?”
You nod, but it is not enough.
“Tell me,” he commands.
“I want you to fuck me, Gwayne, how else must I tell you?” you reply impatiently, and grind your hips up to feel his hardened cock brush against you once more.
Both of your hands come up and intertwine themselves behind his neck, preventing him from straying any further—pulling him down to you, in fact, so you can grind up on him some more.
You lift your head from the ground to try and capture his lips into a somewhat calculating kiss, but his strength prevails, and his head softly twitches back before your mouth can get hold on his.
You fall back, defeated, but his hand comes to hold your wrist, and he comes down to close the gap. He chuckles into your mouth at your desperation, and you only kiss him harder, as if you were trying to become one with him.
His hand rubs up and down your wrist for a moment, before he reaches down to release his lower half from his linens.
You take a hand from off his neck and reach down to meet his own, searching around for his cock. You get a firm grip on it, stroking it up once. He lets out a shuddery moan, and his hand finds your wrist once again—not stopping you, but guiding you, perhaps.
He pumps himself with your hand, and you let him for only a moment, before overpowering his gentleness and guiding his length to your cunt. The tip of it glides on your folds. You could die right here, and it would be okay.
Gwayne pushes into you with a wounded groan, his jaw hanging wide open. You, on the other hand, nearly shriek.
He rocks himself out of you slowly, then back into you almost sluggishly.
“Is this all right?” he manages through strangled breaths, and you nod fervently, using the hand still on his neck to push his head closer to yours.
You mean to kiss him, but his forehead lies on yours instead. You’ll take what you can get.
He presses swift pecks on your cheeks, on your nose, and on your lips as he gains momentum. Your eyes flutter shut, but his hand comes up to press a few light smacks to your cheek.
“I said to look at me,” he grunts. “I want to see your eyes—“
You open them back up at that. They’re glossed over again, with tears, and you’re glad that Gwayne does not take it as pain. There was pain, but it is long gone. He kisses the droplets as they fall from the corners of your eyes.
It is utterly intoxicating, the drag of his hips. He seems to lose himself in the feeling too. Wave after wave of constant pleasure washes over you with the somehow gentle slam of him into you.
You babble incomprehensible speech, just as lost as he is as he, slack-jawed as he fucks you. His eyes are focused on your face, your face saturated with sweat, for a single twitch of anything at all, yet he finds nothing. Nothing but rapture, as he believes it should be. He brings his hand back down to your clit and strokes it so delicately, but it brings you sweet relief all the more.
You feel it cresting again. Up your spine, down your legs, dumbing your brain into mush, prickling at the back of your neck. “Gods, Gwayne—Oh, gods, I’m gonna—“
You don’t finish the sentence. It hits you, you cum again, so hard around his cock, and it isn’t long into your perfect bliss before he is pulls out, spilling his seed onto the bunched-up cotton of your dress.
You feel as though you are one with him. It is like your flesh melts into his. Your sweat certainly does, especially as he joins his forehead with yours again, all sticky and damp.
“I am deeply sorry—” he says in between quick kisses, “to have taken your maidenhood.”
You shake your head softly. “If it shames you so, I can raise a proposition of marriage to my mother once we get back to the Keep.” He laughs at that, unknowing you were not telling a joke.
Still, you breathe out a chuckle.
day nine
The communal bath that you had found yourself in was satisfyingly empty. Since Gwayne had taken your maidenhood two moons previous, you had been desperate for it to happen again, and again, and perhaps a thousand times more, though you resisted the urge to ask outright while in the inns.
Now, though, seemed like the perfect moment to do so. You could clean yourself properly for the first time in weeks, and then dirty yourself all over again with the satisfaction of your mutual sin.
He had already undone the laces of your dress for you, and you stepped out of the gown that dropped to your feet, eager to feel the warmth of the water envelop your skin. And for him to join you. So that you could see—and feel—his bare body, properly. You had already shed your linens by the time you made it to the water.
You had retreated to the further side of the bath, so that you could watch as Gwayne undressed himself. It was nicer like this, being able to take in his body for the first time, as he stripped off his gambeson, then his chausses, and then, finally, his smallclothes.
His figure was very unsurprisingly robust. The light of the countless candles surrounding the baths set for quite the intimate atmosphere.
You bit back a smile as he inched closer to the bath, stepping inside with a heavy sigh of relief. The Hightowers did seem to prioritize cleanliness. Perhaps they place it next to godliness. Gwayne certainly does not seem to mind, given how keen he was to eat your cunt until you came undone on his tongue.
He threw his head back with a shuddering sigh once he finally sunk into the water. You watch as the grime expels from the surface of his body in one fell swoop, becoming one with the rest of the stream.
“Have you something to say?” he questions, a brow darted upward at your uncharacteristically blissful expression.
Your cheeks flushed, a harder, content smile crossing over your face. “Just observing.”
“Must you observe so far?” he mutters.
“I must,” you sneer, giving a firm nod.
His eyes flick down to your bare breasts, sat warped on your chest under the soft wave of the water.
He quickly averts his gaze to the center of the bath once you perk them forward with your arms.
“I am truly apologetic,” he starts. “For taking your maidenhood. ‘specially in such an unclean place, where anyone could have seen us if they had simply come to probe into the noise.”
You scoff. “Would you have preferred it happen inside the walls of some dull inn?”
“I’d have preferred you comfortable.”
“I was comfortable. I am comfortable.”
At his silence, you push yourself off of the wall and glide over to him. He sits frozen as your chest brushes against his arm.
“Are you a maid, ser? Well—were you a maid?” you question, feigning a look of innocence.
“I haven’t been a maid for a long time, princess.” His head hangs low.
He lets you grip his arm and guide it between your legs. “Are you ashamed of the fact?”
“I am ashamed that I am not,” he mutters, seemingly unfazed as you grind your cunt against his wrist. You let out a low moan, your breath wavering before you realize his lament.
So you release his arm from your hold and straddle his hips, placing your hands on each of his shoulders. Your chest is eye level with his face. It seems to be the only thing that can bring his head back up.
You can feel his cock hardening below you as you rock back and forth against him. He watches your face that stares down back at him—both of your jaws are slack, and you breathe heavy pants into each others mouths, gaining some semblance of pleasure from the act.
But it is not enough, no. It is never enough.
You take a hand from his shoulder and reach down to grip his length, guiding it into your walls at once. You push down unto him with a sweet little cry, one quickly silenced by his lips on your own.
His kiss is just as tender as you remember it being, amorous flowers aside, and you hum into him. A hand cups your cheek and he tilts his head, his tongue breaching the plush of your lips, just exploring.
Your fingers curl around his nape as you thrust, up and down, up and down, and he concurrently rolls his hips back and forth.
“Fuck—sweet princess—” he moans once he breaks apart from your mouth.
You gasp and shudder, and he reaches his head up to kiss all over your face. Your eye, the brow bone above it, down to the highest point of your cheek on the side of your face, then to the corner of your lip, and then he cranes his head down to kiss you on your neck. You throw your head back to allow him access.
Once he reaches your sternum, he darts his tongue out first when attaching his lips to it. “Oh, gods,” you whimper into his hair.
“Ser? Gwayne—” you can't quite speak, the words near dying on your tongue. “Are you mine, Gwayne? Tell me—” your hips slow, and his only speed up. He begins fucking up into you, and another moan rips through your throat.
He nods fervently against your neck, lifting his head back up to see you. “I am yours, princess. Fuck—” his hips stutter, though he relents.
It does not give you solace. If he is yours, how long shall he remain so? Until the gods rip him from your grasp—which would be soon now, with each tread of your horses closer to the Red Keep.
His hand slides up to your ribs as if to stabilize you, and he wraps it around your middle. His forehead drops to your shoulder, raising with each jolt of your body upward, the constant slam of his cock up into your cunt and then out again.
You know few things now, except for him. Your walls clench around him, and he nearly ceases at that. You continue in his ministrations, rocking back and forth onto him, savoring in the way his length hits you in the spot that makes you feel near the brink of climax.
“I love you.” You think you hear yourself say. And he just watches you, as you chase your peak, so blissfully unaware of the words that just came from your mouth. Your sweet mouth.
Gwayne reaches a hand to cradle your head, and push it closer to his, so that he can take your sweet mouth into his. It is less of a kiss and more of two mouths pressing against each other, but you accept it either way. The two of you pant raggedly against each other, and you feel your core tighten with each deep press of his cock inside of you.
He can feel it too. It is more of threat than satisfying, the idea of spilling his seed inside of you, but you seem to not care. You might just not know. If you were true to your word of your maidenhood—he does not care if you were or not—you must be pitifully unknowledgeable on the subject.
He remembers word of you being betrothed to some high lord widow who had died on the frontlines of battle when the war first broke out, fighting for the side of your mother. Then, once you were captured, there was word of you marrying one of his two younger Targaryen nephews. The thought of you being kept as a prisoner for Aemond sends a shudder through his body, and he rids himself free of the idea as his orgasm approaches closer.
“My princess—” he tries. You do not notice. You persist in your pursuit of release, and he grips your jaw gently, catching your attention. “Look at me.”
You nod at nothing in particular, mouth hanging open and mewling needy whimpers as you oscillate on his cock.
“I cannot—I cannot cum inside.” He lets out a strangled moan as you begin grinding faster than just moments before, as if encouraging him to do so.
“Why not?” you breathe.
His head nearly lulls back as he staves off his own release. “You could get with child.”
You grip his hand and lead it to your breast, and he lets himself fall for your entrancement, kneading it between his fingers. Your nipple is caught between two of them, and he presses them together just the slightest bit too hard, earning a wince from above him. It makes him realize he has been regrettably neglecting them this entire time.
“My breasts are sore.” You inhale sharply. “I shall bleed soon.”
Ah. In that case—
Gwayne dips his hands back into the water, finding your hips to guide them, delighting in the way your moans grow more and more fervent as his cock drags against your walls.
It approaches swift, and you do not have any time nor stamina to warn him of it. You wonder if he can sense it.
Just as quick as it came, it washes over you in an instant. Your muscles clamp down around him, and he moans loud into your shoulder—you soon feel a warmth deep in your womb, the warmth of his seed. A minuscule part of you hopes it will take.
Shortly afterward, he lifts your bodies from the water, carrying you with your legs wrapped around him. His cock has slipped out of you, but the kiss he places on your lips distracts you from the loss.
You push his chest, separating your mouths, and wrap your arms around his neck. “Let us leave together, Gwayne. Silverwing is large enough to saddle two. You could be a sellsword, and I a scribe—I your wife. I shall give you children, if it is what you desire. We can spend our days in rest and tranquility, like this.” Your breath still hasn’t caught.
It is a moment of silence before Gwayne finds the words. The dubious words, though the ones that provide enough hope to settle you. “Perhaps, my princess. Do not worry yourself with eventuality.” And he sets you down on the marble just above the bath. Your calves dip back into the water, and it is then you realize that they are aching.
He kneels down into the water and takes your legs over his shoulders. You feel the stretch in your thighs, equal parts from their growing soreness and the length of his shoulders. His release begins seeping out of your cunt from the pressure of it all.
He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, then to the inside of your thigh, and then finally to your clit. His head dips down to your opening, and he sucks.
It becomes more like he is kissing, or eating you, at some point. You cannot tell. The pleasure has already gotten to be too much, and you are writhing under him.
His arms wrap around your thighs and he pulls you closer to his mouth, and you loudly and embarrassingly moan, your fingers rake through his hair, gripping it tight when his nose brushes against your clit.
You haven’t discovered his objective, but thank the gods for him. It is somewhat relaxing and simultaneously frustrating for him to be lapping away mindlessly at your cunt.
“Please, Gwayne, let me cum—” you beg, all breathless and crestfallen, and his eyes flick up to you. He finds you are the most spoiled thing he has ever met, yet also the most beautiful. He thinks, in that moment, that he truly should consider being taken as your husband.
He nods once. “As you wish.”
And his mouth is replaced by his fingers. He pumps them into you, a relentless pace, and his lips find themselves back onto you, but now on your clit.
He laps at you and rocks his fingers further inside, getting your folds all slick and glossy with both your own and his own arousal, as well as his own saliva.
He curls his fingers deep in your cunt, in that spongy spot that once sheathed his cock, and it is enough to bring you to climax before you realize it.
You swear your vision goes black for a moment as you cum, and the bliss fills your body over the irritation. It was embarrassingly fast how quickly he brought you to absolution, but you did not have enough might to let it wash over you the way your orgasm had.
Gwayne looks up at you with those big blue eyes of his, now glossed over. The lower half of his face is sheen with your cum—his cum—and he pants and lifts himself up to join you on the marble, his strong body glistening with the damp of the bath.
You think you might faint.
day fourteen
Tonight’s inn had been the nicest of all fourteen. You and Gwayne had jointly decided for it to be the last of your stops, and that you would make the journey the rest of the way there without sleeping.
It was not long to King’s Landing. As much as you had longed to see your mother, and to be home again, the thought of what would happen to Gwayne in the coming days was a thought too harrowing to bear.
But it had lingered in your mind since the field. Certainly he could not leave you, having taken your maidenhood. Your mother would find a way. She knows what it is like to be infatuated with someone you should not be infatuated with. She knows Gwayne. As a soldier for the opposition, yes, but she knows him all the more.
If she has held mercy for his sister, she would certainly hold mercy for him, especially given the situation at hand. The situation of you being in love with a Hightower, and him having bedded you—well, fucked you in a field, then in a bath, a few scattered moments along the road of him lapping at your cunt, or sticking his fingers there to cull your nerves the nights you were too tense to sleep. Your mother coddled you enough before you were taken hostage, and she would certainly do more once you are back with her.
Gwayne seems to sense your restlessness. You have resorted to single bed rooms in the inns, given the underestimated lack of coin he decided to bring with him. He has been able to pick up on your behavior for the last few days—noting to himself how much you lack sleep the closer you get to King’s Landing—and he has always been able to get you to talk about it. Tonight, you seem not wanting of his perception.
He turns over to face you. “Are you feeling well?” he asks.
You look to him for a moment. “I feel fine.”
Propping himself up on one arm, he maneuvers himself closer until he is hovering above you, as he stares down at where you lie. “You mustn’t need to lie.” His voice is soft.
Your lungs expand with a heavy breath of air. “I do not wish for you to leave when we return to the Red Keep. You told me that we would talk about it, and we never have.”
He brushes your hair behind your ear with his free hand. “What would you like to talk about?”
“I want us to wed.”
Gwayne stares into you. And then hangs his head low with laughter.
“I am serious, Gwayne. If you swore fealty to my mother, the rightful queen, she would show you mercy. I have no doubt she has shown it to your sister, and to your niece and her daughter too.” His smile was wiped from his face sometime as you spoke.
“You cannot be certain of that, though, can you princess?” he mumbles, raising his head back up to cock it to the side.
“I cannot.” You begin picking at the skin around your fingernails.
Gwayne places a hand over them, stopping you. “The agreement was for me to bring you, unharmed, to the Red Keep. And then I would leave, or they would have my head.” His hand envelops one of yours.
“My mother would not let them have it, if I simply tell her.”
“You speak lightly of a heavy thing, my princess.” He squeezes your hand a bit tighter. “If you so much as suggest that the Hightowers are anything less than treasonous vipers, your mother’s council will smell a captive who has learned to love her cage. You are her only daughter, yes, and she adores you. Therefore, if she discovers how thoroughly I have failed to keep my distance, amnesty will be the last thing she grants my house. It will be fire and blood, starting with my head on a pike.”
“She knows what it is like to love someone forbidden to her.”
Gwayne grins at your words. “She also knows she must satisfy her council,” he says softly.
As much as it pains you, you realize he is right. Yet he still remains as handsome as ever in the dark, and his lips are glossed over, looking so plump and lonely.
“Will you kiss me?” you mutter, and kiss you he does. His mouth is just as soft as you had imagined, and he is still so tender and hesitant in his ministrations you almost feel a want to take over.
Your lips are pliable, though, and part for him almost instantly. The hand that held yours comes up to cradle your cheek, and your legs open up a spot for him to slot himself into.
You are grateful for the loss of layers in spite of the outdoor elements—which have been terribly cold nearly the entire journey—as they give you easy access to the growing length in Gwayne’s linens.
He breathes a low groan into your mouth when you reach a hand under the fabric cuff of his waist to grip his cock. You pump him in a slow rhythm, and he nearly falters completely, the arm propping him up above you buckling and lowering him to his elbow.
The hand cradling your face moves to your own core, and he hastily hikes your shift up your thighs. His fingers find your cunt, pressing his thumb to your clit and stroking it.
The two of you breath and pant into one another’s mouth, the speed of both of your caresses increasing as your moans do.
“Would you—” Gwayne pants, “like me inside?”
You nod eagerly, and pull your hand from his cock. His own hand ceases motion on you, and he uses both arms to gather your body and flip you onto your stomach. The featherbed mattress bounces with the movement, and you reach your hands behind you to pull your shift up entirely to your middle, perking your ass up toward him.
Gwayne has already rid himself of his smallclothes in the meantime. He places a hand right above your backend, stabilizing both you and himself, and lines himself up with your cunt.
He leans his body over yours and presses soft kisses along your spine, pushing himself inside of you with a long groan. You let out a needy one all the same.
“Keep moving—” you beg, letting the top of your head fall to the pillow below you. He hums in response, and begins thrusting slowly, still hesitant.
It is a stretch, but a welcome one nonetheless. It is easy to lose trail of your thoughts with the drag of his cock in and out and the press of his chest to your back, the song of his pretty little grunts and groans singing in your ear.
He wraps his arms around your middle, one hand gripping a breast through the soft cotton of your shift. You flick your hair away from your neck, and his lips quickly find the spot, tipping you into absolute bliss.
One of his arms, the one not clutching your chest, sneaks down to your core, and he begins rubbing your clit with a seemingly endless vitality.
The other pushes the two of you up so that you are both standing on your knees. Your hands extend to his head behind you, pushing it closer as you awkwardly crane your neck so that you can join your lips with his in what may be the sloppiest way they have ever met each other.
His fingers continue their assault on your pearl, and his hips rock into you, and it all feels so much. So good, yet so much. Your chest rises and falls rapidly with each slam of his cock into your cunt, the strength of which also makes his head bob slightly into your kiss, coating the area above and below and beside your lips with his own spit.
There is little surprisingly little build-up to your release. It comes quick, like the tide coming in to take away a shell from the shore. It seems to tear through you, lighting up every nerve in your body, pulled straight from your breathless lungs and your racing heart and illuminating your frenzied brain with nothing other than euphoria.
He is still pumping in and out of you, seemingly chasing his own release. You feel a warmth deep in your overwhelmed cunt, and you know he has come, his body slowing entirely. He breaks away from your lips with a soft little cry, and you simply look at each other for a moment as your breath returns to the both of you.
In this moment, you think Ser Gwayne Hightower is the most beautiful creature in the world.
“You are more than a beauty,” he says in turn. You grin at him, still breathless, and join your lips together once more.
day sixteen
When you arrive at the gates of the Red Keep, Syrax and Caraxes are posted on the battlements.
You look over, and Gwayne seems as if he might just curl up and die. You scoff out a laugh at the sight, and he immediately straightens his back.
Open the gates, yells some guard from behind the wall, and the gate begins to part, grinding against the gravel below.
You will see your mother today. For the first time in months, you will see your mother. Will she be different? Is she a different person now that she is on the throne? More importantly, will she be a different person now that her eldest son is dead? You wonder if they have burned the body yet, or perhaps even set it out to sea. He could not become a Targaryen, as he would never become King—the gods would not allow it, so history will remember him as a Velaryon. It would only be fitting for his body to be released into the water.
You should tell her about this. She must be so overwhelmed with all of her recent duties, she may have forgotten about the fact. Is little Joffrey still in the Vale? Surely, mother must have sent for his return by now. He is too vulnerable there on his own, no matter who he is with.
When you blink hard in an attempt to settle yourself, you realize your horse has been guided inside the walls of the Keep, and Gwayne is helping you off of your horse. His hands are on your waist, and you jump down with a grip on his wrists to stabilize you. Yet your eyes are not on him—they are on any entrance, every door where your mother could come out of.
He sighs, and you finally glance at him. His hands hesitate to leave their spot on your middle. “You are home, and you are safe, my princess.” And then his arms drop back to his side, as if ashamed he let them linger for a moment too long.
“Must you go?” you breathe out a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood that seems to deepen with each passing moment.
His hand reaches for yours, and his voice is lower now. “It is the deal.”
For some reason, your heart seems to shatter. It feels odd and disheartening, knowing that he in this moment has a harsher effect on you than anything before.
Your expression has dropped, and Gwayne must be able to see it. His hand grips yours tighter, and he sucks in a breath, his head dropping to avoid your gaze. Your gaze, which quickly wells with tears. You are confused as to how this would have been the outcome of your journey together—and you are unsure if you are glad of it, or instead disappointed in yourself for not realizing that this is what would always happen.
You lower your voice too. “I do not want you to go,” you say, and your hand finally reciprocates Gwayne’s affection. You clutch it, tight, hoping it may get through to him.
It does not. His head does not lift, not even a single bit. You think you can see his brows furrow.
“I have done my duty, my princess,” he mumbles.
Hundreds of solutions flow through your mind in an instant. He could stay, swear fealty to your mother, and he could be yours. He could be your sworn shield and protector. He could be yours, if he would only say yes.
You open your mouth to say it, but nothing comes out. The words die on your tongue.
“Stay,” is what you can manage. “Please, Gwayne.”
His head tilts up, but he still averts his gaze from yours. Something else, something in the distance, catches his attention. It catches yours too. Two heads of familiar lengthy silver hair—your mother and her husband—inch closer to you and Gwayne.
The hand that held onto his was already back at your side. You must have done it without thought.
“Mummy,” you mumble. And she smiles.
She inches closer to you, seemingly dumbfounded that the sight before her is real. “Sweet girl,” she says, and you feel close to crumbling.
You want to step closer, to close the gap between the two of you, but you cannot bring yourself to leave his side.
But Gwayne is by your side one moment, and gone the next. He is pulled away by the gold cloaks, and it is with little struggle. He lets himself be pulled away. He lets himself be pushed out of the walls of the Keep, and he watches as you stand and stammer all bewildered and reaching to plead his forgiveness to the queen.
The gate closes on him once his horse is by his side.
day thirty five
You have not found much use for yourself since you have returned to the Red Keep. Neither has anyone else.
The war still rages on. It reminds you of the promise you had made to yourself, to leave if it did not end, to leave with Gwayne to Essos. He would be a sellsword, and you a scribe, under the protection of Silverwing.
It seemed a better life, a freer life, you and he on the road together. Being locked away in your chambers of your own volition, anything seemed better.
But Gwayne had abandoned you that day. He had let himself be carried away, and your mother had ignored your pleas of his fealty. It seemed nobody was on your side.
You had only wished for peace. Whatever had grown in place of it had taken your brothers away from you, and Gwayne, too, in some way.
If the war had not gone on, perhaps you could have met him another way. Perhaps he would have been your betrothed. And you could love him the way you wanted to, the way you should have since you woke up in the encampment with him by your side.
He had protected you all those months ago, you had come to realize. The violence of the men who fought under his command would have harmed you more than the words that came from his mouth when defending himself in your stupid fights, the ones you would feed into when he forced you to ride alongside him as the soldiers would march further into the Reach. The words that you replied with when he would anger you, when he would attempt to get close to you.
You should have let him get close to you when he tried. Your need for survival had prevailed then and you took every attempt as some sort of tactic to manipulate you to his side.
But Gwayne had no side, as you swiftly figured out. He wanted out of his cage seemingly as badly as you did, but he did the intelligent thing—the thing he warned you he would always do—and returned to his people, to those he swore loyalty to.
These days, it feels you have no people. Your mother is always off attending to her royal duties, your stepfather and cousins assisting her. And you have no brothers left to bond to. Joffrey is still too little, and too shy, to converse with. The others, your half-siblings, are just a few years young.
If the Hightowers had left you for dead that day, you think you would be more comfortable in the arms of the Stranger than you do in this seemingly haunted home. Your maidenhood would be untainted, and your memory would live on as tragic and loyal. You had left to fight for your mother’s cause after all and you would have died for it then, gods willing.
A piece of you wants to hurl yourself from a window for the treasonous thoughts you have had, but you just want peace. You want peace and freedom. Most of all, though, you want Gwayne.
You can only hope he wants you too, wherever he is. You will wait, and you will bide your time until the war is over—if you live until then. And you will take Silverwing and fly to him, and you will be with him, and you will exile yourselves to Essos. You will dream of that outcome until it happens.
─ summary: you're not speaking to them. how long before they break?
─ pairing: Gwayne Hightower, Ormund Hightower, Aegon II Targaryen, Aemond Targaryen, Daeron Targaryen, Valarr Targaryen, Jacaerys Velaryon x f!reader
─ content: 18+ MDNI | fluff | a little angst | implied smut | annoying husbands | hardheaded men
─ a/n: i wanted to add onto the original by doing the other AKOTSK/HOTD men. as always, thank you so much for the likes, comments, reblogs, requests, and asks. 🖤
AEGON — Three Days.
The first day he pretends he is not bothered at all. He drinks, he acts out, he stays up the whole night through, making a great show of being a man who doesn't care. By the second day the show is wearing thin, because the truth is that he cares a lot. All he wants is to be near you, but he is stubborn, and some part of him is convinced that you ought to apologize first. By the third day, he cannot bear it another hour. He comes to your room pouting like a scolded child, saying he is sorry, begging you to speak to him again. "I cannot continue!" Dramatic to the very last. You give in, partly because you did miss him, and partly because you would rather not have the whole keep hearing him carrying on like this.
AEMOND — Two Days.
More than anything, Aemond is desperate for love; the love you give him so freely, that no one else ever has. He knows he was wrong. He knows you are right not to speak to him. But he will not say so, because his pride is a vast and immovable thing. He lies in his own bed that second night, cold and alone and sleepless, and decides at last that his pride is not worth this. He rises, sneaks into your chambers and climbs silently into your bed, wrapping his arms around you and pressing a kiss to your forehead. "May I stay?" he asks. He cannot make himself say the words I was wrong, that is not his way, but the look in his eye, and the tears standing in it, say it loudly enough. You nod.
DAERON — Forever, Potentially.
He does not remember the fight, or you telling him to sleep elsewhere. He simply wakes to find you not speaking to him, and being who he is, assumes your love for him has finally run dry, that you no longer have it in you to endure him, and he is crushed by it. But he understands. Someone like you deserves a far better husband than the likes of him. So he resolves to disappear, to stop being a burden, to never trouble you again. It goes on like this for almost a week while you slowly lose your mind, because what in the actual hell is happening?! You confront him at last. He is stunned, he remembers none of it, but more than that, the revelation that you still love him undoes him completely. He pulls you into his arms and kisses you hard. The kind of kiss where his arms are around your waist pulling you impossibly close and your hands are curled in the front of his doublet. You're left so breathless you don't even remember why you were upset. He apologizes, swears he will change, he does not want to live in a world in which you have stopped loving him.
GWAYNE — An Hour.
The sweetest, most devoted husband, completely undone by the barest hint of your displeasure. If you are upset and not speaking to him, he lasts an hour at the very most before he comes to you with a little gift and a very big apology. He is so sorry for being so careless, he will never do such a thing again, never ever, he swears it. And he is so handsome and so sincere as he says it that staying angry is simply not an option available to you. You step into his arms and let him hold you and kiss you.
JACAERYS — Less Than an Hour.
The stress he carries makes him irritable sometimes, careless, a symptom of his youth as much as anything, and he says something snippy when you were only trying to help. He does not even let you leave the room. The words are barely out of his mouth before he regrets them and is apologizing. You try to walk past him and he stops you gently, both hands on your shoulders, his eyes piercing straight through you. He is putting an end to this before it can go anywhere at all. He repeats his apology, his hands sliding from your shoulders down to hold both of yours. You nod, but you need a moment, and he gives it to you. Your silence is the only thing he can think of, occupying him entirely until, an hour later, you come and find him, and climb into his lap, and let him hold you. He will never speak to you that way again.
ORMUND — A Day.
He is a pain in your ass, and he wants to break you. "Hmm. Not speaking to me now?" he says with that infuriating smile the moment he realizes what you are doing. He crowds your space all day, and he is, frankly, impressed by the sheer iron of your resolve. If only all his soldiers possessed your discipline. "How long do you imagine this can continue? You must speak to me sooner or later." After a full day of it, you do indeed snap. "Seven hells, do you ever stop talking?!" You storm out of the room, slamming the door behind you. He will not tolerate that in his house; he follows you, his fury matching your own, as he pulls you into the bedchamber. What follows is a fight indeed, a battle for dominance, each of you determined to have the upper hand. You win.
VALARR — Until Supper.
You and Valarr are in the middle of a thunderous fight, the first of your marriage. You and he on opposite sides of the room, nothing but tension and frigid air between you, when you decide to stop speaking to him altogether. He wants to fix this, but he also does not think hashing it out in the heat of the moment is particularly productive,not while you are both still upset. He lets you be silent, but you do not get to be angry at him all day. He comes to dress for supper and makes it clear he means to talk about it now, and he apologizes thoroughly for his part in it. It is difficult to maintain anger against someone so clearheaded. You apologize, forgive him, and ask him to help you with your dress. He decides to skip supper in favor of eating something else entirely.
— summary: when you are forced to wed gwayne hightower to secure peace in the realm, you expect a monster—definitely not the gentlest, most patient and loving man in all of westeros.
— pairing: gwayne hightower x targaryen princess!reader
— word count: ~5.6k (wow)
— content: political/arranged marriage, slow burn, probably ooc!gwayne, lots of yearning, mutual pining, idiots in love (mostly gwayne), touch starvation, gwayne wants the reader so bad he is down pathetic for her, hurt/comfort, jealousy, mild verbal harassment/flirting from a third party, gwayne being the best husband ever, tooth-totting fluff. not proofread!
writer’s note: english is not my mother tongue, so please forgive me if there is a grammatical error. hope you like it!
Life in King's Landing after the wedding was a silent, armed dance. Officially, peace reigned—of course, that had been the entire purpose of it all from the very start, despite your—and especially Daemon’s—persistent objections, your mother had been adamant.
However, unofficially, the black and green servants still avoided one another in the castle's endless hallways, the black guards would grit their teeth whenever they crossed paths with the green ones, whilst you and Gwayne Hightower shared chambers that felt more like a wintry battleground than a bridal retreat.
Ser Gwayne was patient, just as he had promised, as he had vowed to be long before your wedding, ever since you first met him, many years ago.
And irritatingly determined and persistent. He was a full-fledged knight, quite possibly the most graceful and refined knight you had ever met in your entire life, and simultaneously, was the most frustrating and exhaustingly annoying man you'd have ever found.
The realization that Gwayne was different—good different—did not sit well with you at first, at all. You had spent years preparing for the worst, ever since you were a little girl, hardening your heart to face a kind of evil beyond comprehension, a wicked, darkness-filled, and power-hungry man as your husband, only to be met with one who treated your boundaries like sacred ground.
His outrageously determined crusade to win your trust only intensified with the passing moons after the festivities of your wedding ceremony had ended. It was a campaign fought not with swords, but with quiet, incredibly detailed gestures of devotion and above all, respect.
It all appeared to be an endeavour aimed at courtship, if not outright friendly intentions.
For every morning, you would wake to find a small silver tray on your vanity. On it lay a single, freshly plucked clover from the gardens—still damp with dew—and a small cup of hot, spiced tea brewed exactly how you liked it, with a dash of dried orange peel and heavy honey. He never stayed to hand it to you, knowing you valued your morning solitude. He simply left it as a silent promise, a gesture of kindness and thoughtfulness, one that he made in the knowledge that he was not truly expecting anything in return from you.
Breakfast with the royal family was, much like every gathering within the Red Keep, a careful performance.
Queen Rhaenyra sat at the head of the table, her silver hair braided with pearls, speaking quietly with Lord Corlys over matters of the Narrow Sea. Prince Daemon lounged in his chair to her right, lazily carving an apple with his dagger instead of using the silver knife laid before him. Baela and Rhaena exchanged amused whispers further down the table, while Jacaerys attempted—unsuccessfully—to keep Joffrey from feeding scraps of bread to Tyraxes' hatchling beneath the table.
Conversation slowed the moment the heavy doors opened.
Ser Gwayne Hightower entered alone.
Dressed in dark red and black rather than the bright Hightower colors of Oldtown—a concession made after the wedding—he crossed the hall with measured steps and every eye followed him.
He bowed first before the Queen. “Your Grace.”
Then to Prince Daemon. “My King.”
Daemon merely grunted, truly unconcerned by his presence.
Only then did Gwayne turn toward you, and the indigo blue of his eyes shimmered as bright as the heavens above the moment they found you, and your beautiful face, which seemed unbelievably more radiant that particular morning—like he always thought every morning.
You sat halfway down the table amongst your family, absently stirring honey into your spiced tea.
There was an empty chair beside yours and absolutely no one there would have questioned him for taking it, he was your husband, after all.
But, still, he stopped beside it, folding his hands neatly behind his back as he gazed down at you with soft eyes.
“My Princess,” Gwayne's voice was quiet enough that only the table could hear, “...may I sit beside you?”
Baela's brows lifted, Rhaena blinked, Jacaerys looked from Gwayne to you, visibly confused, as Luke was covering his mouth to avoid bursting into laughter. Even Queen Rhaenyra paused mid-sentence.
You slowly looked up from your teacup, your silvery brow wrinkling on your forehead. “Y–you are asking me?”
“I am.” He nodded once, giving you a quick, dimpled smile, his lips trembling slightly out of sheer nervousness.
The sight of your magnificent lavender eyes narrowing at him brought a sudden sweat to Gwayne’s palms and a thrilling shiver down his spine.
“You do realize you are my husband, Gwayne.” You tilted your head, visually disturbed by the entirety of the situation.
“I do.”
“And husbands generally do not request permission to sit beside their wives.”
“I know,” another faint, nervous smile touched his finely shaped lips. “I simply thought...” he continued, “...that perhaps you might prefer to enjoy breakfast with your family alone.”
Daemon let out a low snort at his words and so did Luke.
The Rogue Prince leaned back in his chair, watching the exchange with open amusement before taking a leisurely bite of his apple.
“I have seen beaten hounds with more confidence,” the prince drawled.
But Gwayne didn't even bother listening to him, since he was too absorbed in looking at you, taking in the beauty of your gorgeous face, and delighting in the pleasure of having your beautiful eyes lock onto his for such a long moment.
“If you would rather I sit elsewhere,” Gwayne continued softly, “I shall.”
Daemon barked out a laugh this time, “there it is.”
Rhaenyra shot her husband a warning glance, silencing him instantly.
The corner of your mouth threatened to twitch and you concealed it behind a gentle sigh.
“You may sit, Ser Gwayne.”
The relief that softened his features was almost imperceptible, but you, obviously, were able to catch a sight of it. “Thank you, my darling.”
Only then did he pull out the chair and he waited until you had resumed your breakfast before seating himself, careful not to invade your space.
The faint flush already lingering upon his rosy, cute cheeks deepened into a intense red the moment you gifted him a gentle, intimate smile, reserved only for him to experience.
And he understood that, perhaps, you were starting to like him.
One warm afternoon, you find him in the library.
He is sitting at the massive oak table, surrounded by piles of heavy, leather-bound books. His forehead is furrowed in deep concentration, and he is clumsily trying to translate a passage of High Valyrian, his pronunciation so atrocious that even from the doorway, you could hear him butchering the ancient vowels.
“It is ñuha, Gwayne, not nu-ha,” you correct him, leaning against the doorframe. “You sound like a dying frog, Ser.”
Gwayne is startled, cousing him to drop his quill, which lefts a tiny blot of ink on his nose. He looks up, a sheepish but entirely delighted grin breaking across his handsome face.
Your husband is breathtakingly beautiful, not only that day, but every bloody day; his flaming red hair seems to burn under the afterglow of the dying sun, and his face, oh his face, flushed with embarrassment and shy delight, beams under your heavy gaze.
You can easily see how truly happy he is to have earned a glimpse of your notice, one that isn’t merely a display of good manners or basic politeness, but real attention and genuine interest in him.
“I must apologize, my princess,” still, your husband hurries to excuse himself, flashing you a sheepish smile. “I have been endeavoring to master a few words of the tongue of your ancestors... Though it was never my intent that you should overhear my clumsy attempts, darling.”
You lean your head back against the heavy wooden frame of the door, crossing your arms over your chest as you look over at him. You squint your eyes, granting yourself a quick moment to meticulously examine his features.
The ink smudge on his nose does absolutely nothing to diminish how strikingly handsome he is. If anything, it softens his countenance, rendering him younger—a dream made flesh—as he looks up at you as though you alone have hung the stars in the celestial vault.
“Clearly,” you mock, a thread of gentle amusement and teasing irony weaving into your voice as you finally detach yourself from the timber frame.
With measured, quiet steps, you cross the quiet chamber floor and come to a standstill beside his high-backed chair, looking down upon the erratic, ink-stained scratching that mars his parchment and all over his face.
Gwayne is utterly perplexed, rendered near speechless, unable to bring himself to move at all, unwilling to risk upsetting you too much and having you step away, for your closeness and warmth and the way you are looking down at him have him holding his breath and entirely spellbound.
“...Princess?”
Before your lips can shape a reply, your hand moves toward him. Your fingers advance with a sudden, delicate hesitation. You gently press the pad of your thumb against his nose, wiping away the dark stain of ink he has left behind.
At your touch, Gwayne freezes instantly. Not only that, the breath abandons his lungs entirely; his azure eyes widen as the soft skin of your fingers makes contact with his warming cheek.
He does not draw back, nor does he make any motion to stay your hand. He simply sits there, utterly captive to your gentle touch, his visage flushing a deeper, more magnificent shade of pink beneath the warmth of your thumb.
“You have ruined your cute little nose, husband,” you note softly, your voice scarce above a whisper, striving—and failing—to maintain a veneer of cold indifference.
“A worthy sacrifice,” Gwayne breathes, his gaze dropping to your lips for a fleeting, breathless second before rising once more to meet your eyes, alight with a quiet, shimmering hope.
Slowly, you pull your hand back, though you don't step away. You point to a specific line on his parchment, where he has scribbled a phrase over and over again until the ink is nearly illegible.
“You wrote this wrong,” you say, your tone softening further as you lean over the table, your shoulder brushing lightly against his doublet. “Here. ‘Kirimvose, ñuha dōra.’ You translated it as ‘Thank you, my peace.’ But dōra is a very clunky word for it. If you want to say it correctly...”
You take up his discarded quill, dip the nib into the dark inkwell, and trace a clean, elegant script of High Valyrian beneath his unpracticed scrawls.
“...you must say, ‘Kirimvose, ñuha mēre.’ Thank you, my only.”
Gwayne stares at the graceful calligraphy, then lifts his eyes to yours, his green gaze shimmering in the dying, amber light of the afternoon.
He repeats the foreign words on his tongue, his pronunciation still marred by a slight Andal accent, yet spoken with such profound, deliberate weight that the phrase hangs in the air like a solemn vow.
“Kirimvose, ñuha mēre,” he echoes after you, striving with earnest devotion to no longer appear a shameful sight in your estimation.
“Mhm...” you hum in quiet approval, nodding faintly as your eyes trail from the manuscript back to his face. “You are a fast learner, Gwayne.”
For a long, suspended moment, neither of you breaks the silence. There is only the scent of aged parchment, the fading golden glory of the sunset, and the steady, quiet rhythm of Gwayne’s breathing beside you.
Slowly, you slide your hand across the polished oak table, until your fingers brush against his own.
Gwayne’s breath catches in his throat. He does not immediately clasp your hand; instead, he waits, granting you ample grace to pull away should you so choose. But when you remain right there beside him, his fingers slowly, reverently fold over yours. His palm is warm and somewhat calloused, yet his grip is incredibly tender, as though he were cradling something infinitely precious and fragile.
He is always like that. Gentle, patient. Always patient.
It is utterly infuriating.
You find the very existence of Gwayne Hightower entirely vexing, for you have grown accustomed to the tales of husbands who behave like conquerors, thieves and exploiters who claim everything and yield nothing in return, destroying the sacred meaning of marriage and devotion and love. Men who demand blind obedience, heirs, and subservience.
Instead, yours asked for permission before sitting beside you at the morning meal.
Gwayne is different. Good different. And that realization unsettles your soul more than any open threat ever could.
The shift between you is subtle, yet undeniable, a quiet, hairline fracture in the ice. Over the passing days, you find yourself less inclined to retreat into the guarded shadows of your mind during the evening feast.
No longer do you reach for the comfort of your own mind the very instant he crosses the threshold, nor flee far from his company, flying away on your dragon. Instead, you watch, you see him. You see the way he carries himself amongst the household guards, the way he never forces his presence upon your solitude, and how he genuinely, stubbornly persists in his quiet courtship.
You find yourself struggling to ignore the waves of warmth spreading through your chest every time you're with him, increasing your heartbeat, accompanied by that giddy feeling in the pit of your belly.
And as the days rolled by, you gradually got comfortable with Gwayne's persistent hovering around you.
One particularly cloudy morning, he made you giggle.
By the time Viridrax touches down upon the stone platform, kicking up a storm of dust and ash, your heart is still drumming against your ribs as you dismount gracefully.
You stroke the warm, rough hide of Viridrax's snout, breathing in the familiar scent of ozone and brimstone of her.
“Rikās, Viridrax,” you whisper softly in High Valyrian, resting your forehead against her snout. Stay. “Rest, my girl.”
The green dragon let out a long puff of hot smoke that singed the hem of your riding leathers, nuzzling your shoulder before settling down with a heavy, earth-shaking thud.
You unbuckle your flying gloves, your silver hair wild and wind-tangled, your cheeks flushed from the biting chill of the upper sky.
Turning to head toward the cavernous exit of the Dragonpit, you expect to see only the stoic, iron-clad Dragonkeepers—only to freeze in your tracks.
Standing right at the edge of the landing platform... is Gwayne.
He is wrapped in a heavy, dark red cloak lined with fur, standing entirely alone in the shadow of the colossal stone arches.
He looks painfully out of place amidst the ancient, dark stone of the dragonpit, yet he stands unnaturally still, his jaw set in a rigid line.
You see the exact moment he fights himself. He takes a heavy, deliberate breath, forcing his boots to stay firmly planted on the cold stone. He squares his shoulders, swallows hard against the knot of fear in his throat, and wills his trembling hands to relax at his sides.
He refuses to run. He refuses to look weak or faint-hearted in your eyes, forcing a composure he clearly does not feel as he faces down a nightmare made of scales and fire simply to be near you.
When his gaze finally locks onto yours, the terror in his eyes softens, replaced by that quiet, stubborn devotion that had been relentlessly chipping away at your own walls for moons.
“You are a fool, Gwayne,” you call out to him, your voice cutting through the heavy, tense silence of the vault as you slap your gloves against your leather-clad thigh. “Viridrax does not share my patience, and she certainly does not share my tolerance for Hightowers.”
A soft, breathless laugh escapes Gwayne's rosy lips, though it sounded more like a relieved gasp as he managed to hold his ground before you. “Then it is fortunate... that I came to see you, my Princess, and not your... magnificent companion.”
Very sowly and cautiously, as if navigating a minefield, he takes two measured steps forward, coming to a stop just a few paces away. He is still within strike of Viridrax’s tail, yet he focus every ounce of his attention entirely on you, forcing the looming threat of the beast right behind your back into the background of his mind.
“You've been standing in this damp pit,” you note, narrowing your eyes as you studied the pale flush on his handsome face and the faint tremor in his hands. “How long?”
“Long enough to watch you descend from the heavens,” Gwayne replies softly, a faint, sheepish smile finally managing to break through his nervous tension. “It was... a terrifyingly beautiful sight. Though I must admit, standing down here requires s–significantly more courage than I—I anticipated.”
Right as the last stuttered word leaves his lips, Viridrax shifts her immense weight behind you.
The massive emerald dragon stretches her neck, opening her cavernous jaws to release a sudden, bone-rattling growl—a deep, reverberating snarl that vibrates through the flagstones and shakes the very dust from the vaulted ceiling. A cloud of scalding, sulfurous steam vents straight from her nostrils, whipping the hem of Gwayne’s dark red cloak around his boots.
Gwayne’s forced composure shatters in an instant.
His indigo eyes widen to the size of silver stags. He squeaks—a high, pathetically un-knightly sound—and jumps a good foot into the air, instinctively throwing his arms up to shield his face. His boots scramble backward on the slick stone as if he were trying to outrun a falling star, his grand cloak wrapping clumsily around his legs until he nearly trips over his own spurs.
A sudden, helpless snort escapes you. You clap a gloved hand over your mouth, but it is useless. A burst of giggles bubble up from deep within your chest, echoing wildly off the high stone walls of the Dragonpit.
Gwayne blinks, his wide, terrified gaze slowly darting from the dragon over to you. Seeing you helpless with laughter, his pale cheeks instantly flood with a dark, burning crimson that spreads all the way to the tips of his ears.
You gently reach out and clasp his hand, your fingers curling firmly around his trembling, warm palm.
“I have seen seasoned knights faint in her presence,” you tease him. “But I do believe that high-pitched squeak was a first.”
Gwayne lets out a long, heavy sigh, his fingers instantly clasp yours, firm and desperate. “I believe she enjoys seeing me humiliate myself in front of you. Like everyone else in this place.”
“Oh, she doesn't care enough about you to want to humiliate you, my lord,” you say, your thumb lightly rubbing the back of his knuckles to soothe the lingering panic in his pulse. “But Viridrax would never harm you. Not while you belong to me.”
He is rendered speechless and with his jaw hanging open in utter amazement, he happily lets you pull him along by his hand.
You like Gwayne Hightower.
And the catalyst of it all arrives upon a sweltering evening, during a feast thrown to celebrate your mother, the Queen's name day. The Great Hall is suffocating, thick with the heavy stench of roasted meats, the clinking of silver chalices, and the low, rumbling laughter of lords who wear their loyalties like hidden daggers beneath their velvet doublets.
Gwayne remains by your side for the better part of the night, watching over your form with that quiet, devoted vigilance to which you have slowly grown accustomed.
He is, as ever, the very mirror of a chivalrous knight, attentive, pouring your sweet Arbor wine before his own cup is even touched. Yet, the fragile illusion of peace shatters the moment the musicians strike up a slower, more solemn air.
“My princess,” a drawling, dangerously familiar voice interrupts your thoughts.
Turning, your gaze falls upon Ser Lucon. He wears a smug, mocking smirk and offers a grand, sweeping bow that does nothing to conceal the bold, unseemly lust lingering within his dark eyes.
Lucon is a handsome, swaggering lordling from the Crownlands, possessing dark curls and an arrogance that has long since outstayed its welcome. He was numbered among the many suitors who actively courted your favor before your political match to Gwayne Hightower was sealed by the High Septon.
“It would be an absolute tragedy for the fairest maid in the keep to sit out such a song,” he says, extending a gloved hand toward you. “Grant me this dance, Your Grace. For the sake of old days.”
With an imperceptible sigh, you place your hand in Lucon’s grip.
“A single dance, Ser,” you consent, your voice flat and strictly formal.
Before stepping onto the rushes of the floor, you catch Gwayne’s eye. His jaw is clenched so tightly it resembles carved stone, his fingers brush restlessly against the pommel of his sword.
Lucon leads you into the center of the hall. As the measure begins, he presses closer than etiquette or decency should ever permit, his hand gripping your waist with an unnecessary, firm pressure that draws you flush against his massive frame.
“The livery of the greens suits you, my princess,” Lucon whispers near your ear, his warm breath thoroughly vexing your senses. “Though every soul in the Red Keep knows that squire of a husband possesses not the slightest inkling of what to do with a dragon’s fire.”
“Watch your tongue, Ser Lucon,” you hiss, keeping your visage a mask of polite indifference as the steps force you both to spin. “Gwayne is my lord husband, and I assure you he is twice the knight you could ever hope to be.”
Lucon lets out a soft, derisive laugh that makes your blood boil in your veins.
“Is he? For from where I stand, I can feel how cold your skin remains. Were you mine...”
Before the lordling can finish his blasphemy, a heavy, iron-firm hand clad in boiled leather grips his shoulder, bringing your turn to an abrupt and dead halt.
Gwayne has stepped directly onto the dance floor. His blue eyes, usually so soft and pleading when they seek yours, are now dark as a stormy night, fixed upon Lucon with a promise of absolute violence.
“Your dance is finished, ser,” Gwayne says. His voice is a low, raspy whisper, yet it carries a lethal edge that causes the nearby lords and ladies to step back hastily, sensing the sudden peril.
Lucon, striving to maintain his arrogant facade, does not relinquish his grip upon your waist right away.
“Ser Gwayne, let us not ruin protocol. The Princess and I were—”
“I said, unhand my wife,” Gwayne interrupts, stepping forward so sharply that Lucon is forced backward by sheer physical instinct. Gwayne’s hand slides down from the knight's shoulder, clamping around Lucon's wrist with a crushing, bone-grating grip to force his release. “Now. Before I forget where we stand and decide to teach you proper court manners in the middle of this hall.”
The tension within the Great Hall becomes suffocating. The hands of your guards drift toward their swords, and your kin move a step closer. The air is thick, ready to spark into a bloodbath over a sudden flash of jealousy.
Knowing that a single wrong move could incite slaughter this night, you step in, subtly placing your body between both men. You press a firm hand against Gwayne’s chest and beneath the fine fabric of his doublet, you can feel his heart hammering wildly, violently, like a trapped beast.
“That is enough,” you announce, your voice ringing with an authority that commands the quieted room. You fix Lucon with a look of pure disdain. “If you dare to ever raise a hand to me or my husband again, that will be the last time you'll have hands. Leave us now.”
Lucon swallows hard, looking from Gwayne’s iron grip upon his wrist to the fierce fire in your eyes. Offering a stiff, forced bow, he retreats into the crowd, quickly losing himself in the shadows of the pillars.
Gwayne does not break his stare from the corridor where Lucon vanished, his chest heaving with heavy, erratic breaths. He is trembling slightly—not from any tremor of fear, but from the massive, physical restraint it takes not to draw his steel and kill the lord.
You take his hand, sliding your fingers into his and the touch seems to pull him back from the brink of madness; his sky blue eyes find yours, wide and filled with a raw, vulnerable mix of wrath and desperation.
“Are you well, my love?” still, he needs to ensure your well-being, his other hand rising close to your face, grazing your cheekbone just a tickle. "Forgive me. I... I lost my composure. If I have embarrassed you—"
“I am well,” you assure him. “Let us return to our chambers, p–please, Gwayne.”
Your wish is his command.
The heavy oak doors of your chambers have scarce clicked shut behind you before the silence within the room becomes unbearable.
Gwayne immediately begins unbuckling his ceremonial clothing and trappings, his movements uncharacteristically rough, frantic, and impatient. He hurls his heavy leather gauntlets onto the table with a resounding thud.
“You were jealous,” you accuse, cutting through the quiet, tense silence.
Gwayne freezes. He keeps his back turned to you for a long, agonizing moment, his shoulders rigid beneath his fine linen shirt.
When he slowly turns around, you can see how weak and vulnerable his composure truly is. His auburn hair is slightly disheveled, and his eyes lock onto yours with a desperate, burning intensity.
“I am a man, darling, not a statue of the Seven,” he says, his voice raw with emotion and despair. “I have spent months keeping my distance, respecting your sanctuaries, sleeping on the very edge of our bed because I wanted—I needed—you to feel safe in my presence. I have choked down my own desires every single day.”
You look up at him, your own breath catching in your throat. The dangerous, thrilling tension in the chamber is so thick it makes you hold your breath.
“Desires?” Your absurd remark is swallowed up by his deep voice, and with every step he takes closer to you, it feels as if your chest is collapsing.
“—watching him look upon you in that manner? Watching his hands defile your waist, whispering filth into your ear, smell your scent?” Gwayne’s breath catches, his jaw tight as iron. “Yes. I was jealous. I desired nothing more than to tear him apart on the rushes.”
“And what of now, Gwayne?” you challenge softly, stepping even closer, until your chest almost brushes his. “Are you still angry?”
“Not angry,” Gwayne denies, his gaze dropping instantly to your lips, his hands trembling slightly at his sides as he fights the desperate urge to seize you, to touch you, to hold you close to him and never let you go. “Tormented. Because you stand so close, and I am still striving to be the gentleman you deserve. B–but I... I was a fool. I allowed my temper to master me and—and I embarrassed you before the court and before your mother and your family—”
“You truly are a fool, Hightower.”
His face falls. For one terrible heartbeat, he believes you have confirmed his deepest terror—that he has frightened you, that every careful step forward over the past moons has just crumbled beneath his own beastly nature, his most profound instinct, his own feelings.
“I am terribly sorry, please forg—”
“You stopped.”
The words are quiet, but they silence him instantly.
You look upon him for a long moment before continuing, trying to properly piece together the thoughts you're trying to express, making sense out of the overwhelming turmoil of emotions that's raging in your chest.
“You could have struck him down. You could have just―thrown your gauntlet. Seven hells, most husbands in this wretched court would have drawn steel before the man even finished insulting their honor. Because that's all that matters to them―their own honor, their own property, their own m–masculine pride.” Your eyes search the depths of his. “Instead... you stopped.”
Gwayne swallows, his throat dry. “B–barely.”
“But you did. I expected to spend my days bound to a stranger who would demand everything from me, to whom I would be nothing more than a prize with the right family name, something of his own property, another boost to his own pride.”
Your fingers hesitate before lightly smoothing a wrinkle in the front of his linen shirt, your fingers trembling with emotion against his body, overwhelmed by that flood of mixed feelings rushing through your heart and body.
You can feel his heart pounding up against the palm of your hand, so powerful and fast that it makes your flesh crawl. “I never...I never imagined I would wed a man who offers apologies for being jealous when another touches his lady wife.”
His cheeks flush. “I fear I was not particularly knightly, then.”
“No,” a faint smile tugges at your lips, and at that, his tense shoulders slump slightly. “You were terribly possessive.”
“Yes.”
“And rather intimidating,” you add.
“...Unfortunately. I didn't mean to scare you.”
“And,” you continue, unable to suppress the amusement warming your voice, “I believe Ser Lucon may never dare speak to me or even look at me again.”
“Well,” Gwayne says softly, a faint, lopsided smirk finally tugging at the corner of his finely shaped lips as his earlier shame gives way to quiet amusement, “in my defense, darling... you did threaten to cut his hands off.”
You blink, a sudden, breathy laugh bubbling up from your chest before you can stop it. “I was protecting my husband and myself.”
“And you did so with terrifying grace,” he murmurs, stepping the final fraction of an inch closer.
When you remain right where you are, leaning into his touch, his breath hitches in his throat. His thumb gently brushes against the fabric at your hip, his beautiful eyes sparkling with deep devotion.
But to your astonishment, Gwayne looks utterly horrified now.
“Oh.”
You blink. “...Oh?”
“I may have squeezed his wrist with too much force.”
Despite yourself, a laugh escapes you. A genuine one, bright and warm, echoing softly through the high timber rafters of the chamber, a sudden, sweet sound that cuts through the lingering tension of the evening like a blade through silk.
And for a heartbeat, Gwayne simply forgets how to draw breath.
He stands utterly still, his chest freezing mid-rise as though a spell has been cast over his very bones. His gentle eyes, wide, fix upon your lips and the soft crinkling at the corners of your eyes, committing the sight to memory.
“Gods,” he whispers, the word slipping past his lips on a breathless prayer.
You look up at him, the residual warmth of the smile still lingering upon your face, softening the pretty lines of your features. “What?”
“I have been trying for months,” he confesses softly.
“Trying what, Ser?”
“To make you laugh,” Gwayne responds. The solemnity of his voice breaks as a sheepish, self-deprecating smile tugs at his lips. “Though I fear my efforts have been entirely lacking. I have only managed to embarrass myself at every turn.”
You pull a little mocking grimace, a playful tilt of your chin that you haven't granted to another soul in the world. “You do possess a remarkable talent for that.”
“I know,” he murmurs, his laugh a low, rich vibration.
Without announcing your intent, you close the final span of floor between you and reach for his hands.
Gwayne’s eyes snap back to yours, a sudden, sharp hitch in his breathing betraying his astonishment and his smile fades. Yet, he does not hesitate. He closes his hands around your own with that same impossible, agonizing gentleness he always reserves for you, a man accustomed to the weight of a broadsword holding your fingers as though you are fashioned from the most fragile, priceless Valyrian glass.
You look down at your joined hands, his sun-kissed, calloused skin grazing against yours.
“Your palms are cold,” he notices, his thumbs immediately beginning a slow, sweeping motion across the backs of your hands, seeking to share the immense heat of his own body.
“They usually are,” you reply, a slight shrug shifting the fine fabric of your gown.
A crease appears between his brows, a look of genuine, heavy concern clouding his handsome face as he looks up. “You never spoke of this, my love.”
You shrug again, though a sudden, treacherous blush warms your cheeks beneath the intensity of his gaze and the way he pronounce the term of endearment. “I did not think it mattered.”
“It matters to me,” Gwayne counters instantly, his voice leaving no room for argument, heavy with a quiet, fierce conviction. “Every minor discomfort you bear matters to me, princess.”
He does not force the movement; his grip remains loose enough that you could pull away with the slightest tug. His beautiful eyes lock onto yours, silently, reverently begging for your permission.
You look into that azure gaze, finding no malice at all, but love and a patience that has finally broken through your defenses.
Finally, you give the smallest, faintest nod of your head.
Only then does he turn your hands over within his palms. Gwayne lowers his head, his auburn hair catching the gold of the firelight of your shared chambers, and presses the softest, most breathless kisses imaginable against your knuckles.
His lips are warm and parted slightly, the touch lasting barely a second—so brief, so achingly tender it could have been a passing whim of the autumn wind. Yet, the heat of it ripples up your arms and straight into your heart.
When Gwayne lowers your hands close against his heart, he looks almost startled by his own boldness, a deep blush creeping along his high cheekbones and down the column of his neck.
“I hope...” he says quietly, his voice catching in his throat as he searches your face for any sign of regret, “...that was not unwelcome.”
You look at him for what feels like an eternity and then, lifting one of your hands, you slowly reach up towards his face. Your fingertips hesitate for a fraction of a second before you gently brush a stray lock of fiery red hair away from his freckled forehead.
“No, my sweet husband,” you promise him, your hand lingering there, the palm of your hand cupping the warm, sharp line of his jaw as you look into the eyes of the man who has won your heart. “It was not. Nothing from you shall be unwelcome.”
He closes his eyes and presses his face up against the palm of your hand, seeking desperately to feel the warmth of your affection and melt into the gentle embrace of your love.
summary: gwayne finally returns from the war after months away to claim you at last, only to find that you and ormund have grown far closer than he anticipated, and that his cousin has no intention of letting you go so easily. (13k)
contents: targ!reader (no physical descriptions), love triangle, enemies to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, forbidden love, infidelity, canon divergence, cw for emotional manipulation, mentions of ptsd, descriptions of blood and gore, s3ep6 spoilers, smut 18+ (MDNI): gwayne gets a much needed handjob, fem receiving oral
( PART ONE ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
vi. RUIN & RETURN
It had been six days since Gwayne’s letter arrived at camp; five since the Hightower host marched for Tumbleton; and one since you arrived within the ancient walls to wait.
Ormund had not allowed you to read it. He tossed the parchment into the hearth before you could so much as ask and promptly reached for his sword, unsheathing the steel with a strange air of control, right before a shout tore from his throat. He brought the blade down onto the war table hard enough to splinter the old wood. “Useless craven— Coward— Cunt!” he bellowed with every blow, until the ivory pieces sitting atop the map scattered to the floor like knocked-out teeth.
You stood on the far side of the tent, wrapped in your nightgown and still sticky with sex between the thighs, and watched the man lose all of his usual composure in the space of a single breath. Daeron stood just in front of you, not quite broad or tall enough to protect you from his uncle’s rage, but trying to shield you from it nonetheless.
With one final wavering exhale, Ormund sheathed his sword again and left it lying flat on the ruined table before him. His tense shoulders loosened as he raised a hand to swipe a rogue auburn curl from his brow. He turned to face you again with a much more careful, if only slightly unhinged, smile on his mouth.
“There has been no sight of Aemond,” he announced at last. “Nor Vhagar— We’ll have to proceed to Tumbleton on our own. Gwayne will meet us there in time.”
It was not joy alone that heavied your chest at the sound of his name. It was much closer to dread, which burned as it rose into your throat like bile — alongside something that should’ve felt like love but had since grown into something far more complicated in your last few moons as prisoner. You turned from him at once and shoved the tent flap aside just in time to exorcise your sickness onto the dewy grass below.
The dread did not leave with it, and neither did the guilt.
Now you sit at the long table of another manse’s dining hall, far humbler than that of the Red Keep but still a palace compared to the war tents, and watch the last of the orange sunrise die over the hills through the arched windows. Somewhere down that road, your husband rides towards you — alone and hunted and entirely unaware of what awaits him in these walls.
“You’ve hardly touched your supper,” Ormund says beneath the soft scrape of his knife as he cuts himself a slice of honeyed boar. Despite not having properly dined since the war began, he eats with a methodical sort of restraint. He takes small bites, chews each of them thoroughly, and doesn’t talk again until he swallows. “I’m not going to have to feed you myself again, am I?”
You miss the amusement dancing on the edge of his melodic voice with your attention fixed on the window, where the dark edge of the hill meets the violet sky. “I’m not hungry,” you answer distantly.
“Yes. You said as much yesterday as well,” Ormund sighs with all the exasperation of a man grown tired of losing his battles with you. “I’d have thought you might be glad to have a proper kitchen. With proper cooks. With proper food.”
His apathy cuts you like a blade, which has grown sharper and more frequent since the letter arrived at camp. It seemed to sever whatever spell had briefly held the two of you together before now; or otherwise shut something in Ormund that has not opened since he learned of his cousin’s imminent arrival.
“Well, forgive me, my lord,” you say with a voice as thin as Valyrian steel. “If my husband’s sudden return from the dead has rather spoiled my appetite.”
Ormund’s eyes snap up from his plate at once. They’re pale and unreadable and utterly void of the warmth you’d grown so accustomed to. When the blue of his eyes are warm, they’re like swimming in the languid blue of a summer sea. They carry none of that silken familiarity tonight.
“He is not dead yet," Ormund reminds you with his brows raised to his hairline. “So far as either of us knows, anyway.”
Yet. The word alone makes you flinch, though you cannot yet tell if he means it as cruelly as it feels. You find more and more these days that you can no longer tell the difference with him now.
“What am I to say to him?” you wonder suddenly aloud, as if the question had been building in your throat since you learned of Gwayne’s arrival. Your anxious hands twist in the charcoal-silver skirts borrowed from Lady Footly’s closet; a gift, Ormund called it, despite it not belonging to either of you. “When Gwayne arrives— what do I tell him? How am I meant to look at him?”
“You are his wife,” Ormund responds plainly, with one careless roll of his broad shoulders. “I suppose you’ll look at him as you always have.”
Your face screws with a choked-back anger. “That’s not an answer—”
“No. But it’s the only one I have.” He sets his fork and knife on the plate with a heavy clink and leans back in his chair. He tilts his chin upward to stare at you over the top of the glittering candles between you, ringed fingers fidgeting over the pale white cloth.
“I have an army to feed, men to protect, and walls to build before Rhaenyra’s dragonfire can swallow the castle whole,” he continues in a monotone. “Unfortunately, I no longer possess the luxury, or the patience, of coddling your guilt.”
His words burn red-hot through your chest, searing you like a brand. You flinch away from them as if he’d struck you physically, though it might’ve hurt less if he had. Your eyes sting as your throat tightens around all the words you want to fling back at him — perhaps that he had not seemed so burdened by you a week past, when his mouth was on you and his fingers were in you; that he had not been so burdened by your guilt all the weeks before that, when he swore your safety mattered to him above his cousin’s own claim to you.
But you swallow down the accusations now and throw your napkin onto your untouched plate instead. Your chair scrapes hard against the cobbles as you rise from the table in a rush of black and silver silk.
“Where are you going now?” Ormund huffs.
“For a walk,” you answer without looking back at him.
“You haven’t even touched your food,” he calls to your retreating figure, motioning to your uneaten plate with a ringed hand. His even voice begins to fray at the edges, “Sit down and eat—”
“Feed it to the hounds—”
“Sit!” His voice cracks through the room like thunder when your hand curls around the cold brass door handle. The sheer volume of his voice, the raw bite underneath it, roots you in place. Your head turns slowly to find the man glaring at you from his spot at the table, though the scowl on his chiseled features disappears just as quickly as it came on.
His eyes flutter shut as his broad chest inflates behind his emerald coat, with a slow breath in through his nose. You watch the man walk himself down from some invisible ledge — tense shoulders dropping, clenched fists easing, rough breaths coming easier again.
“I’m sorry…” Ormund says when he opens his eyes again. The light in the pale blue of his gaze has returned to him, you find, and so has the softness in his smile when he rises from his chair to meet you. “I am sorry, my love— I forget myself— This war has driven me half-mad, if you could not already tell.”
He exhales a faint laugh that you do not join him in. He crosses the distance between you in a few short strides, wide hands settling along the outsides of your elbows — warm, even through the thin sleeves of your gown. You peer up at him through your lashes, uncertain whether the tenderness he extends to you now is real or simply the version he’s allowing himself to show you.
“If ever I am… cross with you. Or short with you in any way— It is never because of you, understand?” Ormund confesses lowly, eyes darting back and forth between your weary ones. “It takes me a moment to remember myself, is all… You understand that, don’t you?”
You swallow hard and nod wordlessly in response, though what you most desperately want to tell him in that moment is that Gwayne had never been so cross with you. That not once in your moons of marriage had he so much as raised his voice at you or frightened you the way Ormund has in such short time. You want to say it if only to see it hurt him the way his words have hurt you. Instead, you say nothing.
“He does not have to know,” Ormund murmurs to you, thumbs brushing your arm in an absent, reassuring gesture. “Nothing occurred between us that was not asked of me. I gave you only what you wanted— Surely a man cannot be faulted for answering his summons.”
Your brows lower over your narrowed eyes. “Are you saying that… that what we did is my fault alone?”
“Of course not!” Ormund laughs, broad hands rising to cup your burning cheeks between them. His palms are warm and calloused; they feel like velvet as they brush your skin. “I’m saying neither of us is at fault— You said it yourself, did you not? The war broke your vows. Not us.”
Some traitorous part of you, so desperate for absolution, nearly softens into his touch at that. You did not ask to be taken from the Red Keep; you did not ask for Ormund's protection; you did not ask for a husband to ride off at dawn and leave you to wonder all these months whether he was living or dead.
You are desperate and half-convinced in your own madness, but you think that perhaps Gwayne will understand that. That surely a woman who believed herself abandoned and already widowed cannot be faulted for the comfort she found in the meantime. It is a thing far too fragile to build a conscience on, but you cling to the comfort of it anyway.
“My cousin rides to Tumbleton alone— without his own army and with Daemon’s surely hunting him,” Ormund coos gently to you, sweeping his thumb across your skin. “It is entirely possible that he will not survive the journey here at all. And then there would be nothing for you to confess… And you would’ve spent all these days worrying for naught.”
The words settle over you like ice in your veins. Your eyes dart back and forth between his own as you search for something human within him — some acknowledgment of what he’s just comforted you with — and find nothing in return.
“You speak of his death like it would be a mercy to me,” you whisper, voice thick with unshed tears.
“I speak of it only as a possibility," Ormund corrects softly. “I only mean to spare you the fear of it, my love. Is that not a kindness?”
You do not answer him. You could not even if you wanted to; not with the invisible hand curling its way around your throat, as you listen to the man who’s protected you from certain death frame your husband's demise as a kindness done on your behalf.
But when Ormund ducks softly down to press a sickly sweet kiss to your mouth, tasting of the sweet wine and honeyed figs from supper, you cannot seem to pull away from him. Gods forgive you, but you lean into it instead; you ball the collar of his coat into fists and chase the comfort in his mouth the way you’ve chased the safety of his hands since you were brought to his side.
You think of the man who fed you bread from his own fingers when you would not eat; who cut down a hedgeknight before he could harm you; who wrapped you in his blankets and warmed your fingers in his hands on particularly freezing nights.
That man is still in there, somewhere, hidden beneath the throes of war.
You fear what might become of him before it’s done.
vii. MUD & MERCY
You stand before the tallest window of the Tumbleton manse, overlooking the winding ivied streets below. They lead straight to the western gate, where the scouts had seemingly spotted a rider without banners in the distance — a messenger from another camp, they said, or maybe Gwayne. The dying sunlight paints the sky in milky orange hues while you pick at the ragged skin of your thumbnail in an absentminded worry. The delicate nailbed splits and blooms red.
You do not notice until a silken handkerchief is motioned suddenly in the corner of your eye.
Your head whips to find Daeron standing at your elbow, green eyes glimmering and pink mouth fixed into a firm line of boyish solemnity. He stands taller than you now, which hadn’t been the case when you first arrived at camp — now you have to look up to properly meet the young boy’s gaze.
“Oh,” you say within a surprised breath. “Thank you.”
You take the cloth from him with a trembling hand. The pale linen blooms pink when you press it to the raging skin of your bleeding thumb. Daeron grimaces sympathetically in return, though you aren’t looking at him to see it.
“Are you nervous?” he wonders aloud, hands crossed firmly behind his back.
“A bit…” you confess in a sigh, dabbing at the wound and knowing that there is no string of words you could possibly put together to express just how nervous you are.
“Aye,” he nods. “I suppose I am, too… I’ve not seen him since I was a child.”
Your head turns slowly to flash the boy a knowing look. “You are still a child, my prince,” you remind him with a smile.
“A younger child, then,” Daeron mutters sheepishly back, freckled cheeks flaring as he turns back toward the window. His long, auburn tendrils sway softly at his shoulders when he shakes his head. “Long enough that I can no longer recall the last conversation I had with him… Though I’m sure it was about you, no doubt, with his betrothal to you and all…”
“Well, he spoke of you often,” you tell him, and watch the boy’s pale eyes flicker with a newfound life when he turns to you again. “He made it clear he was quite proud of you… And if it’s any consolation, I did not intend to steal him from Oldtown.”
“I’m glad for it,” Daeron blurts, then shakes his head at himself when the words don’t come out right. “Not that he left, of course, but that it was you he was given. There are far worse fates, to be true…”
He trails off and watches your face twist with confusion. His anxious gaze drops to the blood-spotted handkerchief as the tips of his ears glow pink. The words seem to escape him without a single thought in his floundering attempts to explain himself.
“I only mean that— that he is good. My Uncle Gwayne. The best of us, really, and Ormund is…” Daeron forgets why he brings up the older man the second his name spills from his lips, though he cannot seem to stop talking. “Ormund is good, too, I’m sure. Somewhere deep down. But he— He does not lose well, my lady. And I’ve learned that… that it's a dangerous thing, to— to be the prize he’s decided he’s won.”
The words come out of him in a rush; sentences half-formed and stumbling. He glances at you only once in a quick and searching look, before looking away again like he can’t stomach a second more of the contact. Your stomach twists in a sick feeling at each word from his mouth. Your throat runs dry as you choke on whatever response you might have given him — some careful deflection, maybe, or a warm laugh to soothe the boy — but a horn sounds from the tower before you can find any response at all.
Three short, sharp blasts send the keep into motion immediately.
“He’s here!” someone yells, far off in the distance. “Open the gates— it’s Ser Gwayne!”
Your feet seem to move on their own accord. Despite the dread sitting heavy in your belly, your legs carry you instantly towards Gwayne. You hold your dress skirts in your fists as you rush down the winding stone stairs, through the crowded hall, and out the heavy oak doors of the entrance. The humid, evening summer air takes the breath from your lungs as it strikes you across the face; it becomes near-impossible to take another one in, with your heart climbing so suddenly in your throat.
The thundering of hooves against cobblestone finds you before you’ve made it down the steep stone steps of the ancient castle. You’re blinded, briefly, by the setting sun until you hold a hand over your squinted eyes. Armored knights and groomed horses come into view — straddled loosely behind Bold Jon’s mare is Gwayne, though his face and hair are so caked with dirt and blood you scarcely recognize him.
Gwayne tries and fails to dismount on his own. His legs betray him after days of nonstop walking, and the exhaustion makes them buckle almost instantly. “Gwayne!” he hears you shout, right before he feels your hands reach for him before he can fall.
Your arms curl beneath his own to keep him upright. He leans the bulk of his weight against you without ever really meaning to, clinging to your warmth and the scent of floral bathing oils he isn’t quite used to. And, though he smells like dirt and death, you hold him back just the same.
“You’re alive,” you pant, breaths fanning in his muddied hair. “Gods, you’re alive—”
“Well…” He huffs a not-quite laugh that you can feel in his shoulder, pulling just far enough away to meet your wet eyes with a pair of duller, paler ones. “I told you I meant my vows, didn’t I?”
His words come out in rasps, voice dry from days of thirst and weeks of shouting. His chest sears with a foreign feeling at the way you’re looking at him now — like he’s half stranger, half god. “Apologies for my appearance, dear wife,” he pants and swallows down the sudden urge to cry. “But I have had a… rough go of things as of late…”
Your features crumble under the weight of your own tears. You shake your head at the man, and at his sorry attempt at a joke. “Gods, I’ve missed you...”
Gwayne exhales slowly through his nose as his cracked lips curve into a crooked smile, visibly exhausted but his even still. “Not nearly as much as—”
“Ser Gwayne.” The voice cuts through the bustling courtyard at once.
You feel every muscle in your body seize on instinct as your head whips back towards the stone steps, where Ormund stands at the top of them. His eyes scan the scene below — of you and Gwayne and your bodies only just now easing apart as the red-haired man attempts to stand on his own.
The silver chain of Ormund’s pomander clinks faintly in the newfound quiet as he brings the perfumed incense up to his nose, inhaling deeply to rid the scent of sweat and blood and death from his nostrils.
“I see you’ve made it,” is all he says.
Gwayne exhales an exhausted huff, a mixture of a laugh and a scoff. He sways softly on his muddied boots and clutches onto your shoulder with his free hand. “It’s good to see you too, cousin…” he responds in a monotone.
Ormund turns to Daeron, who’s hovering just beside him with his pale hands clenched into fists — it takes every bit of strength in the young boy’s body not to run down to his uncle alongside you, worried about how Ormund might react.
“See that a room is made ready for your uncle. And a hot meal is sent with haste— whatever the kitchens can manage quickly,” Ormund says to the boy, then pauses as his eyes drift back to Gwayne’s. “And perhaps a bath.”
Gwayne’s cracked lips curl into a slow smile. He breathes a laugh through his nose as he watches his cousin spin on his heel to walk away. “You always did have delicate sensibilities…” he attempts to call to the man, though he fails to muster the strength in his voice to be heard.
It is you who insists on escorting Gwayne to the bath. You wave off hovering knights and Tumbleton servants with a firmness that surprises even you — no longer a prisoner of war, but a high lord’s wife.
Gwayne, it seems, is much too spent from the journey to do anything more than lean into your shoulder the whole way up the winding castle. He braces himself on your firm weight as you peel the ruined layers of clothing from his body and coax him gently into the steaming tub.
Your own borrowed gown joins his tattered things in a forgotten heap on the cobbled floor as you sink into the water alongside him. The warmth laps gently at your waist as you shift yourself over his lap, resting the bulk of your weight on his thighs.
The bathwater turns the color of weak tea by the time you’ve worked the worst of the grime from Gwayne’s pale skin. Dark streams of dirt and old blood swirl away beneath the cloth in your hand, brushing a tad too gently over his shoulders and chest and back, as if anything too hard might break him entirely.
Gwayne sits slumped against the tub, eyes half-closed and head lolled back. The war had certainly taken its due upon his pretty features — the new hollows beneath his cheekbones, the fresh scar above his brow, the deep grey exhaustion under his once bright eyes. There’s a leanness to him now that suggests missed meals and weeks of marching; and a sort of heaviness in his gaze that suggests longer weeks of grief.
But still he softens for you, minute by minute, as you drag the cloth over the angle of his dirtied jaw. He exhales slowly through his nose and leans instinctively into your touch.
“You needn’t do this to yourself, you know?” the man murmurs, but makes no further move to stop you. “There are servants more than capable of tending to my bath.”
“I want to do it,” you tell him simply, dabbing at a speck of blood on his cheek. “I’ve missed you too much— I’d rather not share you with a servant just yet.”
He gives you a tired, crooked smile in response. “I missed you, too,” he says with a sigh, fingers clutching you harder by the waist beneath the water’s surface, like he’s still trying to make sure you’re still real. “Gods, you cannot imagine how badly…”
You rinse the cloth in the cooling water and press it gently to his hairline, dabbing at the remnants of dirt clinging stubbornly to him there. His adam’s apple bobs as he swallows through a tightening throat — being touched this gently threatens to undo him entirely, after weeks away and days of nonstop bloodshed.
His tense shoulders finally sink beneath the water as he admits, “I thought only of you… The entire way here… I fear it’s the only way I managed it— knowing that I could not die without seeing you first.”
Your throat tightens as guilt strangles you all over again; the bitter reminder of what you’d done, and all the nights you forgot to miss him back. Your fingers move anxiously to set the cloth on the rim of the tub and dip into the ceramic dish lying there. You scoop a handful of lavender soap onto your fingertips, and work it between your palms until it starts to foam.
“I thought of you, too,” you tell him with an averted gaze, which is true enough even though it feels like a lie when it escapes your mouth. “Every day.”
“And what of Ormund?” Gwayne wonders aloud, cracking one pale eye open to study your face as you rake the suds through his long auburn hair. The dull, muddy strands slowly return to their proper flaming color with each gentle pass of your fingers, as the last of the war’s blood and grim streams down his pale shoulders in dark rivulets. “I trust my cousin treated you well in my absence. He can be insufferable, I know, but he is not unkind… Not truly.”
You falter at the mention of him. Your hands still briefly in his damp tendrils as a sick feeling curls in the pit of your stomach. You swallow hard through the cold hands of guilt strangling your throat and force your fingers to keep moving, praying he does not notice how they tremble faintly against his scalp.
“He was… accommodating,” you answer carefully, eyes trained on his hair rather than on his attentive gaze, lest he read the whole truth of it plainly upon your face. “He kept me fed. Housed. Safe… For the most part— Tilt your head back; let me rinse your hair.”
You lift yourself slightly off the man’s lap to reach for the pitcher resting on the table beside the tub. Glittering rivulets of bath water cascade down your arms, glimmering in thin ribbons over the curves of your breasts in the dancing candlelight. Gwayne tips his head back to oblige you when you settle astride his scruffy thighs once more. His long, pale fingers smooth absently over your hips beneath the water, tracing idle circles along your soft skin.
“You’ve gone rather short with your answers, dear wife…” he observes lowly, peering at you from the bridge of his nose. “That’s not like you…”
“I’m just tired, is all…” you deflect, cupping one hand over his brow to shield his eyes while your other pours the clean water steadily over his hairline. The suds run clear down his temples and trickle back into the bath below. “It’s been a long day… A long several months, if I’m honest…”
“Yes… For us all, I’m sure,” Gwayne sighs and lifts his head once more when you shift to place the pitcher back onto its table. He arches an auburn brow and musters a quiet smile; the simple ease of being with you returns to him by the minute now, as his fingers settle over your ribcage again. “Though I do hope my letters kept you some company… Small comfort as they must have been.”
You go suddenly very still above him, muscle locking despite yourself. The guilt that had been simmering in your chest surges up your throat all at once now, in a red-hot flame that makes you feel halfway sick. For a long moment, you fail to make sense of the words — his letters — after so many months of waiting to hear from your husband, and after so many months of hearing Ormund tell you each day that there had been not a single word from him.
“…Your letters?” you repeat on bated breath.
“Yes,” Gwayne nods, brows pinching at your confusion. “I wrote every time I could manage it— At every stronghold we arrived… Did you not receive them?”
Your mouth opens and closes as you struggle to find the words to respond — words that would placate your own confusion without disclosing what you had been doing in the days awaiting his letters. “Perhaps… Perhaps they got lost. Along the road…”
Gwayne scoffs a humorless laugh at the thought. “Well, I pity the poor hand who got my letters instead of you…” he croons lowly.
“Why?” you press with a wavering grin. “What did they say?”
“Nothing of substance,” he shrugs his bare shoulders. “Just… foolish things.”
“Like…?” you trail off, soothing your palms down the pale canvas of his chest.
A faint uncertain smile tugs at his mouth as he watches your hands dip below the waterline. “I wrote of… what fields I passed. What foolish things Ser Criston said that day. What I’d seen— What I missed of home, what I missed of you…”
He trails off when your fingers find his cock, lying limp along his left thigh. He feels like velvet in your fist as you massage him slowly hard. “Keep going…” you coo to him.
His hips twitch beneath you when you tighten your grip on his stiffening length. “I— I wrote of your hands,” he manages, and swallows hard when your thumb swipes across the sensitive tip of his cock. His eyes grow heavy with desire as he watches you work at him through the haze of cloudy water. “How I missed the— the feel of them on me… Gods…”
“Go on…” you murmur, smearing your lips along his jaw.
“I wrote that… that I missed your smell,” he confesses, fraying with each slow pass of your hand. “Your hair after a bath… The wine on your breath after supper… The sweat between your thighs after a long day— Seven fucking hells.”
His jaw clenches tight when your free hand dips down to cradle his balls, squeezing the sensitive sack between your fingers until his cock jerks in your fist. His heavy head lolls into your kiss; he feels you smiling against his cheek.
“You’re already close, aren’t you?”
He swallows hard. “You have no idea how long it’s been…” he confesses in a blissful sigh.
“I’m sure there were plenty of whores on the road,” you singsong in his ears.
He shakes his head instantly in protest. “None as beautiful as you…”
His denial does little to comfort you. Instead, you feel a white-hot rage searing in your chest. Some distant, ugly part of you wishes he had taken a thousand whores while he was away, if only to take the weight of your own betrayal off your shoulders. At least then you could share it, this guilt, instead of living alone in your sin. You hate yourself most of all for even wishing it, and you feel very suddenly disgusted in your own skin — eager to be free of him and this moment altogether.
“Then cum,” you command against his pulse, jerking his cock faster in your fist. Gwayne’s fingers clutch at the plush skin of your hips hard enough to etch bruises there, and you revel in the hurt as his grumbled moan fills the bathing chambers. “Come on. Cum for me—”
He makes a broken sort of sound in the base of his throat as he seizes just beneath you, tense and trembling as his high hits him full force. The cooling water threatens to slosh off the rim as he twitches through his orgasm, which spurts into the cloudy water in short ropes of pearly-white, until he relaxes finally with a sigh.
“Give me a moment…” he pleads through ragged breaths. “I’ll make you feel good, I just— I need a moment…”
“I’m alright,” you assure him with a shake of your head, and with a sad smile that he doesn’t catch with his eyes still closed. “You rest tonight… I’ll see you in the morning.”
viii. CAGE & CONFESSION
You do not go to find Ormund until long after Gwayne’s breathing has steadied.
He takes up the whole of the bed in his inhuman exhaustion; one leg straight and the other bent beneath the quilts, one pale arm slung over his bare stomach and the other left reaching out for your empty side of the bed as you slip from beneath the silk. You storm for Ormund’s solar in the dimly lit halls in nothing but your thin ivory nightgown; the fabric catching at your ankles with every furious stride in the man’s direction.
You find the room lit by a sea of glittering candles when you throw open the door without ceremony. It strikes the wall a harsh bang, far too loud for the late night; the wind of the blow makes the flames gutter wildly in their sconces.
Ormund’s head snaps up from his dispatches at the sudden intrusion. His quill pauses on the parchment — because the work of war is never truly done, not even at the dead of night. His eyes are cold for a flicker with a soldier’s instinct, then warm again all at once when he finds no threat — only you. The corner of his mouth curls into a slow, knowing smile accordingly.
“Come to warm my bed already, have you?” the man lilts in his usual melodic voice, setting his quill aside as he slouches back into his cushioned seat. “I confess, I hardly expected to see you tonight, what with your husband so newly returned. Bold of you, really—”
“Don’t,” you snap.
The word slices through the solar like a blade, and wipes away the smug curve of his smile in an instant. Your nightgown billows around your ankles with every furious step inside; the shadows of the fabric catch in the candlelight and turn you into something half-spectral as you loom over the desk across from him.
“He wrote to me. For months, he wrote to me,” you agonize. “And when he asked whether I’d received them, I sat there like a fool, knowing I hadn’t gotten a single one.”
Ormund draws a long, even breath through his nose. His ringed fingers settle flat over the desk as he keeps a measured composure about him, even though yours unravels by the minute.
“Ah…” he hums under his breath.
A shocked laugh escapes your mouth. “That’s all you have to say to me?”
“What would you have me say?” he asks, pale eyes locked with yours as he braces himself on the arms of his chair to rise. The wood scrapes harshly along the cobbles when he stands to full height. “That I kept them from you? That I— read them for myself and burned each one in the hearth when I’d finished? Very well… I did.”
The plain admission threatens to knock the breath from your lungs. You had braced yourself for denial, to be true, to spend these late hours coaxing the truth from his lips. You were not prepared for confession; not so soon, and not so easily.
“Why?” you demand, half-breathless with tears. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because I did not wish to hurt you,” Ormund says, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “You wept for that man every night for the better part of a moon’s turn. I thought it might ease you, if you’d believed he didn’t care enough to write to you at all. I thought I was sparing you the grief of it.”
“That was not yours to decide!” you shout, voice shaking beneath the weight of your girlish fury. “Those were my letters, Ormund! My husband's words! You had no right—”
“No right?!” he thunders through an emotionless laugh, ocean eyes flickering with madness in an instant. “You are my prisoner! Or have you so quickly forgotten, given how generously I’ve treated you?”
You flinch back as he rounds the desk, though you cannot seem to leave the spot ahead of him as he inches towards you like a predator to prey.
“You’re lucky you’re standing here at all. Any other Targaryen beast would be in chains, but you…” he continues, prowling another step closer. “I let you share my tent, my table, my bed. And I did it gladly because I came to love you despite the— taint in your blood.”
You peer up at him through teary eyes when he towers finally in front of you — brows raised, eyes hardened, jaw clenched tight.
“But… you are still my prisoner,” he reminds you evenly. “You have been since the day you arrived at my camp. So I have every right to decide which letters enter your hands and which ones do not.”
Each word strikes you like a physical blow — worse, somehow, than the searing one the hedgeknight had dealt you, which has caused an unnatural cracking of your jaw ever since. Maybe because these cruel, cruel words come from the same mouth that has kissed you, pleasured you.
“Prisoner?” you repeat tearily, features screwed in disbelief. “You say you love me and yet you call me beast in the very same breath. Wh… What am I meant to make of that?”
Ormund’s face falters finally at the sight of your tears, clinging to your lower lashes and glimmering gold in the candlelight. A soft crack splits down the unforgiving marble of him as he shakes his head down at you.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says and turns away.
“Like what?” you spit at the back of him.
“Like I've wounded you,” he snaps, long coat fanning slightly at his waist when he turns to face you again, now several paces away. “Where was your Gwayne when you hadn’t eaten in five days, and I fed you bread from mine own hand? Tell me that.”
Your mouth parts, but nothing comes out.
“Where was your dutiful husband when that hedgeknight had you pinned in the dirt with your skirts torn to your thighs?” Ormund continues, palms splayed at his sides for effect. “Because I did not see him riding to your rescue as I had. I did not see him holding you through the nights you woke screaming. That was me— Only me— And yet you still stand here and weep over a handful of mindless letters, as if that erases the whole of what I've done for you.”
Your chin jerks back as you flinch hard at his words, at the weight of them, which you can feel heavying your chest until every new breath feels impossible. Ormunds goes silent for a moment; the shadow of his clenched jaw comes and goes as he grits his teeth. His fists open and close at his sides until they finally relax, when the anger within drains into mourning.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters suddenly, boots padding along the cobbles as he closes the distance between you once more. “Forgive me. You’re right, I— I should not have kept them from you. I only meant to spare you, you understand that, right?”
His wide, gently calloused hands reach for your cheeks with a tenderness that feels maddeningly sincere compared to the vitriol he’d thrown at you moments ago. He lifts your chin and ducks his head into your eyeline when you do not meet his gaze. His blue eyes go round and wet with a boyish grief as hurt sears through his chest.
“I only want to keep you safe,” he whispers. “Whatever else I’ve done wrong— that much has always been true… You know this, don’t you?”
He peers down at you and waits on bated breath for a response. You say nothing just yet. Your trembling hands reach from the gold buttons of his coat. At first, he thinks you mean to push him away — you want nothing more, in fact, than to push him away and wrench yourself from his hands and return to your place in bed next to Gwayne.
You do not.
You just close your eyes, exhausted past the point of arguing any further. The threads of guilt and love and fury and anguish tangle together somewhere deep in your chest, until one is utterly indistinguishable from the others. The only thing you know now for certain is that the whole of your life can be categorized into two groups: those who have stayed and those who have gone.
Your own family had sailed across the Narrow Sea and left you behind without so much as a backwards glance; and Gwayne, gentle as he is, still rode off to serve a cause that mattered more to him than you.
Ormund is, perhaps, the only person in your life who has never once abandoned you. Whatever else he has done to you before now — however cruel or calculating or maddening he has since become — he has never once walked away from you. Not when you intended to starve yourself, not when you were pinned in the mud by your skirts, not when you woke up screaming on particularly brutal nights.
You hate how much it all matters to you, however fickle it may seem. You hate it, and you hate that cannot make yourself stop needing it all the same.
“I don’t know what to do…” you confess in a broken voice, clutching him hard by the collar of his coat. His softened face is bleary behind the tears burning in your eyes. “I feel so guilty, Ormund— I do not know for how long I can bear it. It sets heavy on my chest, all the time, and I cannot set it down—”
“Then let me carry it,” he tells you. His grip goes more solid when you attempt to turn away, thumbs pressing harder into your cheeks. “I can bear it well enough for the two of us, I swear it—”
The breath of his words fans across your chin when he ducks down to kiss you, hard and sudden and searing. He tastes of wine and mint leaves when the velvety pad of his tongue licks into your mouth without warning.
You sigh hard through your nose at the feeling of him and cling to the front of his coat as he walks you backward a few paces towards the desk. The edge of the wood catches hard against the backs of your thighs. Ormund’s hands dip from your face to your hips, balling the fabric of your gown until it rises up your legs.
“Did you take him into your bed tonight?” he pants rough against your mouth, with the tip of his broad nose nudging yours. “Your husband? Did you fuck him? Tell me.”
“No,” you shake your head on an exhaled breath. Your fingers curl into his dark curls as his wet mouth drags along your neck, down to your exposed collarbone. “I only pleasured him with my hand. Nothing more.”
Ormund nods swiftly, as though pleased by the admission. He peers up at you through his lashes as he kisses down your clothed chest. “Always a giver, aren’t you?” he hums lowly, mouth quirking softly at the edges. “Allow me to return the favor, then…”
He sinks to his knees, with your ivory skirt now pushed up to your thighs. You keep one hand splayed along the back of his knuckles and the other tangled in his curls as he kisses your cunt like he would your mouth. He moans when his tongue slots between your sticky folds, a muffled growl you can feel in the very pit of your stomach.
Ormund is not quite as measured with his mouth as Gwayne had been the evening before he left you. He’s fast and sloppy and loud — you can hear his tongue as it flicks against you, his lips as they suckle your clit, his moans as your honey pools on his tongue.
You swallow down a moan before it can swell through the quiet room. It turns into a whimper in your throat instead. “Ormund—” you gasp quietly, tugging him hard by the hair as his tongue laps at your swollen clit.
His bleary eyes open to peer up the length of your body — your heavy head tilted to your chest, your gaze lidded and glassy with pleasure, your chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. “Let me have it,” he slurs against your pussy, and smiles to himself at the pretty sound you make for him in response. “That’s it— Let me have it…”
Your mouth presses into a tight line to choke back a moan when his mouth returns to your cunt, suckling the sensitive button between his lips and flicking his tongue against it simultaneously. You shudder against his mouth when you cum for him, whimpering when he buries his moans and muffled murmurs of praise against your drooling pussy.
You do as you’re told — you give it all to him, you let him bear it — while Gwayne sleeps off the remnants of war across the hall.
ix. GARDENS & GHOSTS
The gardens of Tumbleton are modest things compared to the grandeur of the Red Keep, though you struggle to remember it so vividly now. Here there are only a few neat rows of late-summer roses gone wild for want of a gardener, an overgrown path winding between shaggy hedges, and a slowly weeping fountain gone quiet and still. You spend Gwayne’s second evening at the foreign castle walking beneath a canopy of drooping wisteria, with your hands looped loosely through the crook of his arm and your dress skirts whispering against the stone with every languid step.
“I’d nearly forgotten what this was like…” Gwayne hums, studying the wilting roses with distracted interest. “Walking somewhere without waiting for an arrow to find me first…”
“Don’t worry, Ser Gwayne…” you squint with a teasing lilt. “I’ll keep you safe.”
And though Gwayne hasn’t so much as seen you hold a real sword in your hand, he flashes you a tight-lipped smile anyway. “Of that, dear wife, I have no doubt…”
You fall into an easy quiet thereafter; the ordinary rhythm of marriage, though it still feels a bit foreign to you now. He asks only about small things: if the summer storms had frightened you too badly, if the men at the Hightower camp treated you well, and if you’d truly meant what you said about that farm. You answer each in turn, grateful for the ease of it — or, at least, for the brief illusion that nothing had changed between you at all.
“And the encampment?” Gwayne asks then, flashing you a knowing look from the corner of his eye. “You’d said precious little of it thus far. Surely, it wasn’t so unbearable— Though I’m sure my cousin likely wasn’t making it easy for you.”
“There isn’t much to say,” you shrug with a feigned air of detachment, though the words come out a little quicker than you mean them to. You catch the faint furrow of confusion between his brows, and pretend to be more preoccupied by the wilting wisteria overhead instead. “It was… eventful. I suppose. In its own way.”
“Eventful?” Gwayne repeats with an arched brow. An unsure laugh sputters from his chest a second later. “I can’t tell whether that’s meant as a comfort or a warning…”
“It’s nothing worth troubling over,” you tell him. “Truly.”
Gwayne’s eyes flit down to where your wrists are curled lazily around his bicep. The dull nails of your right thumb and forefinger pick aimlessly at the already marred skin of your left. He stops instantly in place — he had sensed something amiss since you caught him in the yard, to be true, but he sees it more plainly in your being than he had the night before.
“Did something happen?” he blurts.
Your head whips to him, eyes widening in an innocuous look. “I… I don’t know what you mean?”
He swallows once and rephrases. “Something happened…” he repeats, this time as a firmer statement. “At the camp. Something you’re not telling me.”
You exhale a slow and shaking breath, though it does little to loosen the tightness in your chest now. You find that, once cornered and with his pleading eyes searching your face, you cannot quite bring yourself to lie to him again.
“There was a… a man," you start unsteadily, eyes fixed on the overgrown hedge behind his shoulder rather than his face. “A hedgeknight. I was out gathering berries, and he— He asked me about a letter. The one you left me. And when I wouldn't— He tried to—”
“He tried to what?" Gwayne presses when you trail off, ducking his auburn head into your eyeline when you avert your gaze. His voice is low and careful, but you can hear the tension straining beneath it already.
“He grabbed for it… And I struck him, without thinking, and he struck me back…” Your fingers lift absently to your cheek, brushing the ghost of a bruise with your finger, long since healed but not yet forgotten. Your gaze goes glassy and unfocused with the recollection of the memory — the smell of the berries, the taste of the blood, the feeling of the wet earth beneath you. The rest of the words come out in choppy and nonsensical. “And I fell— and my skirts— I think he meant too— I don’t know truly, but I— I could not stop him—”
“Gods…” Gwayne huffs, as if the breath had been punched out of him entirely. His pale, handsome features screw together in horror as his pale eyes glitter with anger at himself. “I should’ve been there… I never should’ve left you.”
“Ormund killed him,” you add quickly and watch a complicated look flicker behind Gwayne’s eyes at the name. “Before he could…”
Gwayne nods when you trail off, signaling that you need not go on any further. “I am glad for that, at least,” he says, though there is a strain in his voice that suggests something other than gladness. His palms reach for your hands then, preventing you from picking at the skin there. “I am glad my cousin was there for you. Truly. I was a fool leaving you behind. I should’ve stayed, I should’ve—”
You shake your head in protest of his apologies. “No—”
“I should’ve been there—”
“Don’t,” you tell him, though the word spills broken from your mouth when you jerk your hands free from his. The sudden loss of his touch leaves your fingers strangely cold. “Don’t apologize. I do not deserve it.”
“Deserve it?” Gwayne echoes with lowered brows. “What do you mean, deserve it?”
“Your kindness,” you sniffle. “I don’t deserve it.”
Gwayne blinks owlishly at you, and feels a strange searing in his chest when you flinch back from him as he tries to step closer. “Why are you saying this?”
“I have— I have sinned.” Your breath catches hard on a sob. Your wet eyes try and fail to meet his gaze. “I have betrayed you.”
Gwayne tenses at once. His face goes still and solemn; the warmth he’d had for you moments ago drains slowly from his features now. “What do you mean?” he wonders lowly.
“With— With Ormund— We— I,” you attempt to speak through hitched breaths, though you cannot seem to get any of the words out. “I cannot express to you— how unspeakably lonely I have been—”
“Lonely?” he repeats, spits back at you like venom. “Do you think I was not lonely?”
“You at least had a war to fight!” you argue tearily. “I was taken prisoner, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“And do you think I would not have rather been home?” Gwayne shouts. “With you, instead of watching my men die in a field over a war I never wanted any part of?”
“You’re the one who left!” you exclaim when he turns away from you, already retreating down the gravel path before he can lose his composure completely. “If you stayed, we could’ve been together! And none of this would’ve happened! You act like someone was dragging you by your boots to go fight a useless war!”
Gwayne stops at that, a few paces ahead. His shoulders are rigid beneath his borrowed doublet when he turns to you again, though not enough to face you fully. Only his profile is visible to you now, with his auburn hair falling over his brow and his emotionless grin hinting at the corner of his mouth.
“I did not… want this marriage…” he confesses in calculated murmurs. “Not at first, anyway. That much I’ll admit, but… From the moment I wed you, it never once crossed my mind to seek comfort elsewhere.”
“Gwayne, I—”
“I meant my vows,” he tells you and turns, finally, to face you fully. You found no trace of fury in his face now, only a pained sort of look that turns his pale eyes a glassier shade of blue. “I have always meant them.”
“I didn't know if you were alive!” you agonize through a sob. “Don’t you understand that? Months, Gwayne — months without a single word! Not knowing whether you were breathing or rotting in some unmarked grave! And I couldn't even write to you to ask, because Ormund told me it wasn't safe. He said the letters might be intercepted, might lead Rhaenyra's army straight to you, and I could not risk that—”
“Ormund told you that?” Gwayne interjects, voice gone dull and cold. “That your letters weren’t— safe to send?”
“Yes,” you nod. “He said that—”
“And mine?” Gwayne presses with a slow step closer. “I presume he kept mine from you as well. That’s why you never got them, isn’t it? Because of him?”
You go quiet, unsure of how to answer — like there’s some joke here somewhere you have not yet been let in on. But, to Gwayne, your silence is answer enough. He exhales a long, shuddering breath through his nose.
“Ormund and I used to play a game,” he tells you suddenly, with a humorless smile ghosting across his mouth. “Run the tower, we called it— a footrace to the top beacon. And I let him win. Every time. Because he could not bear to lose even the smallest thing.”
Your eyes widen slightly, as you remember Daeron’s warning in the castle window — his anxious, hardly intelligible ramble. “It’s a dangerous thing to be the prize he’s decided he’s won,” the boy had told you. You hadn’t understood what he meant by that until now.
Gwayne’s features screw with a withheld fury, one that Ormund would’ve already unleashed on you tenfold by now if the roles were reversed.
“He was a thin-skinned twat even then. I thought it harmless, at the time. I never imagined…” he trails off, clicking his tongue against his teeth when he turns to you again. He shakes his head as his mouth twitches into a sympathetic sort of smile. “If you think Ormund loves you, dear wife, I assure you, he does not. He simply decided that you were another game worth winning.”
He does not wait for your response. He turns on his heel, and when he walks away this time, he does not stop.
His feet carry him down the overgrown path, through the winding unfamiliar castle, and straight towards Ormund’s solar — without him ever fully registering any of it; not until he swings open the heavy oak door, at least, and is met instantly with the humidity of an incensed bath. He nearly chokes on the musky oils sitting heavily in the air.
“Leave us,” Gwayne orders Daeron in lieu of a real greeting. The boy’s eyes widen in shock at the sudden intrusion from where he stands obediently off to the side, robe in hand. His gaze flits to Ormund’s on instinct, who gives him a curt nod of approval without looking up, before scurrying out of the room.
The older man sits submerged to the chest in a steaming copper tub. A wooden tray sits balanced across the rim, with his inkpot and parchment laid before him. His quill scratches against the paper in swift strokes until Gwayne unsheathes his long sword with a sharp hiss. The older man tenses when the steel kisses the soft skin of his throat.
“You will explain yourself,” Gwayne says, peering down at the man from the bridge of his nose. “Or, by the gods, I will open your throat right here in this tub.”
Ormund does not so much as flinch when he sets his quill back into its inkpot. He tilts his chin just slightly to look up at the man and feels the faint pressure of the blade against his adam’s apple. Amusement flickers in his blue eyes.
“She told you, then,” he hums — not quite a question but not entirely a statement either. “I did wonder how long that might take.”
“She told me everything,” Gwayne bites out through clenched teeth. “The letters— mine to hers; hers to me. Months of lies, cousin, you called protection.”
“Yes. I protected her," Ormund nods without reservation. “More than you ever did, seeing as you were hundreds of leagues away and all. I fed her when she attempted to starve herself grieving you. I killed a man who meant to rape her in a berry patch while you were off playing at war like a child—”
Gwayne tenses at the accusation buried in his words. The edge of the blade presses harder to Ormund’s throat, but still, he does not waver.
“I gave her a place to sleep when the storms came, and warmth when the nights grew cold, and company when she felt no one else in the entire realm cared whether she lived or died,” the man lilts evenly. His voice does not rise and his stare does not yield, not even with the cold steel resting steadily against his pulse. “So, please, spare me the outrage, cousin. I only gave her what she asked for— freely, and often, and more enthusiastically than you can imagine.”
Gwayne’s whole body goes rigid. A mixture of fury and humiliation prickles red-hot at his pale skin. His knuckles turn white around the hilt of his sword, but the blade does not move an inch.
“Well, go on, then,” Ormund tilts his head, eyes glimmering with amusement. “Finish it, if you mean to. Open my throat here, in my own bath, and we’ll see who she weeps for. You or me.”
Silence fills the empty solar. Gwayne grits his teeth and wills his hand to move; to either strike the man down or turn away entirely. He cannot seem to do either.
Ormund lifts a lazy hand to swipe the blade away without a word. He rises slowly from the bath a second later. Rivulets of water glisten as they rush down his lean body and trickle audibly when they hit the surface again. He stands before his cousin, unabashedly bare, and reaches for the linen cloth draped over the edge of the tub.
“For what it’s worth, cousin,” he says, swiping the nettle across his toned, golden skin. “I never intended to make an enemy of you. And I rather think, whatever she may tell you now to spare your pride, that she’d choose to stay exactly where she is, if given the choice.”
Gwayne opens his mouth to argue.
“Daeron!” Ormund calls out before he can.
The door creaks slowly open a second later. The younger boy reappears with an obvious hesitance, refusing to meet either of their eyes as he rushes to his uncle’s side. He settles the emerald fabric over the older man’s broad shoulders, and Ormund slides his arms through the long sleeves. He ties the sash with slow hands and with an expression that looks almost sympathetic.
“Best wash up soon, cousin,” he grins. “It’s nearly time for supper.”
x. STEEL & SUPPER
Supper that evening is a small and wretched thing; four places set at a round table dragged in from some lesser hall to make the arrangement feel less tribunal. It’s close enough that you can feel the heat of both men suffocating either side of you, along with the cold, watchful silence of Daeron across the way; young enough to shift awkwardly in his seat at the tense silence, but old enough still to understand exactly what such silence truly means.
No one speaks a word of the hard truth of it out loud. Neither of you needs to — the whole of your sin sits at the table like an uninvited guest, souring the wine in every cup and thickening the air until you can scarcely draw a single breath around it.
“So…” Ormund says first to break the silence. He talks beneath the soft scraping of his knife against the porcelain as he cuts into his meat. “Ser Criston fights on, and yet you alone have returned to us… Why is that, I wonder?”
Gwayne turns slowly to glare at the man with dull, blue eyes, already too annoyed for idle blather. “Because fighting on is madness,” he answers distantly.
Ormund scoffs with a wad of food in his cheek. He smiles as he swallows it down, angling his head in the young prince’s direction. “Do you think me mad, boy?”
Daeron’s eyes shoot up from his plate. His spine straightens instinctively at his uncle’s sudden attention. “No, sire,” he answers quickly.
Ormund nods, pleased, and then turns slowly to you. A fondness flickers in his pale gaze behind the challenge in his eyes. “And you, my—” He catches himself half a breath too late; my love, he’d nearly said, though you cannot tell if it was an intentional attempt to rile his already aggrieved cousin. “My lady… Do you think me mad?”
Your brows bounce in response, though your gaze never lifts from your lap as your nails work relentlessly at the already torn skin of your thumb. “I don’t think you want me to answer that—”
You freeze in place when Ormund’s wide hand reaches suddenly to splay his calloused palm over the back of your knuckles. Your head whips in his direction. You struggle to tell if the action is heedless or entirely uncaring, as Gwayne sits close enough to watch the exchange on the other side of you. The man inhales sharply through his nose and straightens his spine as he reaches for his goblet, trying hard to pretend he hadn’t noticed it at all.
“Why do you insist on ruining yourself this way?” Ormund wonders lowly, as his thumb rubs soothingly over your marred one.
“Seems to be a common affliction as of late,” you answer distantly and draw your hands from beneath his touch. “Messing with things we ought to leave well enough alone…”
“You are aware—” Gwayne says gruffly as he swallows down his bitter wine, setting down his chalice with a bit more force than likely necessary. “—That while you’re all in here playing happy families, there’s a dragon sitting on the hill above us? And five more not thirty leagues away?”
“Why do you think we came here, cousin?” Ormund scoffs and waves his concern away with a lazy flick of his knife. “Rhaenyra will not burn her own subjects. She is a woman, after all. Squeamish, by nature.”
A short laugh spills suddenly from your lips. “Squeamish?” you echo. “Says the man who requires a milk bath twice daily, lest he make it everyone else’s burden to bear?”
The jab earns a proud smile from Gwayne that he tries hopelessly to bite back, and a small grin from Daeron that he conceals behind the rim of his goblet. Ormund swallows hard through the embarrassment strangling his throat, angled jaw clenching as he grits his teeth.
“Well… If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were taking up the usurper’s cause.”
“I’m not taking up anyone’s cause,” you mutter. “I just want to go home.”
“Oh?” Ormund hums with a feigned air of curiosity, though you do not miss the bite in his words as he wonders aloud, “And where is that precisely? King’s Landing? Oldtown?”
“Well, it’s certainly not here—”
“No,” he agrees instantly, warmth freezing over in an instant. “But when the usurper’s host comes here, we will fight on our own terms, on our own ground— turning King’s Landing against that overweening cunt, little by little, bite by bite… And when we expose her as weak and unsuited to rule, the great houses will flock to our side, and then, my lady, we can all go home.”
“Have any yet come?” Gwayne wonders knowingly. “Great houses, I mean.”
Ormund’s gaze snaps in his direction. “The patient hunter gets the kill, cousin,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’d have thought you’d learned that much by now.”
“Only one of us at this table has actually been hunted, if you’ll recall…”
“Yes, you have endured much,” Ormund huffs and returns to his boar. “Though I’m sure you find some solace along the road… with whores, perhaps, or your… brothers in arms…”
The insinuation sits heavily in the quiet, thicker than smoke and choking the three of you accordingly. Gwayne’s jaw tightens hard enough to make the muscle flex. Whatever retort had been rising in his throat at that moment is killed instantly by the sudden creaking of the heavy door across the room. Bold Jon enters, flanked by a couple of punier squires.
“My lord,” the older knight announces. “House Baratheon has sent an envoy. They mean to bend the knee to House Hightower.”
Ormund is aglow in an instant. The sourness of the previous moment rolls off of his broad shoulders as a newfound satisfaction kindles behind his blue eyes. “Let the Stormlands lead the way…” he mutters to himself, mouth curling into a grin. “Highgarden will have no choice but to follow…”
He flashes you a proud and knowing look as he rises from his seat. “Alright. Stand up,” he says and begins to round the small table. When no one follows him quick enough, he snaps, “Stand up! All of you.”
You rise at once, abandoning your plates as you follow him to the front of the dining table. The three of you fall into line beside the high lord, who stands just ahead to greet the incoming knights Ser Jon ushers in. The knights are caked in dirt from the long road; their yellow cloaks are crusted thick with mud, and their boots track dark prints across the fine pale stone beneath them. They smell like earth and sweat, hardly noticeable to you, though you spot Ormund’s shoulders tensing instantly when the stench hits him.
“Lord Ormund Hightower,” Roxton announces formally. “Beacon of the South, Defender of the Citadel, and Voice of Oldtown.”
“Well met, Ser Ormund," the head of the envoy greets with a polite nod, arms propped along the pommel of his longsword. “I come on behalf of Lord Borros Baratheon, Lord Paramount of the Stormlands.”
“Mm…” Ormund hums, ringed fingers fidgeting at his sides as he attempts to swallow through the invisible hand strangling him. “You are quite welcome, Ser…?”
“Ser Arrion Baratheon. Cousin to Lord Borros.”
You freeze at once. A newfound fear settles ice-cold in your veins. Your eyes squint as you study the stranger’s bearded face more closely — his curls, his eyes, his nose, his mouth. You find that he looks nothing like the Ser Arrion you had once met, at a tourney some several moons back; the one where you first laid eyes on Ser Gwayne Hightower.
The man himself tenses at your elbow. His jaw clenches tight with knowing as he turns slowly to flash you a single, silent glance. You communicate without words. His folded hands fall casually beside the sheathed sword at his hip; yours cross behind your back, as you reach blindly for the fruit knife idling somewhere beside the plates of supper.
“I most regret presenting ourselves to you in this state,” the stranger continues.
Your jaw clenches tight in frustration as your fingers miss the handle in several agonizing attempts. You slide it closer with the very tip of your middle finger, slowly so as not to draw attention, before your fingers close finally around the hilt. You grip the blade to your back, palm going clammy around the grip.
“The road was long and filthy, but I thought it best to speak to you immediately.”
“We are honored to receive you,” Ormund assures him, entirely unaware. “And what word does Lord Borros send?”
“House Baratheon offers its banners in alliance with House Hightower,” the envoy says. “I have been charged to swear fealty on Lord Borros' behalf.”
“Well,” Ormund grins. “Your lord has made a wise choice—”
“Ser Arrion?” you call at once, stepping forward and drifting instinctively in front of Daeron with your arm still tight around your back. The boy’s eyes widen when he catches sight of the blade behind you. Your smile remains as artificially sweet as ever, despite the way your heart hammers hard against your ribs. “You do remember me, don’t you?”
The man’s heavy brows furrow as confusion flickers across his bearded face. He musters a similarly fake grin. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, my lady—”
The hesitant answer is confirmation enough. Gwayne unsheaths his sword in a blink and slices the imposter across the neck before he can finish his sentence. His throat splits wide open, bright crimson blood gushing out instantly. You feel it splattering across your cheek as the man falls limp to the ground in front of you.
The dining hall erupts into chaos in a blink. The shouting of Baratheon imposters and Hightower knights fills the room at once. One lunges towards you, trying to get to Daeron, you figure, though he’s met with the small blade clutched in your trembling grip before he can.
You drive the knife into the first soft place you can find — his eye, you think, and then the side of his neck, before he crumples to the floor screaming.
“No!” Ormund’s voice shouts over the ringing of colliding blades, flashing a fiery look at Ser Jon. “Stop them, you fool!”
Daeron steps quickly in front of the older knight. “No!” he says to the man, small as he is, but standing his ground regardless.
“These are assassins!” Gwayne shouts over the clash of steel, kicking one knight down before striking him across the skull. “Sent for Daeron— and probably you!”
A pair of thick hands close hard around your wrist, cold and calloused and unforgiving. It yanks a memory from some buried place in your mind — spilled berries, wet earth, pooled blood in the mouth. You do not know whether or not he intends to strike you, or if he truly does, or if he only means to stop you. You only feel a girlish fury clawing its way from your throat as a buzzing adrenaline prickles at your burning skin.
The bloody knife in your fist cuts him clean across the face — his throat, his jaw, his cheek, his eye, his temple. He stumbles back against the wall, bloodied and unrecognizable, but still you do not stop. Your blade follows him as he sinks to the ground in a gurgling, limp ball. His blood splashes warm across your face, clinging sticky to your fingers, but you still do not stop.
“Enough, enough…” you hear a voice say from behind you, muffled through the ringing in your ears. You feel a warmth press against your side and a gentle hand curl around your wrist. Gwayne’s voice follows more clearly in your ear, “He’s dead… It’s over now...”
The adrenaline seems to ebb from your veins at once, with a raw sob sputtered from your mouth. The knife slips from your limp fingers, clattering audibly to the bloodied cobbles below. You feel something warm trickling across your forehead and reach to wipe it with the back of your hand; blood smears wet across your brow in its place.
Across the wrecked hall, Ormund hunches over the back of his chair on the other side of the table. His face has gone pale-white; made more ashen, perhaps, behind the drops of vivid crimson splattered across his face. The thick copper stench of it settles in the back of his throat, along with the sweat and mud and death and shit hanging in the air.
“How—” he chokes hoarsely out. “How did you know— These men were false?”
“I was nearly betrothed to Lord Borros’ son once,” you hear yourself answer, though the words sound a bit distant, like they’re coming from someone else’s mouth. “I met his cousin… Lord Arrion… at a tourney in King’s Landing years ago… I gave him my favor that day—”
“Right before I cut him down,” Gwayne adds through panted breaths, with a distant satisfaction in his voice at the memory. “The real Ser Arrion Baratheon has hair of light chestnut, stands near a foot taller and is, as it happens, far more comely."
Ormund makes a low, strangled sound in the back of his throat. “I will cleave the bitch— From crown to cunt—” he manages between heaving breaths “—She will die wishing she never dared to... dared to…”
His body seizes as he retches — once, then twice — before doubling over the table and vomiting his supper along the plates ahead of him.
Gwayne watches on with a grim sort of amusement. “Best wash up now, cousin,” he hums in jest, as drily as Ormund had to him earlier that day.
His amused smile fades when he catches you swaying in the corner of his eye.
The room seems to tilt on its axis under your feet. The cobbles sway softly beneath you, as if you were standing on water instead of stone. You reach blindly for the back of the nearest chair to steady yourself; you watch your fingers curl around the embellished wood, though you cannot feel it under your palms. Daeron’s quick hand catches you beneath the elbow in a small attempt to steady you.
“My lady?” he mutters softly, beneath Gwayne’s firmer, “Are you hurt?”
Your mouth parts, but it takes a moment for the words to come out. They fall from your tongue in strange slurs that sound nothing like your voice. “My back…” You trail off before choking on a whimper. It is not pain you feel, not completely, but rather a cold numbness blossoming wide along the left side of your spine.
Ormund perks instantly, swiping a hand along his chin and fighting off his own dizziness when he watches Gwayne close the distance between you. His long, pale fingers skim carefully along your shoulders as he examines the back of you. They settle finally just above the thin tear in your bodice, where the fabric of your borrowed dress starts to bloom a darker crimson from the blood spreading from underneath it — from where a soldier’s blade must’ve kissed you in the chaos.
“Gods…” you hear Gwayne breathe just behind you. “You’re bleeding— Someone call the maester!”
Your knees buckle underneath you as the strength spills from your body like sand through your fingers. Two sets of hands keep you upright; one smaller and trembling, the other wider and far more steady. They guide you into the seat before you can collapse. You watch Gwayne kneel into your vision with his palms resting firmly on your knees. The world continues swaying all around you.
“Let me see it,” Ormund says through panted breaths, gripping the table’s edge as he attempts to walk to you despite his own weakening state. He’s still pale and sheening with sweat from the blood clinging to his skin and nostrils.
“You can barely stand yourself,” Gwayne scolds drily. “She is my wife— I am more than capable of tending to her.”
Ormund attempts to laugh, though the chuckle comes out wearier than he means to. “Are you?” the older man manages to choke out. “Because you surely haven’t cared about tending to her while you were off playing at war—”
“Enough…” The word comes out slurred and hoarse from your mouth. The men fall silent at once. Their heads whip in your direction with matching expressions of concern that would’ve felt almost comical in any other moment.
The pain has started to sharpen now beneath the somewhat pleasant numbness. A hot, insistent throb begins to settle in its wake, searing through you like fire.
Your first instinct is to reach for Gwayne, but the guilt of what you’d done to him weighs on your hands like cement — what right do you have, you think, to reach for him now with bloodied hands, after months of reaching for another?
And then you think inevitably of Ormund and the particular safety you’ve always found in his hands, after he’s already seen you blood-soaked and broken and ugly from war, and never once flinched away at any of it. And then you think of the burned letters and the lies, and then of Gwayne’s departure with only a sliver of parchment left in his wake.
You reach, in the end, for neither of them.
“Daeron,” you call instead to the boy hovering beside you. You turn your swimmy gaze to his wide and frightened ones. Your voice is unnaturally thick in your throat as you ask him, “Can— Can you help me up to my chambers, please?”
The boy blinks and forgets to look to his uncle for approval first as he nods. “O-Of course, my lady,” he stammers and loops your arm carefully over his shoulder. “Lean on me…”
You do not look back at either man behind you as Daeron eases you from the chair and guides you slowly towards the door; but you do feel both of their eyes following you like twin points of heat searing through your dress, just like the soldier’s blade had. Neither Gwayne nor Ormund says a single word; the hollow sound of your fading footsteps fills the silence as you go.
The two of them are left standing alone together, amid the bloody wreckage of the unfamiliar hall, staring at the space where you’d once been.
to those of you who made it this far, thank you, i love you, and i'm sorry lol more to come soon!
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𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: for four years you've stolen affection from ser gwayne hightower. kisses pressed to his cheek. fingers buried in his auburn hair. now you're finally betrothed, yet he remains as painfully chivalrous as ever, denying being pulled into an unwatched hallway or even a kiss despite his mischievous princess's every attempt to entice him.
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: smut, p with p, mild angst, fluff, heavy romance, swearing, poor gwayne, reader is a menace, yearning, making out, cunnilingus, thigh riding, 18+ MDNI
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐚𝐧: reader is targaryen (rhaenyra’s younger sister)—no physical features are explicitly described other than targaryen features (purple eyes and silver hair since i couldn’t resist)
title from freddie fox's droolworthy reading of Keats' La Belle Dame Sans Merci~ link
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐰𝐜: 8.9k (oneshot)
Gwayne Hightower would not touch you.
It was beginning to feel like a punishment.
He was ever the attentive fiancée. He offered his arm when you walked. He held your waist to help you dismount Dreamfyre, but let go as soon as your riding boots brushed the floor. During feasts, he led you by the small of your back when the crowd pressed too closely, but he never allowed it to settle there. These many years you had been beside him, and he had never even stolen a kiss.
He spent four years before your match as your personal knight. And you had hardly been restrained with your affection for him then.
You pressed kisses to his cheek whenever he did something that pleased you. You threaded your fingers through his auburn hair when he knelt before you to fasten the ties of your riding boots. You touched him at any opportunity. And now that he was your betrothed, your behavior grew tenfold.
You wore your lowest cut gowns, enough to earn disapproving stares from the maids, and leaned over tables when he stood across from you, asking what he thought of your rubies, baring your throat with the peak of your breasts.
A few goblets into any feast, you became a terror. You would catch Gwayne’s hand beneath the table and attempt to pull him toward abandoned halls, empty balconies, shadowed alcoves— anywhere private enough so that he might finally claim what was his.
He always followed where you led him. His fingers would close around yours. He would let you pull him from the hall, his long strides carrying him behind you without protest until the music dulled and the torchlight thinned. He followed until he realized what you planned. Then it was like trying to pull a stubborn mule by the rein.
"Princess…”
"Ser Gwayne." You would wrap your arms around his neck.
He would carefully peel them away. You would press yourself against him and feel, unmistakably, the hard outline of his cock against your stomach. Proof enough that he was not unaffected by you.
Sometimes his eyes closed as though he were praying through some private agony. His breath would leave him slowly through his nose. His large hands would settle upon your hips, warm and tight enough to make you ache beneath the silk.
But Gwayne always stepped away. He always peeled your hands from his clothes and returned you to the safety of the feast like some wayward child who had wandered too close to the fire.
Gwayne was too good a man. Too honorable. A knight who still believed in chivalry when half the realm treated it as a pretty lie told to maidens before men stuck themselves inside. He guarded your virtue more fiercely than you, refusing to take advantage of your wine-softened judgment no matter how you tempted and tormented him. Gwayne never allowed himself to ruin you.
It was the hottest day of the summer when you realized why.
You went to the training yard whenever the weather was warm. When the knights in their exertion would shed their shirts to continue their training. It was improper. This was explained to you endlessly by your ladies, your father, even your sister, but no one succeeded in stopping you. You sat there for hours, watching as sweat ran down his throat and gathered along the hard planes of his chest. His auburn hair darkened at the temples. Broad through the shoulders, lean at the waist, his pale skin flushed from the sun.
You sat beneath a covered gallery with a cup of watered wine and made no effort to conceal your staring at only him.
Gwayne made every effort not to acknowledge it.
But the other knights did not conceal their interest in you. A young knight from the Reach bowed every time he passed the gallery. Another removed his shirt despite having done nothing strenuous enough to justify it. When one of them asked whether you might favor him with your ribbon for his next bout, Gwayne lowered his practice sword and looked at him.
“Ser Roland.”
“My lord?”
“If you possess enough breath to beg favours from the princess, you possess enough to continue.” Gwayne struck him hard enough to send the knight sprawling into the dust. When his opponent rose, Gwayne disarmed him so violently that both wooden swords cracked.
He never looked toward you, but the muscle jumping in his jaw was satisfaction enough. His jealousy was one of the few scraps you had. They were pitiful little things, but they proved Gwayne’s restraint was not disinterest.
When the training ended, you descended into the yard while the men washed and dressed. Gwayne’s shirt lay where he had left it. You only meant to collect it for him. That was all. A sweet, wifely gesture before you were properly his wife.
A ring slipped from the breast pocket when you lifted the linen.
It fell into the dust without a sound. It was gold, old enough that its surface had softened with years of wear. Small, delicate, made for a woman’s hand. A pale green stone rested in its setting, not bright like an emerald but gentle, almost clouded, with tiny filigree vines around the band. It looked like a humble version of your own betrothal ring on your finger set with purple sapphire.
Oh.
For months, perhaps longer, you had noticed him touching something inside that pocket. His fingers would disappear briefly beneath the edge of his doublet, finding something hidden there. You had caught him alone once, holding a small golden object in his palm and staring down at it with such a contemplative expression that you had quietly retreated before he noticed you.
You had wondered what it was. And now you knew. A woman’s wedding ring.
You looked toward Gwayne. He stood beside the well, speaking to another knight as water ran over his bare chest. He did not notice you.
Perhaps she was blonde. Oldtown seemed filled with golden women in your imagination, graceful and pious, with eyes as crystal blue as their waters. Likely she was the daughter of some landed knight, far too low for the son of Otto Hightower. She had to be beautiful.
Like your sister, Rhaenyra, you had been permitted your pick of the eligible men presented to you.
Ancient lords offered themselves beside sons younger than some of their horses. Heirs came from every corner of the realm, gathering at Driftmark until the corridors filled with unfamiliar banners and the stables groaned beneath the weight of their entourages. They waited in a line that curved through the great hall, each man eager for his chance to stand before you and explain why his blood was worth joining to yours.
You had sat on the throne of pale driftwood, made comfortable with plush white furs. Your skin polished with oils and perfume and your hair woven with pearls.
Your father’s advisor sat lower at your side, jabbering endlessly on about advantages in your ear.
The men themselves offered ships, armies, ancient blood, loyalty, gold, grain, any and every resource the crown had want for, they offered at your feet. Young and old praised your beauty, your intelligence, your lineage. You were the fairest daughter of the king. Truly befitting the title Jewel of the Realm. A true dragon amongst women. You rested your cheek on your fist.
One lord promised to give you six healthy sons despite appearing near death himself. Another recited the victories of every knight in his family since the Conquest. A young heir stumbled through a poem about your amethyst eyes, despite never having actually looked at your face since his attention was too caught at your breasts.
Then Gwayne stepped forward and bowed.
Your Gwayne. He was painfully handsome in the green finery of his House and silver jewelry; his auburn hair brushed back from his face.
“My princess, House Hightower has—"
“I accept.”
It was the first time you had spoken since the procession began. Silence spread across the hall.
Gwayne remained bent for a moment. When he lifted his head, his expression was almost comical. His eyes were wider than you had ever seen them, lips slightly parted.
“Princess,” the advisor beside you began cautiously, “perhaps you should consider—”
“Pray, consider what?” you turned on the man sharply. “House Hightower is among the oldest and wealthiest houses in the realm and Ser Gwayne’s father has served faithfully as Hand of the King for years.”
Otto Hightower was the worst of any power-hungry, conniving snake you’d ever witnessed, and his elder brother had only one son, Ormund. A cruel, volatile young man according to what Alicent heard from Gwayne. It was a matter of time before he befell accident and Gwayne would inherit Oldtown in his stead.
You had not spent years dreaming of Gwayne without considering what marriage to him would mean. You were besotted, not a fool.
“Every merchant vessel entering the Honeywine pays for the privilege. Every hold filled with silk, spice, wine, steel, or grain enriches House Hightower before its cargo ever reaches the market. Their wealth may not lie buried beneath a mountain like House Lannister’s, but trade does not run dry.”
You looked back to Gwayne, softening your voice. “I have always longed to see Oldtown. The most beautiful city in Westeros perfumed by endless flowers, I am told, and near enough I would be only two days by dragonback from my most precious sister. I think it a fine match.”
Gwayne looked at you.
You had begged him often enough for stories of Oldtown. Of the Hightower burning against the evening sky. The bells of the Starry Sept. Of the great markets along the Honeywine, crowded with merchants and sailors from half the known world. Of the city in spring and summer, when flowers climbed every wall and spilled from every garden until the streets seemed to burst with them. He always answered you patiently.
Otto coughed into his hand to poorly conceal his delight. He had already been presented and rejected before his son. He stood among the assembled lords looking every bit like a fat cat drowning in cream.
At the time you had thought Gwayne’s reaction adorable.
Now you felt like you were going to vomit—
He would not kiss you because he did not want to.
Gwayne had ceased being your personal protector once the betrothal was announced. A future husband could not stand alone outside your chambers at all hours without inviting questions about your virtue. And you— vain, witless creature that you were— found it romantic. You imagined him restless in his new rooms, him lying awake with the same ache that kept you from sleep.
All the while, he had been touching another woman’s ring through the fabric over his heart.
Suddenly every kindness he’d shown you spoiled beneath the memory of it.
He had been romantic, in his careful way. He remembered which flowers you liked and had them brought to your chambers when the gardens were bare. He stood beneath your balcony in the rain because you had fallen asleep under the covered daybed before dismissing him. He warmed your gloves before winter rides and carried sugared plums in his pocket because he knew you became more foul-tempered when hungry. After you rolled your ankle, he had carried you through half the Red Keep.
That was Gwayne’s particular cruelty. He was too good a man to be careless with you. Too honorable to let his reluctance become unkindness.
He had proposed because his father commanded it.
He was your knight only because he was commanded.
You had seen him joust the day your mother died. Alicent had spoken of her brother, how he was good. He was kind.
You had been lonely, half-wild with grief— you had seen your beautiful mother bleeding out in her bed. His blood in the mud. The unfairness. The helplessness of everything. You fixated upon him like a dragon with prey. You wanted him. You wanted him more than you'd ever wanted anything.
Viserys had always had a fatal weakness for his daughters. Jewels, hawks, gowns, ponies, sweetmeats, if either of you desired something, he rarely found the strength to refuse.
He was only seven-and-ten, already a knight. The scar beneath his left eye a neat line of black thread against pink swollen skin. He spoke his oaths to you. That day onward, his life belonged to you.
Perhaps someone had given the ring to him before he left. Perhaps he had intended to give it back with another promise.
Your stomach lurches painfully and you need to physically hold back the vomit, closing your mouth and constricting your throat.
His back was to you. You dropped his shirt back beneath the tree as though the linen had burned your hands. With no greeting nor blown kisses you turned on your heel.
You returned to your chambers, hand clenched around the ring until your nails drew blood. When you finally opened it, the delicate gold was stained red along one edge.
By twilight, you found Gwayne beneath the Heart Tree.
The sky above the walls had deepened to violet, the last of the sun caught in the highest windows of the Red Keep. Gwayne sat with his back against the pale trunk, his linen shirt only half-buttoned and his auburn hair disordered from the repeated drag of his hands through it. His doublet lay overturned across one knee. The contents of his pockets had been emptied onto the grass beside him
The sight of him scraped away much of the satisfaction you had carried with you.
The goldsmith had worked quickly when summoned by a princess. You had rejected three designs for chains before choosing one fine enough to disappear beneath Gwayne’s clothes, but strong enough that the ring would not be lost again. It was plain gold, without gems or needless ornament. Anything grander had seemed an insult to the modest woman you imagined once worn it.
Now, seeing the strain around his mouth and the bleakness in his eyes, you wished you had not taken it at all. “Gwayne.”
His head lifted sharply.
Relief came too quickly before he mastered it. He rose at once, brushing grass from his clothes, though his attention never left your face.
“My princess.”
You smiled despite the ache beneath your ribs. You had done something kind for him. That was what mattered. You brought the velvet pouch from behind your back and offered it to him. “I have something for you.”
He accepted it carefully, brows furrowed together.
The fine chain spilled over his palm, followed by the ring he had clearly spent the last several hours searching for like a madman. Relief broke naked across his face. His shoulders lowered. His mouth parted on a breath.
“Forgive me.” Your voice came quieter now. “I should not have taken it.”
His eyes rose to yours.
“It fell from your shirt in the yard, and I feared you would lose it. You carry it loose in your pocket as though it were a copper.” You touched one finger to the chain in his hand. “Something so precious deserved better.”
“You had this made?”
You nodded. You would not be cruel enough to let him lose his last piece of her merely because you were a stupid, spoiled little bitch who imagined herself loved.
He looked at the chain again, thumb passing over the links with painful care.
Gwayne had always been good to you. Your blood was not made for gentleness, but he made you wish to be good back.
He was romantic in a hundred small ways. He gave you everything a good man might reasonably give a lady but withheld any single thing that would have allowed you to believe he wanted you as a man.
He slipped the chain over his head and tucked the ring beneath his shirt. It disappeared against his chest, settling exactly where you had intended— directly over his heart.
You looked at his face and wondered what kind of woman could place such grief there.
“She must have been very dear to you.”
Something changed in his expression. Love, certainly. Loss. A tenderness so old and deep that it appeared to have settled permanently into him.
“She was.” he said quietly. “More than I could ever explain.” His hand closed around the ring, “I miss her constantly.”
Something inside you broke like a final cut of a frayed thread. You clasped your hands together so he would not seem them shaking. You smiled once more, though it felt like stretching skin over a corpse. “It is late, I should return inside.”
He stepped toward you. “Allow me to escort you.”
“There is no need.”
“It is dark,” he reached for your hand.
You stepped away before he could touch it. The movement was small, no more than half a pace.
Still, his fingers stopped in the empty air between you. You pretended not to notice, giving a shallow curtsy, “good evening, Ser Gwayne.”
You had never addressed him so coldly in private before and his brows knit.
“My princess—”
You only turned on your heel.
You spent the two weeks before your wedding being haunted by a woman who did not possess a face.
You saw her in every maid with golden hair. Every noblewoman who giggled at something dry Gwayne had said. Every daughter of the Reach who lowered her lashes and found some reason to linger near him.
Sometimes she was blonde and gentle, pale as milk, with a soft voice made for prayer.
Sometimes she was dark-haired and bold. The sort of woman who might have met Gwayne in stables or beneath the shadow of the Hightower, pressing herself against him while he promised her a life he would never be permitted to give. You imagined he liked boldness if it was her.
Sometimes she had a full, romantic body that would have filled his hands beautifully. Sometimes she was slim-boned and graceful, made to stand beside him without making him look like a man burdened.
You imagined him kissing her without having to be begged. Following her into dark halls without stopping halfway to remember his honor. You imagined his hands closing around her waist because she was gentle and he wanted them there, rather than because she had been dismounting a dragon and needed help down.
You imagined him fucking her. The thought arrived most at night, vicious and detailed. Gwayne beneath another woman. Gwayne above her. His auburn hair disheveled through her fingers, his mouth open against her breast, his cock disappearing inside her body.
You became despondent.
The curtains remained drawn in your chambers. You did not rise until later and later in the day. Your meals sat untouched and stone cold or sent back to the kitchens.
Weeks’ worth of unopened gifts all from House Hightower sat piled high and collecting dust. The sent bouquets made your chambers smell of sweet moonblooms and died where they were placed because you would not allow your ladies to put them in water.
Far, far more had already been sent ahead to your soon-husband’s home in preparation for your arrival. You dreaded the thought of seeing any of it. You dreaded ever seeing Oldtown.
Your favorite gowns disappeared into the furthest reaches of your wardrobe. The low necklines Gwayne had once looked away from were replaced by collars worked high beneath your chin. You wore heavy embroidered silk despite the heat and sleeves buttoned at the wrist.
The first afternoon you appeared dressed like a particularly wealthy septa, Rhaenyra had choked on her watered-wine and kept staring like you'd grown a second head.
When you saw Gwayne later in the day, he eyed your gown as well. You gave him the same distant courtesy you might have offered any knight at court. “Good day, Ser Gwayne.”
You did not kiss his cheek. You did not touch his hair. When he offered his arm, you accepted because refusing would cause gossip. Your hand rested lightly upon his sleeve. Nothing more.
You addressed him only when courtesy required it.
Thank you, Ser Gwayne.
That will be all, Ser Gwayne.
You need not trouble yourself, Ser Gwayne.
Within two weeks, Rhaenyra had exhausted both her patience and her sympathy.
“You are ill,” she said, bursting into your chambers, despite it being the midday before your wedding, to find you still in bed. Your wedding gown hung ready for you against your painted screen. You spent the night and morning staring glumly at it.
Your sister planted both hands upon her hips.
“You do not attend the training yard. You have not spoken of your wedding, not with me or the planners. You have not tormented poor Ser Gwayne.” Her eyes narrowed. “And worst of all, you have not even been to see Dreamfyre in three days.”
You groaned, just wishing for her to go away. “I am not ill.”
"I swear to the gods, if you're pregnant out of wedlock—"
You dragged a pillow over your head. “I'm not pregnant, you bloody fool.”
There was a pause and you could feel her gaze burning a hole into your back. “Are you certain.”
“I would first need to actually bed him for that to be possible.”
Rhaenyra crossed the room in several quick strides and ripped the pillow from your face, staring down at you as if it was life and death. “You have not bedded him?”
You glare up at her, face scrunched.
“Your wedding is tomorrow. You have been betrothed for months. By the gods, what have you been doing all this time?”
You rolled away from her.
“Send for him. Have him take you. When the child arrives before the proper number of moons, we can claim it came early.”
You threw a pillow at her. “Are you deranged! I am still a maiden!”
She wore satisfaction like silk having managed to finally rile you for the first time in weeks. She sat heavily at the edge of your bed and laid atop you, her low back across yours. “Tell me.”
You did not want to. But there were no secrets allowed between you. And your sister was a relentless animal. She would remain atop you all day if necessary. She’d lie here till the end of time if it meant you would feel better.
“There is another woman.”
As you told your story, your sister’s expression did not change. You didn’t expect her to understand. She has little interest in your brother-in-law, Laenor, which was hardly surprising considering he possessed even less interest in her entire sex.
“Ah. Well.” She nodded, resolved. “He has always made you too soft anyways. And now the solution is obvious,” her mouth curved faintly. “He will be your husband before the court. In private, you must do as I do. Occupy yourself elsewhere just as he will.”
Your stomach soured horribly again at the thought of another woman in his bed while you were married. But your thoughts moved toward her newest personal knight.
Ser Harwin “Breakbones” had become a frequent presence near your sister. Broad as a fortress wall, smiling too easily whenever she spoke. Due to your sister's scandalous stories, you were far more familiar with the way the man used his cock more than his actual personality.
“Such as your new occupation with Ser Harwin.”
Her smile widened. “Ser Harwin is certainly devoted to his duties.”
“I am certain he performs them tirelessly.”
“He has remarkable stamina.”
You laughed and you saw her face light in the way it always did when she managed to make you laugh. Then you saw the idea form in her head. A devious little spark.
Before you could object, she caught your face between both hands and smashed a kiss against your cheek. It was wet, loud and irritating.
You shoved at her shoulder, wiping her spit off. “Ugh! Get off me.”
“No more of this.” She declared.
“You are not queen yet. You cannot simply command my misery finished.”
She seized you again and smooshed another disgusting kiss upon your other cheek. “Tonight, we are going out.”
Your sister returned after dark. She slipped through the hidden door behind the tapestry without knocking, wearing a rough brown tunic, loose breeches and boots that had been stolen from a stable boy. Her silver hair had been braided tightly and shoved beneath a dark wool cap, though several pale strands had already escaped around her temples.
She carried another bundle beneath one arm.
“Get dressed.”
It was far from the first time the two of you had escaped into the city. Within the hour, your hair had been crushed beneath a cap, your body hidden beneath coarse wool and Rhaenyra was pulling you through the city by the hand. It smelled like piss and roast meat and floral perfume poured over unwashed skin.
You drank first in a tavern where every table was sticky and the ale tasted as though it had been strained through an old boot. Then a brothel where sailors sang were loud and one of them narrowly missed vomiting into your lap.
You would learn later what happened inside the Red Keep.
A maid entered your chambers shortly before midnight and found the bed empty.
She panicked, searching everywhere you may have hidden in your chambers or the kitchens. All your ladies spent years watching you and Gwayne. if you were upset, they fetched him. When you caused mischief, he untangled it. When you disappeared, he always knew where to look. So, frantic, she burst directly into his chamber finding him halfway through removing his doublet.
"My lord," she gasped. "The princess... I—I cannot find her."
For one moment, he simply looked at her.
His mind rejected the words. You had retired hours ago. He had watched you leave the hall, dressed in dark blue, your throat covered to the chin. You had scarcely looked at him all evening.
“What do you mean, you cannot find her?”
The girl began to stammer. “Her bed is empty, my lord. Her ladies thought she was asleep. No one saw her leave, and the window is still locked, and I checked the solar, but she is not—”
“Who entered her rooms tonight?”
“No one, my lord. I swear it.”
“Who was stationed outside?”
“Ser Martyn and Ser Olyvar.”
“And they saw nothing?”
“No.”
“Then either they are liars or imbeciles.”
The maid’s eyes filled with tears at his harsh tone. Gwayne scarcely noticed. Fear had already taken hold of him, cold fingers sinking through flesh and curling around bone. You had been different for weeks. Quiet. So unlike yourself that he had begun to worry you had fallen ill, though every maester he sent to you insisted otherwise. You acted now with perfect courtesy to him. You looked at him as though he were a fucking stranger and it was driving him to madness.
Now your bed was empty.
“Say nothing of this,” he ordered.
The maid blinked. “My lord?”
"You will not wake the castle. You will not summon the guard. You will not speak a word of this unless I command it."
"But the princess—"
"Would be ruined before dawn if the Red Keep learned she vanished from her chambers the night before her wedding."
The words tasted foul. Vanished. The night before her wedding.
He had seen reluctant brides before. Girls wrapped in silk and pearls with red-rimmed eyes. He had pitied them. He never imagined you among them. Not after you had chosen him.
But you had retreated from him. And Gwayne couldn’t understand for the life of him why. He tried everything. He sent flowers, your favorite white moonblooms, roses, violets, and sweet peas till your chambers began to resemble a garden. Every morning your maids carried armfuls of dead flowers out. So jewels followed. Silver necklaces set with sapphire, emerald earrings, rubies meant to lie against the hollow of your throat. You wore none of them. He suffered through two hours with a court poet selecting syrupy verses he knew would make you tease him.
You only thanked him for the politeness shown by House Hightower.
You scarcely left your chambers anymore, and whenever he sought a private word, your ladies intercepted him with smiling excuses. The only place he ever truly saw you was at dinner and he couldn’t bloody well ask why you were no longer trying to entice his clothes off in front of the king.
His last resort, he wore your silk favor around his wrist every morning in the yard. It was almost embarrassing.
A favour was meant for battle or a joust, not an ordinary afternoon in training. The other knights had noticed. One had smiled knowingly before Gwayne put him flat on his back in the dust. Dutifully, he tied your purple and green woven silk to his wrist every morning.
You always possessed some uncanny gift for appearing whenever he removed his shirt. Without fail he would look up from the yard to find you leering over the gallery, licking your lips like a cat— he, your cornered songbird.
But you never came. His heart fell everytime he glanced to the empty gallery and he was mottled with bruises because he kept glancing, failing to notice the blows coming to him.
He knew first where to search.
Dreamfyre’s enormous body rose and fell beneath the darkness of the Dragonpit, blue scales catching what little firelight reached her. When Gwayne approached, one golden eye opened and fixed upon him with displeasure.
He stopped well beyond reach of her jaws. He had known your dragon for four years. That did not make him foolish enough to mistake familiarity for safety.
Dreamfyre released a low rumble that vibrated through his ribs.
“I know,” he said, jumping back, “I very much dislike my being here as well.”
You had not fled the city. You would never have left without your dragon. You loved the beast with a devotion that was purely absurd considering she possessed teeth longer than his forearm and could swallow the both of you without chewing.
Relief came first. Then frustration. He had not spent four years enduring your mischief without learning that when you caused trouble, Rhaenyra was rarely far.
Gwayne closed his eyes “Seven fucking hells.”
The poppy den was warm enough to make your skin damp. Carpets covered every inch of the floor, stained with wine and ash. Smoke curled beneath the ceiling, sweet and burnt, thick enough to soften every face in the room. Men and women reclined against embroidered cushions with glassy eyes while servants moved between them carrying wine and pipes.
Neither of you smoked. You only liked the smell. You had drunk just enough to feel pleasantly warm without guaranteeing tomorrow's misery.
Rhaenyra sprawled beside you with one arm thrown over her eyes and one boot missing. You had no notion where it had gone.
A servant bent to refill your cup. His tunic hung open almost to his navel, displaying a great deal of smooth golden skin. Rhaenyra lifted her arm just enough to watch him leave. “Laenor would like him.”
“Laenor likes anything with a cock and a smile.”
“He is not so particular about the smile.”
Your laughter choked on your wine and burned as it came out of your nose.
Rhaenyra laughed so hard that she rolled onto her side, clutching her stomach.
You did not hear the door open. Gwayne stood at the entrance to the den, chest rising hard beneath his cloak. For the better part of an hour, he had searched every establishment Rhaenyra’s personal guard, Ser Cole, told him of. Dread sitting like lead in his stomach. He had imagined finding you in some alley with your throat cut open. Some filthy bastard laying hands where no man had leave to touch. He had imagined blood staining your silver hair.
He had not imagined you were lying facedown upon a stained carpet, cheeks flushed, drunk off your pretty little arse and laughing with your equally asinine sister
Then you turned your head and your laughter died.
Rhaenyra followed your stare. For several moments, no one moved.
He expected you to rise and come to him with an apology. You’d wear that sweet, sheepish little smile you used whenever your behaviour crossed the thin line between troublesome and outright criminal. You would hug his upper arm, press it to your breast and look up at him with fluttering lashes, telling him it had only been a bit of fun, Gwayne. And, as usual, he'd melt for you.
Instead, you and Rhaenyra looked at one another.
Something silent passed between you. You bolted in opposite directions.
Rhaenyra threw herself through the back entrance, her single boot abandoned somewhere behind her. Her laughter vanishing behind a hanging curtain.
You made it a few steps before Gwayne caught you around the middle.
A startled cry escaped you his arm locked across your stomach, crushing your back against his chest while you kicked uselessly.
“What,” he said against your ear, each word clipped with terrifying precision, “in the seven hells possessed you?”
“Unhand me this instant!” You struggled harder, trying to pry his arm from your waist.
Gwayne only tightened his grip. He had been imagining your throat opened because some Flea Bottom cunt had recognized the silver of your hair.
You drove your heel backward, narrowly missing his knee.
His patience ended.
He bent, caught you behind the knees and you shrieked as he threw you over his shoulder.
Blood rushed to your head. His shoulder dug beneath your ribs with every step as he walked out. You slapped both hands against his back and tried to force yourself upright, but the position gave you no leverage and you hung limp. Your cap slipped free and fell somewhere in the street white hair spilling nearly brushing his boots.
“Gwayne—!”
His hand struck the fat of your arse. It was not hard enough to truly hurt, but it stung even through your breeches, sharp enough to leave you frozen for one astonished breath.
Then outrage flooded you. “You fucking beast!”
Gwayne’s hand remained splayed across the backs of your thighs, keeping your flailing hips pinned against his shoulder.
“Compose yourself,” he said, voice dangerously calm, “If you kick me again, I shall take it as confirmation that the first correction was insufficient.”
“You would not dare.”
“Tonight has already proven that you greatly overestimate my patience.”
You kicked him again.
Gwayne halted. For one silent moment, his hand remained motionless against your thighs. Then he sighed through his nose. “As you wish.”
His palm cracked against your backside a second time. It landed harder than the first, not cruelly, but firmly enough that the sting bloomed hot beneath your breeches.
You gasped. “You—”
“Choose your next words carefully.”
“You sanctimonious cunt!”
You fought him the entire way back to the keep. You pounded your fists on his back and cursed his name, his House, and every Hightower ancestor unfortunate enough to have produced him. You threatened to have him dismissed, exiled, fed like a goat to dragons. When that failed, you informed him with crocodile tears that your ribs were breaking and he needed to put you down. He only huffed and shifted your hips higher upon his shoulder to take the pressure off, and you released a scream of pure frustration.
By the time he reached the hidden passage, his breathing had grown harsh, and sweat dampened the hair at his temples. Still, his hold never loosened. He endured your tantrum until you reached the concealed door behind the tapestry in your chambers. Gwayne shoved the panel open, strode inside, and threw you onto the bed.
You bounced on the mattress with a startled cry. He slammed the hidden door closed and turned upon you. You had never seen him so angry, never at you.
"What," he hissed, "possessed you?"
"It was only one evening."
"One evening in a brothel."
"A poppy den.” You crossed your arms, climbing to your knees on the bed. "Rhaenyra was only trying to give me a night of freedom."
"I do not care if she took you to the Starry Sept.” He looked at you with incredulous anger.
"The night before your wedding you went wandering Flea Bottom," he repeated, running his hand through his hair but saying the words slowly as if to make them sensible. "You could have been recognized. You could have been taken.” He scoffed. “Do you understand what men do to women they find unguarded in places like that? Do you understand what they would have done to you?”
“I do not belong to you yet, lord husband,” You snarled, “You forget to whom you speak, Ser.”
His face hardened. "I have forgotten nothing."
"Then remember our vows are not spoken till tomorrow. Until then, where I go and what I do are of no concern of yours."
“No concern—” His laugh was short and disbelieving. “I have spent the last hour searching Flea Bottom because you vanished from your bed, and you dare tell me you are no concern of mine?”
“You need not trouble yourself. By this time tomorrow, you will have all that was promised to you.”
Something in his expression shifted, though his anger remained. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“My hand. My name. Dragon’s blood for House Hightower.” Your face was inches from his, voice growing colder. “I shall stand beside you before the court. I shall leave for Oldtown when you commanded. I shall spread my legs and give whatever heirs your father expects of me."
Gwayne went utterly still.
You should have stopped. Instead, wounded pride drove the blade deeper. “Is that not enough?”
“Enough?” he repeated.
“You have never wanted anything more from me.”
He looked as if you had slapped him. “You believe that?” he asked.
“I assure you, I will perform my duty as well as you preform yours.”
Neither of you spoke. You only stared at one another, breathing hard. Then something in him seemed to crack, not into anger, but into exhaustion.
“You have not looked at me in two weeks.” His voice had gone quiet in a way that was worse than shouting. “If you cannot bear this match—if you cannot bear me—” He looked at you. “Tell me. Tell me plainly and I will find a way to undo it. I will fall on my sword before I see you miserable.”
Your throat tightened. Whatever anger had been there had quickly vanished. It hurt to look at the despair on his face.
"What would you have of me to ease this wretchedness I have must have done to you?”
You wanted. God you wanted. Just once before everything changed between you. Just once before he ceased to be your Gwayne when he returned to her.
You leaned up and pressed your lips against his. He was as still as a statue. You moved your mouth against his clumsily, pursing your lips together and then rubbing your lips against his. Gwayne still didn’t move. Your heart pounded painfully in your chest and your face flushed with embarrassment. Tears came to your eyes at his lack of reaction. When you pulled away you tried to hide your face from him. “I am so sorry.”
You still held him, your fingers buried in his hair, tears spilling freely down your cheeks. “I tried,” you say. “I swear I tried to be better.”
"I do not understand." You sobbed and tried to release him, but his hand caught your wrists keeping your palms pressed against his face though it was scrunched in confusion. "Sweetling, by the gods, what do you mean?”
“I tried to stop humiliating you. To stop touching you when you did not want me to. I know I have been selfish. I know what your father made you give up for this marriage.”
His brow drew sharply together. “What did my father make me give up?”
“The woman in Oldtown.”
Silence.
“The what?”
“The ring,” you forced out. “The woman whose ring you carry. You said she was dearer to you than you could explain. You said you missed her constantly.”
For one long moment, Gwayne only stared. The misery of the past weeks lay suddenly naked before him. You thought—
Seven fucking hells.
You thought he belonged to another woman.
Gwayne’s fingers tightened around your wrist.
“I cannot—" your words dissolved around your broken breath. “I am not selfless. I cannot while you bed her. Gods watch her have your children. Please, Gwayne— please— I know you do not love me but please I cannot bear that—”
His mouth cut off your choked rambling.
The force of it bent you backward. His hands cupped your face, almost reverent in their gentleness, a startling contrast to the cruel hunger of his mouth. You made a suprised sound and he swallowed it.
For years he had imagined this.
Every night he stood outside your chambers, he imagined opening the door. He imagined finding you beneath the thin summer sheets, your nightgown rucked around your thighs, and finally taking what you had spent years offering him. Honour be damned, to hold you, press his lips to yours and finally bury himself in your slick, soft heat. Every indecent gown you wore he imagined throwing up your skirts and bending you over the nearest table until you forgot to laugh at him.
But you were his sweet princess. His beautiful love, innocent despite being a demon sent specifically to torment him. Despite what you believed, you did not truly understand the ugliness of men. He had spent years protecting you from his own indecency. He could not endure the thought of you looking upon him with fear or disgust if he acted.
But you were sobbing into his mouth because he had been so restrained that you actually believed he loved another, and Gwayne simply couldn't fucking bear it.
He had loved you since he was a squire visiting, unnoticed at the edge of your father’s yard. You had run right past him, silver hair amess, using your ruffled dress as a pouch for your stolen lemon cakes, your sister hot on your heel, not even noticing he existed. He still remembered the sound of your laughter.
Now you dared apologise for keeping him?
You cried harder.
Gwayne shushed you against your mouth, the sound low and ragged as he tried to soothe you but he did not stop. Each sob was cut short by another kiss. His tongue pushed between your lips with none of his usual courtesy, invading you so thoroughly that your fingers tightened painfully in his hair.
You whimpered.
The sound nearly ruined him. He dragged you closer until your thighs struck his, one hand sliding behind your neck to keep you where he wanted you. His tongue moved against yours with vulgar hunger, licking into your mouth. You only opened for him, trembling while he took and took.
When you finally choked on a breath, Gwayne tore his mouth away. Only an inch. Barely enough to let you gasp.
“The woman,” he whispered, kissing the corner of your lips. “Your supposed rival—” Another kiss. “My mother.”
You froze but Gwayne kissed again before you could reply.
“The ring belonged to my mother.”
His mouth moved over yours between each broken word, as though he could not force himself to leave you long enough to explain.
“She died when I was eight,” a kiss to your upper lip. “I loved her.”
You could not stop sobbing, whether from the wine or the relief or violent exhilaration of having his hands finally upon you.
Gwayne muttered an apology against your mouth, though nothing in the way he kissed you was sorry.
You coughed when his tongue pushed too deep. He drew back just enough for you to breathe, lips still brushing yours in small, feverish kisses, unwilling to surrender even that scrap of contact.
“I am sorry,” he whispered.
Kiss.
“Sweetling, breathe.”
Kiss.
You sniffled and turned your face away, overwhelmed by the rough scrape of his mouth tasing of salt from the humiliating tears covering you both.
Gwayne caught your chin. His fingers forced your face back toward him. Then he kissed your tightly pursed mouth again.
“I love you,” he said between kisses, “I love you. I love you.”
You laughed now against his mouth, still trying to kiss him back each time, still with wet cheeks.
"I should go," He said in between kisses, but he made no move to stand.
You didn’t answer, just tugged him by his collar. You couldn’t let him go. Not now, not after this. The only thing you wanted was to spend this night together, in love. You press yourself against his body with frantic, clawing need to be closer, so that you could cut him open and bury yourself inside his skin. Maybe that would finally relieve that ache you felt within you every day. You rolled your hips, desperate and Gwayne immediately offered his leg without thinking.
Acting on instinct, you hitch your legs around him, and gasp at the sensation. His leg against your thighs and your clit rubbing him through the rough material of your trousers. The friction was exquisite and brutal all at once. You rocked against him, unsteady and wild, while his mouth gentled on yours— his hunger seemingly somewhat satiated by the sensation of you against his leg.
But soon the fabric began to burn, chafing your sensitive skin raw. “Gwayne,” you begged, voice fraying. “Please—it’s too rough.” You tightened your legs around him, holding on like you might drown. “I need—”
He understood, ever your valiant knight. He pulled back just enough to lay you down on the mattress, your body pliant beneath his hands. He tugged at your trousers, the burlap scraping one last time as he dragged them down your thighs.
He looked at you and the intensity of it nearly burned. His eyes raked over your slick, flushed cunt, the faint trembling of your naked thighs, the way your knees tried to edge together in reflexive shyness. His mouth fell open as if he’d never seen a woman before. He groaned as if wounded, “Gods be good.”
You giggled, face hot with the embarrassment of being seen for the first time. It was unbearable. You tried to cross your legs, but his palms eased them apart again with effortless strength.
“Don’t stare,” you whispered, throwing your arm over your eyes.
“You’re so beautiful.” Gwayne's gaze was on your face, dark at the cheeks and vulnerable for him.
He settled down between your legs. He kissed your thigh, then turned his head and kissed the other. He ventured higher and gave a soft bite to the sensitive skin and nosed at the spot before running his tongue over it.
He didn't let you set the pace. When you tried to grind closer, he held you still, forcing you to let him savor. He sucked, he licked, he bit gently at your inner thighs, making sure every inch of soft flesh was marked before he even considered giving you what you desired.
“Husband, please”
As if to reward you for his new title, Gwayne brought his mouth to your center, until his nose was hovering above your clit. You felt him inhaling deeply and you yelped. His eyes were shut tight in bliss, as though committing the very scent of you to memory before he pressed a kiss to your mound. “Gods you’re soaked.”
The first swipe of his tongue was unlike anything you could have imagined. You gasped and slammed your hands down on the mattress. "Gwayne."
Gwayne moaned and pressed closer.
He took it slow at first, so slow you could have died from it. He licked at your entrance without ever quite dipping inside, just tasting the slick on his tongue. He kissed at your clit ever so gently, just to feel you shiver and moan under his lips. But when Gwayne finally, finally licked his way from your entrance up to your clit, the bastard avoided touching it directly with his tongue, instead swirling little circles around the pearl just for the sake of making you twitch and grab at his hair needily, practically humping his face the same way you had his thigh.
He didn’t allow you. One broad hand pinned your hips to your bed, still slowly licking up down and everywhere but where you needed him most. You were throbbing now, achingly empty, and Gwayne was only humming softly above your clit and slowly dancing his tongue in the spaces around it. Not content to let you get away from him without some form of punishment it seemed.
“Gwayne,” your fingers pulled at his auburn hair.
His green eyes opened looking up at you—a direct, flat stroke over your clit that made you gasp, your back bowing off the bed, your knees clamping around his ears as a shock of pure sensation ignited along your nerves.
The game was over. Now his tongue worked you in earnest, lavishing attention directly on your clit before straying from his patterns to trace the hooded flesh around it, only to return again with relentless, focused laps.
Obscene wet noises filled the room, making you shut eyes and turn your head away, body singing in pleasure, a delicious knot building fast in your belly.
But he pulled back and you practically sobbed, your fingers tightening in his hair as he said muffled and breathless against you, “Eyes, wife. Eyes back on me.”
He resumed again only after your eyes were locked on him, though your vision was watery.
His lips sealed around your clit, and he suckled on the bead with a careful mouth, not hard enough to bruise, but certainly hard enough to let the tight knot in your stomach peak and crash through you.
You screamed as you came, having to bite the flesh of your lip to keep from waking the entire keep. Your back arching tight and knees slamming shut around Gwayne’s ears. You couldn’t speak but you whined and Gwayne knowingly went back to licking broad stripes with his tongue, soft enough not to overwhelm you.
He kept licking until you pushed his head away, panting as you came down from your release. Watching the debauched act of him licking his lips, wiping off the excess slick with the back of his hand before his cheek rested, haggard on your thigh.
For a moment all you could do was lay there.
"Was that it?" You ask dumbly. "Was that all?"
Gwayne turned his head and gave a bite against your thigh.
"No," you laugh, pushing his head back as he continued placing punishing bites on your delicate skin. "I meant— will you not let me tend you?"
Rhaenyra had explained to you, in graphic detail, every act she knew to preform and you had always been eager to have him in your mouth, but right now, you could hardly remember how to articulate your own name.
Gwayne laughed and lifted his head. "I do know what you mean." He climbed up over your body and collapsed beside you.
Your fingers toyed with the lace of his breeches, but his hand lifted your knuckles to his lips. "Not tonight, sweetling." He took you into his arms and pulled you close.
You huffed at him and he laughed. “Patience.”
“I have waited far too long already,” you whined but were content enough to turn in his arms and tuck your head into his neck. "Can we not just find someone to marry us now?"
He laughed. Gwayne wondered how you would react if he told you that he would take himself in hand and murmur your name, spilling over himself nearly every night for four year.
"I will marry you tomorrow, in the light of the Seven so all may know I didn’t steal you away in the night.”
He pet your hair and you preened. “Fine... but if you refuse to finally bed me afterwards, I shall lock you in with Dreamfyre and let her have her way with you instead."
Gwayne bit back a laugh. "I am at your service, my princess."
You laughed again and as your eyes slowly closed to sleep, you felt him shift out from beneath you, and your hands fisted to his shirt.
"I must go," he said, gently unfurling your hands. "Before anyone wakes."
"No, stay with me," you whined.
He laughed softly. "Soon, my love, I promise."
He kissed you once, twice, four times, before he pulled away from your grip and slid out of bed.
And when tomorrow came, you two stood together before the altar of the Seven, dressed in white and green, the scent of beeswax and fresh flowers filling the sept. Sunlight poured through colored glass, bathing the marble in pools of ruby and sapphire. You cut one another's lips and were one with him, exactly as you had always been meant to be.
HOTD masterlist
small part 2
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐚𝐧: if you stayed this long, thank you thank you thank you!! this is my first fic i’m posting after a very, very long slump. I have more queued up and more in the works MWAH!
if you want to be in my tagged for any character i write for let me know :)
could I ask for a Gwayne Hightower x wife!reader- where the reader is on team black and he is obviously on green, And he sees her on dragon back during one of the battles he’s apart of ?
back to you | g.h
Pairings: Gwayne Hightower x Wife!Reader
Summary: at Rook’s Rest you find more than battle
WARNINGS: angst, hurt to comfort, reader is team black, reader is Rhaenyra’s sister, reader is mentioned to have silver hair, my man is desperate in this one
A/n: bring back men yearning pls
masterlist | wc: 6.3k
THE ROAR of dragons tore violently through the sky, and you felt it vibrate in your bones even before Cannibal spread his immense black wings over the battlefield of Rook's Rest. The air was so thick with smoke it burned your lungs with every breath, heavy with the acrid stench of ash, freshly spilled blood, and the metallic tang of clashing weapons. Beneath you, the battle stretched to the edge of the forest like a vast open wound carved into the earth: thousands of men fought amid agonized screams and frantic neighing, tattered banners whipped through the flames, while shattered catapults and overturned wagons littered the ground with splintered wood and lifeless bodies. From the sky everything seemed small, and yet you could make out every detail, every knight struck down, every blade sinking into flesh. Cannibal let out a low, rumbling growl, his massive body trembling beneath you, eager to descend into what, for him, was nothing more than a feast.
Your eyes were fixed on Rhaenys Targaryen. She had fought like a queen, like a legend destined to be remembered for centuries, and even from that distance you could see the fierce elegance with which she guided Meleys through smoke and fire. You had arrived too late. Fate had already chosen for her. You watched the enormous jaws of Vhagar close around the red dragon's neck with a brutality that stole your breath, the sound of bones breaking blending with Meleys' desperate roar, and for a moment time seemed to slow to a halt. Then the dragon fell. It dropped like a star devoured by the sky, crashing into the castle walls below in an explosion of stone, fire, and dust. The impact made even Cannibal shudder, and a towering column of flames surged upward, swallowing everything. You gripped the saddle so tightly your fingers ached, as a dull, savage pain tore through your chest.
Cannibal roared, and his cry echoed across the mountains and over the battlefield, forcing men and horses alike to pause for a fleeting instant. Even Vhagar seemed to stiffen. Atop the oldest dragon in the Seven Kingdoms, Aemond Targaryen slowly turned his head toward you. His single eye narrowed, immediately recognizing the dark shape of Cannibal emerging from the clouds like an omen of death. A faint, almost amused smile touched his lips. He knew you. He could read the fury consuming you better than anyone, because that same fury ran in his blood as well. For a long moment, neither of you moved. Brother and sister remained suspended above an army that continued slaughtering itself, watching one another like two predators deciding which would devour the other.
Below, Gwayne Hightower, the man who had become your husband only a few years earlier, found himself unable to breathe. He saw you emerge from the sea of smoke with a determination he had never forgotten, Cannibal's vast wings spread like a shadow capable of blotting out the sun itself. For a moment, the clash of swords, the cries of the wounded, the noise of armor, and the crackle of flames all vanished. The world seemed to shrink until it held only you. You, who had once shared his bed in the silent chambers of Oldtown. You, who in rare moments of peace had spoken his name with softness. You, who laughed so quietly that he had to lean closer just to hear you. You, who now rode toward death. His fingers tightened unconsciously around the hilt of his sword until his knuckles turned white, his heart pounding painfully in his chest. He had spent the past weeks trying to convince himself he had forgotten you, that he had buried every feeling along with your broken marriage. He had told himself the war had erased everything, that oaths mattered more than love, that you now belonged to different worlds. And yet one glimpse of you was enough to shatter every lie he had so carefully built.
He still loved you. He understood it with brutal clarity as he watched you lean forward in the saddle, completely fused with your dragon. He could still remember the warmth of your skin against his, the scent of your hair when you fell asleep on his chest, the way you would look away whenever he tried to kiss you first, only to make him chase you with a laugh. In truth, he had always been the desperate one. He was the one who sought your lips with impatience, who chased every small gesture of affection as though it were a privilege. You never denied him, but you always made him earn it, and that was what he missed most. Not the caresses, not the kisses, but the constant need you had created within him, that hunger for your presence that no other woman had ever been able to satisfy. He looked at you now, smeared with ash, infinitely different from the girl he had married and yet exactly the same. Still capable of breaking his heart with a single glance. He wanted to meet you in the ashes of your yesterdays when life was easier, waiting where the light used to fall, recalling what you had when present felt empty. Learning how to miss you.
He understood it completely the moment Cannibal lowered his head and plunged into a dive toward Vhagar. The sky itself seemed to crack under the force of the impending collision. Gwayne stepped forward without even realizing it, as though reaching out a hand might somehow touch you up there. "Don't do it..." he whispered, but his words were swallowed by the chaos of battle, lost to the wind and the thunder of dragons. No one heard him, not even you. Perhaps that was for the best, because he knew you well enough to understand that you would not have stopped anyway.
You faced your brother without the slightest hesitation. There was no fear in your movements, no doubt, not even the faintest trace of mercy. Only fury, fueled by the grief of Rhaenys's death and years of smoldering resentment. Cannibal opened his jaws, revealing rows of enormous, jagged teeth, and his roar made the air tremble before a torrent of black and red flame engulfed Vhagar. Aemond's dragon answered at once, unleashing a blaze so vast it resembled a burning wall. The two infernos collided in the sky, creating a storm of sparks and ash that rained down upon the battlefield like fire. Below them, men screamed and scrambled for cover, while terrified horses broke ranks, trampling friend and foe alike. Aemond guided Vhagar with precision, every command delivered through the slightest shift of his body, while you responded with equal instinct, as if Cannibal were an extension of your own will. The two dragons crashed into each other with devastating force, claw against claw, wing against wing, locking together in a violent dance that seemed to shake the very air.
It was an impossible battle. Gwayne knew it. Everyone did. Vhagar was the oldest, the largest, the most powerful of the living dragons. Every battle she had fought had carved scars into her immense body, shaping her into a creature that seemed made for war. Cannibal, for all his ferocity and wildness, was still younger, smaller, forced to make up with speed what he lacked in strength. And yet he did not yield an inch. He continued to assault Vhagar with relentless determination, forcing even the colossal dragon to recoil beneath the violence of his attacks. Gwayne followed every movement, his heart clenched in a vice. He saw you lean from the saddle as the wind lashed your ash-streaked hair, saw blood running down your temple without you seeming to notice, saw your eyes burning with rage. It was the same expression you had worn the day of your separation, the day he had spoken the words that destroyed you both, confessing that he would fight for Aegon. He still remembered the silence that followed, far more painful than any scream. In that moment, you had understood that something between you had broken forever.
It all happened in the blink of an eye. Cannibal seized a fleeting opening in Vhagar's guard and lunged at the massive dragon's neck with savage ferocity. His jaws snapped shut with a terrifying crack, sinking his teeth into the ancient armored scales until they pierced through. The roar that erupted from Vhagar's throat was so powerful it made the sky tremble, a sound filled with pain and fury that echoed for miles and brought the battle to a stunned, fleeting halt. Dark blood streamed down the old dragon's neck, evaporating almost instantly in the heat of the flames. Vhagar writhed violently, trying to break free from the grip, while Aemond pulled hard on the reins, shouting commands in the tongue of Old Valyria. Cannibal did not let go. He tightened his hold with relentless determination, intent on tearing flesh down to the bone. Below, Gwayne held his breath, unable even to blink.
Vhagar crashed to the ground with brutal force. Her enormous claws sank into the blood-soaked earth, shattering stone, wagons, and bodies alike without distinction, while a wave of dust and debris rose all around her, forcing men and horses to retreat in panic. The thunderous beat of her wings swept away already-tattered banners, feeding the fires that devoured Rook's Rest, and her roar echoed through the broken castle walls. You did not hesitate for even a moment. You pulled sharply on Cannibal's reins, guiding him with the weight of your body, and the dragon understood your command before you spoke a single word. With a powerful beat of his wings, he soared back into the sky, leaving behind the black smoke and flames that reflected across his dark scales. You were finally satisfied.
Below, Gwayne Hightower followed your every movement without even noticing what was happening around him. The screams of soldiers, the clash of steel, the shouted orders, all of it reached him as though muffled and distant, as if he were submerged underwater. Only you existed. His eyes could not leave your figure as you slowly pulled away above the battlefield, higher and higher, closer to the smoke-blackened clouds. That was when something caught his attention. A short distance away, among the charred remains of a collapsed tower, an archer stood as still as a statue. He was filthy with dirt and blood, his face smeared with soot, his hands trembling so badly it seemed impossible that he could still draw a bow. And yet his gaze was steady, fixed on you. The arrow was already nocked, ready to fly. For one terrible instant, Gwayne saw clearly the path it would take. His body made the decision long before his mind did.
It was as if he moved on instinct alone, adrenaline suddenly surging through his veins. In a few strides he reached the man, slamming into him hard enough to make him stagger. But the archer's fingers had already released the string. The arrow flew regardless, slicing through the air with a thin, deadly whistle, so fast it was almost invisible. Gwayne lifted his gaze at once, unable even to breathe. He felt his heart pounding so violently it hurt, as he followed that slender line of death climbing into the sky.
The arrow that would have surely struck your heart hit your shoulder instead. Even from that distance, he saw your body jolt from the impact. Blood splattered across Cannibal's black scales, staining the already dirtied fabric of your clothing, while your face twisted in a sudden grimace of pain that made his stomach tighten. Your body wavered dangerously on the dragon's back. One hand reached desperately for purchase on the saddle, the other instinctively grasped the wound. For a long, endless moment, it truly seemed as though you might fall.
Gwayne felt a scream rise in his chest, but he could not release it. It remained trapped there, choked into nothing more than a broken breath. "No..." he managed to whisper, his voice so weak it was swallowed instantly by the wind.
Then he saw you react. With sheer stubbornness, you clenched your teeth and slowly straightened in the saddle. Your hand trembled as it grasped the shaft of the arrow lodged in your flesh, but you did not try to pull it free. You simply pressed your palm against the wound in a desperate attempt to slow the blood that continued to run down your arm. Cannibal, sensing your pain, let out a low, uneasy growl, but continued to climb, obedient to your commands. Gwayne released a trembling breath he had not even realized he was holding. He had saved you. He had changed the course of that arrow. He had betrayed his men, his oath, his very house. He had done it for you. He had chosen you. He watched you grow smaller and smaller against the gray sky, his chest rising in uneven, ragged breaths, unable to find a rhythm.
And then he saw you fall.
Your hand slipped. Your fingers, weakened by blood loss, slowly lost their grip on the saddle. Gwayne's eyes widened. For a moment, he convinced himself you would recover once more, that you would seize the reins again, that Cannibal would correct his flight. You were strong, the strongest woman he ever knew. But it did not happen. He watched you slip from the dragon's back in slow motion. Your body separated from the saddle and hung suspended in the void for a fraction of a second before being swallowed by the sky.
"No." This time the word left his lips with more force, but it was still too small, too fragile to reach you.
His heart seemed to stop. Gwayne took a step forward, then another, without even knowing where he was going. He kept staring at the sky like a madman, reaching out a hand in your direction, as though the distance between you might suddenly vanish, as though wanting it enough could make it so. But you were too far away, too high above him. And he was only a man, with a sword too heavy in his hands and too much love in his heart, bound to a ground that would never let him reach you. He watched you fall, powerless to do anything at all. Your hair scattered in the air, and from that distance your face seemed strangely serene. At peace, as if the war and all its suffering had suddenly been stripped away from you. Then your body disappeared beyond the veil of smoke and low clouds, swallowed by a void Gwayne could not see.
The noise of battle returned all at once, crashing over him with unbearable force. Everything felt too loud, too close. Gwayne stood frozen in the chaos, his eyes still fixed on the place where you had vanished. His hands trembled uncontrollably, and his sword nearly slipped from his grasp, held only by a strength that was no longer there. He could not move. He could not even think. He saw the moment again and again in his mind. He had tried to save you. He had seen the arrow. He had acted without hesitation. If he had not struck that archer, the shaft would have pierced your heart and killed you instantly. And yet it had not been enough. He had only changed where the wound landed. Only delayed the inevitable.
A cold, unbearable emptiness began to consume his chest, hollowing him out from within, stealing the breath from his lungs. His knees nearly gave way beneath him, and he had to drive the tip of his sword into the ground to keep from collapsing. He felt his heart tightening more and more, as though an invisible hand were crushing it without mercy. All his life, he had tried to be the man others expected him to be, a good knight, a worthy son of his house, a man faithful to his oaths. And he had failed. He had tried to be a good husband too, when he had still had the chance, but he had failed at that as well. Every choice he had made, every sacrifice he had endured, seemed to have led him inevitably to this exact moment. You had fallen anyway. The arrow had reached you anyway. And he had not been able to stop it.
He slowly raised a hand to his face, brushing at his eyes as though wiping away the tears threatening to fall might also erase the image of what he had just seen. But the memory of your body falling into the void remained etched behind his eyelids with brutal clarity. The more he tried to push it away, the more vivid it became, the heavier the weight of guilt pressed against his chest. Perhaps this was his punishment. For the selfishness that was planted in the human body. Perhaps the gods were punishing him for his greed. He had wanted both, had demanded to keep the honor of his house and, at the same time, the love of the woman he had lost. He had believed he could serve two masters without losing anything. And the gods, as they always did, had claimed the price of that illusion.
Night fell slowly over Rook's Rest, swallowing everything in its darkness, erasing every trace of the battle. The last cries of the wounded had faded one by one, replaced by the low crackling of fires lit among the ranks of the victorious army. Tongues of flame flickered in the night wind, casting brief light upon exhausted faces smeared with dried blood, soot, and dirt, eyes reddened by fatigue and war, hands still unable to stop trembling after hours spent gripping a sword. The acrid smell of smoke lingered everywhere, mingling with that of burned flesh, worn leather, and blood soaking into the ground. Here and there someone laughed; others drank in silence, staring into the void with hollow gazes, too drained even to speak. The crows had already begun gathering in the trees at the edges of the battlefield, patient and still, waiting for morning to claim their feast.
Among the soldiers, the same words passed from mouth to mouth, whispered beside the fires. They said the battle was over, at least for that day. They said Vhagar had survived, though gravely wounded, and that Cannibal had vanished into the sky, never to return. But above all, they said that you were dead. That after falling from your dragon's back, you had plunged into the lake beyond the forest, swallowed by the black waters without leaving a trace. Some even claimed they had seen your body disappear beneath the surface. Others swore no one could survive such a fall. Each time your name was spoken, it was followed by a satisfied laugh. To many, you had been nothing more than a traitorous princess who had met the fate she deserved.
Gwayne Hightower, however, could not believe a single word of it. He simply could not. Sitting a short distance from the others, his back resting against the rough trunk of a great oak at the edge of the encampment, he stared straight ahead without truly seeing anything. His cloak was still stained with mud and dried blood, his armor scratched in several places, barely reflecting the flickering light of the nearest fire. His hands lay motionless on his knees, as still as those of a statue. Around him, the camp slowly drifted to sleep. Some soldiers continued recounting moments from the battle, their voices thick with exhaustion and wine. Someone laughed too loudly. Someone else wept, believing no one was watching. The blacksmiths gradually extinguished their makeshift forges, the stablehands checked on the last surviving horses, and little by little every sound seemed to fade, becoming muffled and distant. Gwayne had the distinct sensation of standing behind an invisible barrier that separated him from the rest of the world. His body was present, but his mind remained suspended in the sky, in the exact moment he had seen you fall.
No matter how hard he tried to distract himself, it took only the briefest closing of his eyes for it all to begin again. He saw the archer. The arrow leaving the bowstring. The moment he struck the soldier in a desperate attempt to deflect the shot. Then he saw the bolt reach you anyway, burying itself in your shoulder with a violence that stole his breath. He saw the blood staining your dress. Your hand clutching desperately at the wound. Your fingers slowly losing their grip on the saddle. Your body tilting ever so slightly. And finally, the fall. Again, and again, and again. Each time, his stomach twisted painfully, forcing him to bend forward. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his fingers against his eyelids until it nearly hurt, as if physical pain might erase what tormented his mind. But it did not work. The image remained there, seared behind his eyes with unbearable clarity. The more he tried to push it away, the more vividly it returned, as though the Gods liked the way it devoured him from within. All he could do was relive it and hope, somehow, to earn forgiveness for his sins.
A long, trembling breath slipped from his lips as he slowly ran a hand over his weary face. Beneath his fingers he felt skin caked with dirt and dried blood, and the cut he had taken across his cheek during the fight. He was exhausted, but he knew he would not sleep. Around the fires, some soldiers drank to their victory. They had accepted your death with a readiness that made him sick. They called you a traitor. They laughed, imagining your body dragged to the bottom of the lake. Someone even claimed that Cannibal had abandoned you, unable to save his own rider. Gwayne had clenched his jaw until he tasted blood, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to tear it, just to keep himself from rising and striking the first man who dared speak your name with such contempt.
Dragons fell, and their riders died. It had always been so. Ever since the Dance of the Dragons had begun, every battle had claimed its toll of fire and blood. It was the fate of those who rode such creatures, everyone knew it. Everyone accepted it. But that simple truth did nothing to comfort him. Because to him, you had never been merely a rider. You were not just a Targaryen princess. You were not simply a name destined to appear in the songs of bards.
You were his wife. The woman before whom he had spoken vows he believed eternal. The girl he had learned to love long before politics, war, and the duties of your respective houses forced you apart. You had been his home, his refuge, his greatest weakness and even greater undoing. Even after your separation, even after finding yourselves on opposing sides, he had never stopped thinking of you. He had tried to convince himself otherwise, of course. He had told himself that time would heal every wound, that distance would extinguish that feeling that picked at his chest. But every attempt had failed miserably. You had remained his greatest regret. His ruin. And, despite everything, you were still his only love.
When the last fire in the camp dwindled to a bed of reddish embers and even the final conversations faded into silence, broken only by the snores of sleeping soldiers, Gwayne knew he could not remain still a moment longer. He rose slowly, careful not to make a sound. His joints protested from the strain of the day, but he did not notice. He adjusted his cloak over his shoulders, left his sword sheathed, and walked away without looking back. He moved between the tents like a silent shadow, avoiding the sleeping men and the sentries who watched the forest with heavy eyes. Each step carried him farther from the camp and closer to the place where you had vanished. He did not truly know what he was searching for, perhaps only a body to mourn, a grave before which he could kneel. Perhaps he needed to see with his own eyes the final proof of your death, because a part of him stubbornly refused to believe it.
The forest welcomed him with silence. The trees towered high above his head, turning the moonlight into thin blades of silver that barely pierced the dense weave of branches. The ground was damp, covered in leaves and moss that muffled his steps, while the wind stirred the treetops, producing a constant rustling like an incomprehensible whisper. Now and then a broken branch cracked beneath his boots, or a nocturnal creature fled through the underbrush, but otherwise the forest seemed to hold its breath with him. The air was far colder than in the camp, damp and heavy. Each breath filled his lungs with a painful sensation, yet he kept walking without slowing. His heart beat faster with every step, feeding a hope he desperately tried to smother, for fear it would destroy him.
When at last the trees began to thin and the lake appeared before his eyes, Gwayne stopped instinctively. The water lay still as a black mirror, so dark it seemed bottomless. The moon reflected upon its surface in trembling fragments, barely disturbed by the wind, while a thin mist began to rise from the shore. No sound came from the water. No ripple. No sign to tell what had happened only hours before.
Gwayne swallowed hard, his heart pounding in his chest. "Please..." he whispered hoarsely, not knowing whether he was praying to the gods, to the lake, or to you. It was a desperate plea, spoken without even realizing it.
He began to walk slowly along the shore, his eyes darting frantically from one point to another. He searched every reflection, every log carried by the water, every dark shape lying among the stones and reeds. His hands trembled so violently that he had to clench them repeatedly to keep from losing all control. The farther he went, the more despair grew within him. He was ready to throw himself into the lake without a second thought if only he glimpsed a fragment of your cloak beneath the water. He did not care about the depth, nor the cold. He did not even care about dying. He only kept searching for you, with the same stubborn determination he had always had when it came to you.
Then, suddenly, his gaze stopped. You were there, lying on the shore, motionless, just a few steps from the dark water. Your hair, still wet, spread in disarray over the damp grass like threads of silver in the moonlight. Your clothes were soaked with water and blood, clinging heavily to your body, while one of your arms lay abandoned at your side. For a long, endless moment, Gwayne stood completely still. His heart nearly stopped, and terror seized his throat so tightly he could not even breathe. From that distance he could not see the rise and fall of your chest. He could not tell whether you were breathing. And his greatest fear, the one that had driven every step he had taken toward the lake, rose up once more to devour him. He feared he had arrived too late. He feared the gods had made a mockery of him.
Gwayne lunged forward, breathless, running along the uneven shore of the lake without regard for the slippery stones, the low branches that scratched his face, or the mud that slowed his steps. The only thing he could see was you. Every beat of his heart felt like a blow struck directly against his ribs, so fast it stole his breath. When he finally reached you, he dropped to his knees beside you, splashing water and mud across his cloak. For a moment he remained completely still, unable to convince himself that you were truly there. He stared at you with a terrified expression, as if a single wrong movement might make you vanish before his eyes. Then his hands, trembling uncontrollably, moved slowly toward your face. He brushed your forehead gently, as though he feared even the pressure of his own fingers. He caressed your cold cheeks, still damp with lake water, tracing the line of your jaw down to your neck in a desperate attempt to feel a pulse. A strand of silver hair, stuck to your skin, covered part of your face. He moved it aside with infinite care, letting his fingers linger briefly in your hair in a gesture so familiar it almost hurt him. How many times had he done the same in your chambers in Oldtown, when you fell asleep beside him with your face hidden against his chest? How many times had he watched those strands spread across the pillow, convincing himself that such happiness would last forever? Now that same hand trembled too violently to even touch you.
He was already sinking into the abyss of despair when it happened.
A faint breath, barely perceptible, slipped from your parted lips, breaking the silence of the lake. It was the slightest whisper, so weak that another man might not even have noticed it. But Gwayne felt it, felt it with every fiber of his being. His eyes flew open in disbelief as the world seemed to halt around him once more. He remained motionless for a few seconds, almost afraid he had imagined it. Then your chest rose slightly, in a slow, labored movement, but enough to shatter, in a single instant, all the pain that had suffocated him until then.
A broken sound escaped his lips before he could stop it, something between an incredulous laugh and a choked sob. Tears stung his eyes, but he made no attempt to hide them. "You're alive..." he murmured softly, as though he feared that speaking the words too loudly might frighten the gods into taking back what they had just spared him. He was definitely a selfish, selfish man. "You're alive..." he repeated, this time with his face bent close to yours, as if he needed to hear the words from his own lips to truly believe they were real.
Urgency immediately replaced his astonishment. Gwayne roused himself, quickly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and without wasting another moment he seized the edge of his cloak. With a sharp tear, he ripped a long strip of fabric from it, ignoring the sound of the cloth splitting. His fingers were clumsy, made awkward by fear and cold, yet he tried to press the makeshift bandage gently against the wound still bleeding on your shoulder. The arrow was gone, likely broken during the fall or lost in the waters of the lake, but the blood continued to seep slowly, soaking your already drenched clothes. Each time the fabric darkened with red, Gwayne's heart seemed to tighten further. He lifted you with the utmost care, slipping one arm behind your back and the other beneath your legs just enough to move you away from the shore. He drew you against his chest, trying to shield you from the cold night and the damp ground. At once he felt the weight of your body yield against him as he had never felt before. Your breathing, weak but present, broke against his armor and passed through the fabric of his tunic to reach his skin. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
"Stay with me..." he whispered, his voice breaking as he lowered his head until it brushed against your forehead. "Please... stay. Don't leave me now."
For several endless moments, he feared you had not heard him at all. Then your lashes began to tremble softly. Your eyelids lifted with agonizing slowness, as if even that simple movement required immense effort. Your eyes, still clouded with confusion and pain, wandered aimlessly before finally settling on his face. You looked at him for a long time in silence, your expression lost and distant. It was as if you were trying to remember where you were, or perhaps simply trying to understand whether he was real. For a long moment, neither of you spoke. Gwayne held even his breath, terrified that this fragile connection might shatter.
You continued to stare at him. Your lips parted slightly and, in a voice so faint it nearly blended with the wind through the trees, you asked: "Am I dead?"
Those words pierced his heart. Gwayne shook his head immediately, leaning closer to you. One hand remained firm behind your back, the other still cradled your face as if he feared you might vanish at any moment. "No." The answer came too quickly, broken by emotion. "No... you're here. You're alive." He swallowed hard, but the words poured out of him uncontrollably, dragged forth by weeks of silence and a guilt he could no longer contain. "I'm sorry..." he whispered, lowering his gaze briefly before searching for yours again. "I'm so sorry. I... I didn't mean— I saw that man. I thought that if I could stop him..." His voice broke. He drew a deep breath, but it did nothing to steady the tremor in his chest. "If I hadn't intervened, maybe... maybe the arrow would have taken a different path. Maybe you wouldn't have fallen. I—" He closed his eyes for a moment, unable to continue. "I can't stop thinking about it."
His hands instinctively sought yours. They always sought your. When he finally managed to lace his fingers with yours, he was almost startled by the contrast between the warmth of his own skin and the cold that had overtaken yours. They were freezing, so cold it frightened him. He held them with the utmost care, as though afraid of hurting you, then slowly brought them to his lips. He pressed a long, trembling kiss upon them, just as he had done countless times during your marriage. It was a gesture that had become an involuntary reflex of his love. Every time you were sad, every time you were afraid, every time he returned from a long ride and found you waiting for him, he would take your hands and kiss them in that exact same way. Now he did it again, his eyes shining with unshed tears, his heart in pieces.
You were so pretty even like this. His pretty girl.
"It's my fault..." he whispered against your skin, almost unable to look at you. "You fell because of me. I made you fall. I don't even know how to ask for your forgiveness, my love."
You watched him for a long time without interrupting. There was no anger in your eyes, only an infinite weariness, made deeper still by the pain of your wound. Slowly, with an effort that broke his heart just to witness, you freed one hand from his grasp and lifted it toward his face. Your fingers trembled visibly as they reached his cheek. You touched him lightly, with a caress so gentle it felt like the brush of a feather. Gwayne remained completely still, holding even his breath. It had been so long since you had last sought his face. "You need not to apologize..." you murmured, your voice barely audible. A faint smile appeared on your chapped lips. "You were only protecting your family. Just as I do."
He lowered his gaze slowly, letting his forehead rest against yours. What an angel you were, he thought not even the fairest maiden could ever hope to be like you. What monster he was to ruining you like this, rotting you until your core. "It shouldn't be this way..." he whispered bitterly, gently stroking your still-damp hair. His fingers moved through those strands with the same tenderness as before, as if every gesture might carry you back to when you had been happy. "We shouldn't be on opposite sides. We shouldn't be forced to choose." He lifted his eyes again to meet yours. "You too are my family."
His hand lingered on your face for a few moments more, caressing you hesitantly. It was as though he were touching you for the first time, and yet as if his body remembered perfectly every line of your face. His fingers traced slowly along your cheek, the curve of your jaw, until they came to rest near your lips. The most beautiful lips he so loved kissing. For a moment, it felt to him as though he were back in your chamber in Oldtown, he could almost hear the rain against the windows, smell the burnt candles and the warmth of the sheets. For a few heartbeats, the war ceased to exist. There was only the two of you.
He leaned down toward your face, and finally he kissed you. That kiss carried every unspoken word, every night spent longing for you, every wrong choice that had led you both to that lake. His lips trembled slightly against yours, as though he feared it might truly be the last time he would ever be able to do so. They were soft despite being chapped by cold and exhaustion. And you, despite the pain coursing through every part of your body, let yourself fall into him, into his arms, against his chest. That was where you belonged, in his arms. Gwayne held you a little tighter, one hand finding your waist, careful not to touch your wound.
How he loved kissing you. How he loved when you clung to him as he was your savior. His heart always exploded in an hundreds of sparkles, making him dizzy with your taste. He felt so drunk of you, feeling you everywhere. Yet Gwayne wanted to feel you even more, merge his body into yours, flesh into flesh. He wanted to burn into you. He wanted you to kiss him forever.
He wanted. He wanted. He wanted. Why he wanted so much? Is he allowed to wanting?
It’s was so hard not to when you touched him so, looking like the prettiest dream.
When he finally pulled back, it was only by a few inches. Your breaths still mingled in the cold night air, your foreheads nearly resting against each other, lips still chasing. His eyes could not leave yours, as though he feared that looking away might cause him to lose you again. He remained there, motionless, gently stroking your cheek with his thumb. He could not let you go. After believing you dead, after watching you fall from the sky, after thinking he would never hear your breathing again, separating from you now felt simply impossible.
you don't agree with the way ormund berates daeron. after a small disagreement with your husband over this, gwayne finds himself at the end of some silent treatment. but it's not just your son daeron you're worried about, it's the little one in your tummy that gwayne is yet to discover.
husband! gwayne x wife! pregnant! reader, parent! reader & gwayne x daeron. (love this boy sm- he's fab & needs to be protected.) fluff! slight angst! comfort fic! pregnancy! mentions of difficult getting pregnant. mentions of violence off screen (my guy gwayne would knock ts out of ormund i just know it)
"you are upset."
he does not need to be loud to be heard in the library. the whistle of the wind carries his declaration with a profound softness till it reaches your ears and yet, it's not enough to lift your gaze from the book your eyes are militantly trained to uphold. he's sure you're going to set that book alight with the intensity of your stare.
"i am not." right, or perhaps rather with the flame of your curt replies.
"then you are quiet."
"you would rather me be quiet than be bitten with my anger right now, husband."
"i would not, my love," he takes a seat next to yours on the table, his hands gripping the edge of your wooden chair with an effortless ease to tug you closer. when hes successfully minimised the distance, his hands hook under your knees and bring your legs across his lap. in turn, your body just shifts in his direction, the blanket perched across your abdomen shifts slightly and he tries not to focus on the way you pull it back with instinctious ease, "bite me, dearest," he whispers tenderly, fingers tracing in soft lines up your calves "i can take it."
your head shakes in defiance, a petty silence shifting between the two of you and gwayne almost smiles at your stubbornness. almost. but he doesn't, he knows it'll rattle you further and thats the last thing he'd rather do right now. he'd rather die, if that's an option.
his trailing touch is too welcome of a distraction and you stare hard at the little map of your skin he's following and knows all too well. you refuse to bend, you need time to sit in this heat to brace yourself, to find the right words to say and the best way to say them.
but gwayne would take all your words no matter bark or bite, with sense or without, just anything is better than this weighted silence between you. so he struggles a little, one hand stays firmly wrapped around your leg as the other tries to engage in a small game of tug and war as he wiggles the book from your grasp. he ignores your grumbles and successfully lays it flat at the far edge of the table, furthest from your reach. his slender finger reaches out and tilts your chin up to him, brows raised with that patient fondness and he just waits.
all he has to do now is wait, and it doesn't take long at all because one look to gwayne and all your thoughts tangle on your tongue and slip so messily.
"if you cannot tell me what has happened then tell me who," he murmurs, sterness laced into his features, "give me a name, darling that is all i need."
"ormund," you finally break and its bitter on your tongue. you feel your husband tense instantly, the beat of his heart slowing to a halt and he lets out a long exhale.
"of course it is him, what has he done now?" he rolls his eyes but there's a fierceness still harbouring. ormund has been a constant topic of conversation during your years of marriage and raising daeron, the same circle you find yourself trapped in where ormund pushes too hard. he mistakes the gentleness and kindness the two of you have brought daeron up to value as weakness and it irks you to the bone.
"i don't like the way he speaks to him gwayne, he's frightening the poor child," you exasperate and gwayne's listening but he's watching more with concern on the way your hands are flying around with great agitation. "filling him with notions of being king and getting angry with small inconsistencies in history and i'm sorry," you bite out, "having been beaten by a child in a game? and you're in a fit?" the shock and disgust is laced in your tone and you're far into your rant that you look over at your lover and seethe, "seven hells, gwayne would you at least look at me when i'm speaking?"
"i am looking!" his palms shoot up in defence, "and i am listening," he levels his tone, "it is not acceptable you are correct."
"of course i am correct, ormund is deranged,"
"yes, well i think his nightmarish tendencies have been festering since he first laid in his mother's womb," gwayne tries to joke, earn a giggle from you, an easy breath, a temporary truce but all he can see is a sliver of teeth breaking through from your frown. womb. he has no idea which of his words have settled on your skin, making home with the nerves and annoyance.
"is something funny gwayne?"
"my love," he starts and then stops, you've swung your legs off his lap and he misses the heat instantly. he tries to think, what could best diffuse this situation right now and bring you back to him. "i agree and i'll talk to him," he places a comforting hand on your shoulder but you're staring at him and he starts to shift under your scrutiny.
"has daeron said anything?" he feels a wave of protectiveness surge through his body. he knows ormund is harmless, but daeron is gwayne's more than anyone. he and you have raised that babe from young and when you look at daeron, sweet kind daeron, all gwayne can see is you. all the love you've ever poured into him. you and gwayne hadn't been so lucky in your marriage to be blessed with children but daeron has made up for it. he is your son and you'd be damned if anything were to ever happen to him.
"no but," and immediately gwayne sends you a look, "he doesn't need to! the maids speak and they speak of ormund's cruelty," you stress and he nods in understanding.
"you didn't need a maid i could've told you that," he shrugs his shoulders, "i will talk to him," he repeats, trying to catch your eyes, laser in on your focus and bring it to calmness.
"why do i sense a but?" you question.
"but i do think you're too soft on the boy," gwayne speaks. "he's ten and six, my love. he's incredible at his sword play and a novice in his text, i have no doubt ormund's ways are peculiar and i will raise that but he is growing, ormund may be cruel but the world will be harsher."
"he is a boy," you don't even have to shout for gwayne to feel the outrage in your tone.
"he is heir to the throne," gwayne's hand steadies on the table, his body looming over yours. he tries to reach out to you but you stand, guarded and tense. one wrong move from him and you'll shatter the brave stance he's holding up. his hands find the sides of your empty chair now instead, gripping it tensely till his knuckles break through an icy white.
"he is our boy," you voice finally breaks at the edge, you don't even let gwayne finish his sentence before youre shooting daggers and cutting at his hearts edge. "and i will not have the weight of the house's responsibilities and his brother's failures crush him whole," you try and create distance between you, heading to the windows and focusing on the way your small breaths lace the condensation on the glass. you reach out and feel the coolness against your fingertips and close your eyes, "you were not there when it's happened gwayne," you speak slowly, "he tries so hard with everyone, to be what they expect of him, he shouldn't have to with us."
there's an emptiness in the metres that hold you apart. from the silence and from the exhaustion that you know this familiar fight always brings. ormund inflicts his pain, daeron suffers, you and gwayne squabble, gwayne turns to ormund. ormund will never apologise you know this, he becomes a little softer the next weeks before he's back to his usual tirade and the damage will always be done. it'll always linger and haunt you and fail you when you catch the small slip of daeron's smile. the subtle flinch he tries to mask when the tiniest of mistakes have been made.
you think of the weight resting in your body, the heightened need for safety and it almost brings a tear to your eyes. your family is growing and you need to protect them. when you think of daeron, you think of the babe. you think of a life that could be more than just a political piece and your heart lurches, this can't go on. it takes everything in you to not reach out for the little fetus now, you find yourself often just mindlessly checking its still there. as though this could be a dream, as if something so precious could disappear so quickly.
"i know, sweetheart. i will speak to him," gwayne promises with determination, "i will make this right."
you open and eye to sneak a peek at him and see the way he looks back at you, with a longing desperation and you heave out a sigh.
"i would rather he die," you moan and gwayne snorts. its not a resolution to your disagreement but it lightens the mood for a minute. you feel his presence coming behind you and he stops short. he knows you want the space and he grants it to you.
"should i challenge him at the sword, lady hightower?" he mumbles with a tease, breath warm on your neck. and it'd be so easy for you to just give in, turn to your husband and melt back into the safety net of his love. but you're not only sick of this cycle, your heart breaking for your son and unborn child. you're also scared. so you press your forehead against the glass shaking it softly.
"i think poison should be fine," the condensation rises with a small fatigue and the lack of humour in your tone. "quicker, even. though i'm not sure he should be granted the mercy of a swift death."
you can feel the weight of his gaze shift from you to the gardens outside. the way your eyes track the different flowers in bloom and he stands quietly.
"i'd like some time alone, i think," you break the silence and gwayne pauses. you wait for him to say something, to fight you on this, fight for you on this but he clears his throat and nods tightly.
"as you wish, my heart. but rest assured, i will sort this for us. " he slowly presses a kiss to your hair and stares at you a minute more. he wants to tell you it'll all be okay, he will sort this for you and daeron, he will take charge of his household and make things right but you demand action, there's only so far that words can take him right now.
the stress pounds on the forefront of your mind. youre scared for daeron, but youre also scared for yourself. for what youre holding and what will soon be brought to life. its a heavy secret and you want nothing more than to just tell gwayne. but you've already bitten off more than you can chew for today and it settles in your bones.
you don't turn back to watch him leave, his footsteps are sound enough to know you're alone. and when there's absolute stillness do you let your back slide down the window and sink to your knees. your palms rub your eyes gently and then catch your face as you weaken for a moment. your fingers drum along your abdomen, three little knocks to say hello and you sigh, shifting the focus on your breathing. four inhales and six exhales. four inhales and six exhales. four times more before making a move to stand and continue with your day.
you know it's unfair to pin your annoyance on gwayne, your husband is your rock and ormund is the target. you just can't help but feel the tug of his words around your heart. daeron is your son, more of your son that alicent and ormund's combined and with what the future may bring, you've got to protect yours.
...
you make it your mission to be scarce today, to clear your head and simmer down the anger till it floats to a pensive sadness. you weren't hungry enough for lunch, though your defensiveness had stolen a large portion of your energy so you settled for a tea outside in the gardens. alone, save for the same book from earlier perched in your lap. except now when you hold it you can feel your husband's fingertips burn with each page.
you sigh and stretch your neck, the muscles sore from craning and sit patiently, trying to feel the breeze against your skin and listen for the small chirping from the trees above. what does catch your ear however is the small stalling of breaths and you don't need to see the flash of auburn to know who's hiding behind the pillars.
"come out, daeron," you call softly, "you need not hide from me," and the young boy emerges slowly and you make space on your bench for him to join. he attempts to greet you properly until he's met with the gentle sterness of your stare and smiles sheepishly instead.
"i haven't seen you today," he speaks to the flowers and your gaze follows. you shoot him an easy smile and let his comforting aura relax the tension in your shoulders. he leans his head on your shoulder as an invitation and you rest your head on top of his.
"forgive me sweetheart, it's been a heavy morning," he toys with your fingers and you let him stretch each one out, playing with them mindlessly. you watch him for a few minutes, fluctuating between a small frown and a cautious smile and like a sixth sense, your free hand closes on top of your joined ones. "what's the matter?" you ask so tenderly, it warms the cracks of his demeanour and allows him to melt in your ambience entirely.
"nothing," he mumbles and you click your tongue, shaking your head knowingly.
"tell me," its a soft command and it has his eyes lifting to yours with encouragement.
"did..." he starts and hesitates, your brows furrow at the stutter before he lets out a sigh and continues unwillingly, "are you upset with uncle gwayne because of me? did i make things troublesome?" you catch the stretch of glassiness swirling in his orbs and tuck him into your side firmly.
"no, my love," you rebute instantly, "and i am not upset with your uncle gwayne." you rub his shoulder comfortingly. he leans into your touch like a cat seeking refuge and looks back down to his lap.
"i heard him shout at uncle ormund," he lets it slip and your lips purse in thought, "and he hardly raises his voice."
"you shouldn't be eavesdropping my little dragon, some conversations are not meant for us," and you pour him a cup of tea, it's not as hot as it had been when you first sat down but the temperature is perfect for daeron to drink and not burn. he accepts it gingerly, the warmth of the cup welcome on his grip and he takes a sip.
"they mentioned your name," he mumbles in a slurp and you have half a mind to scold him on his table etiquette but seeing him so unguarded and carefree reaches down to the cusp of your soul and tightens.
"did they?" a small amount of interest grows at the claim and you wait for him to continue. daeron stares back at you, a mischievious grin plastered on his face as he shrugs so casually.
"i cannot say more, i shouldn't have been eavesdropping," and you nudge his shoulder playfully.
"oh come now, little prince. you cannot tease and then stop, that is just cruel," and he leans in closer, voice dropping to a murmur.
"uncle gwayne said that if he ever sees even just a wrinkle in your brow because of uncle ormund he was," and his eyes dart around carefully before whispering behind the palm of his hand, "he was going to send him to the seven hells himself." and he giggles so loud at your violent blush. you can't fight the smile that grows on your face and you shove him ever so lightly.
"you jest far too much, daeron."
"no! i swear it!" he defends and you know it to be true. "i'm sorry, aunt. i know this is because of me. uncle ormund isn't that bad, you just have to catch him at the right time and he makes me a better man. i have been difficult" and the shame that leaks off of him is so heart-rending you're overwhelmed with the urge to wrap him into your arms and hold him in safe refuge for eternity. far away from ormund, from the weight of his future and from the name that he carries.
"you shouldn't have to catch him at a right time, he should be a good role model all the time," you feel yourself getting riled again all over, "and what good is he doing making you a better man when you are the better person in all of this. everything is for you, daeron because we love you. you are not difficult in the slightest, in fact it's rather easy to love you daeron. though we do not share direct blood, you are ours, and nothing could change that " you soften. and when you catch him looking at you, its not daeron the prince in your eyes, its your daeron. the small babe alicent left you for what feels forever ago, the same child who tugged at your skirts, who ran with lemon cakes tucked at his sides away from his maestars, who cried when gwayne had first left you for battle and slept with you till the nightmares ran out of fuel.
he's your daeron more than anyone's and your heart stretches to think that the little babe sitting below your diaphragm will come to know, love and call him brother.
"i love you too," he mumbles into your side and you catch his stray tears.
"and when you love someone, you stick with them through everything."
"like you and uncle gwayne?"
"yeah," you pause, "though i don't think i could get rid of uncle gwayne even if i tried."
"he's a persistent man," daeron agrees, "but that's what is important right? he shows up, he always shows up," and the beam of admiration that lights in daeron's eyes sways you off balance. you must've been quiet for a while, listening to your heart beat pulse in your ears and your hands cradle the bottom of your stomach, the most softest of touches. soon it'll expand and you'll probably find more to moan about but at this time you marvel at how precious the life growing in you is. it's selfish you know, but you imagine a girl. with his deep sea eyes and auburn hair, or maybe they'll have your nose, the crinkles of your smile and your blended laughter.
you imagine gwayne to be just as he was with daeron. soft, patient, kind, stern when forced to be but never unjust. maybe a daughter will relax him to a new level, or stress his undoubtedly so. whatever may come, you know gwayne and you know how he loves, completely and all consuming.
he's gwayne. your gwayne. and your pregnant with his baby after what seems to be a miracle from the heavens.
"have i said something wrong?" daeron breaks the silence tentatively and you look up so suddenly, caught and unsure. you clear your throat and let go of your stomach and rest a hand on his. but daeron's quick and he's clever and he's noticed it from the first glance downwards. a small knowing grin works its way onto his face and he bites back the giggles.
"am i?" he drawls out in a tease, "to have a sibling?" and you freeze. no one other than you and the maestar knows. you had hoped gwayne would be the first to be told but after this morning, with your thoughts and emotions clouding your every move, daeron has been too quick.
"do not tell your uncle," your throat grows dry.
"uncle gwayne doesn't know?"
"no," you confirm, staring ahead.
"are you going to tell him?" and you feel his curious stare burning holes into his face.
"of course i will, silly," you blow into the air in frustration, "i was a little bit agitated at your uncle earlier," you admit and and daeron waits patiently. "he wasn't necessarily at fault but he also was not right and you know, this," you gesture down at the small bump hidden under your gown, "has occupied my mind greatly, i have not been fair."
daeron rests his head back onto your shoulder and doesn't say much more. "what?" you question, "what is it?"
"nothing."
"daeron targaryen," the sterness in your voice causes him to press his lips together in a fine line.
"you shouldn't have matters adding to your stress, its not good for the baby," and you roll your eyes.
"you are my baby-"
"i am a grown man," he hisses in embarrassment. he watches you look around in mischief before clearing your throat and raising it to the highest level known to man. he's sure that even the neighbouring galaxies have heard your boo.
"you are my baby!" and just like he did when he was five, he hides in your hold.
"stop this," he mumbles, "i beg of you, please stop." you laugh and feel the sunshine warms your backs as you stroke his hair affectionately. "but?" comes his tiny voice, "you won't forget about me right?" and you melt.
"my love, i could never," and you press a kiss to his hair. he closes his eyes at the touch and then sighs out in relief. for the first time today you've finally had the chance to relax and it feels so blissful you never want to leave the garden. daeron makes a notion for you to pass your book over to him and let him read aloud which you do.
you correct his pronounciation, pause to assess his analytical skills and ask him questions about the text, except when you do it it doesnt feel like a test or challenge as ormund does. it feels like an interest to his thoughts, a learning curve and he is grateful for it immensely.
he makes it through a chapter before turning to you with seriousness you purse your lips in thought, "so who has to apologise then? you or uncle gwayne?"
"daeron," you roll your eyes with a huff but the child doesn't deter, "gwayne obviously," you scoff. "i am pregnant the least he could do is grant me some mercy."
"but he doesn't know you're pregnant yet," daeron counters, "i think you should just apologise and be done with it, don't let your ego ruin your happiness."
and he is true, making so much sense that it irks you. "when did you get so wise?" it lands without a bite, a fondness carrying the question.
"well if you must know then i had some really good parents," its a tease but you recognise the truth behind it, guarding that sentence as if it was gold. daeron shuffles off the bench almost bouncing away with his boyish laughter ringing in the spring breeze, unaware of how that one sentence has brought you to a flood of overwhelming tears.
if you truly did right by daeron and his upbringing, then just maybe you'll be okay with this next one. the thought definitely eases a little pressure from your mind, you can't wait for this little one to meet the rest of your family and come home.
...
gwayne finds you in your chambers, ready with a tray in his hands as he kickes open and close the door. he has a spread of your favourite foods made after finding your absence at the dinner hall. the thud of the door doesn't even so much as shift your glance from your book and he waltzes over in your direction.
"what?" you mumble and he kisses his teeth in disapproval.
"my, is that any way to treat your husband?" he grins.
"what, lord husband?" comes your immediate reply and you feel a chuckle of breath hot and heavy at your ear. you half expect his lips at your cheek but you're met with the smell of grassiness and a tickle of pollen.
"your favourite flower, for my favourite flower," he beams at the daisy gently tucked behind your ear and tangled in the tendrils of your messy hair. the humour doesn't disappear completely from his face, just settles into a quiet simmer as he crouches down for a second. the food tray abandoned to his left on the bed as he places a warm weighted hand over your knee. "i know we argued earlier but please wife, i am sorry and let us not go to bed angry with each other." he speaks with such sincerity and honesty that more than anything you're thankful he's waved the white flag of peace and you send him a small smile of appreciation.
you lean close and press your forehead to his, you nose gently knocking into his and you nod. "i am not angry," you relax into his embrace.
"no?"
"no," you repeat softly, "though i hear you've talked with ormund?"
"and who did you hear that from?" he shoots a knowing grin. he pulls apart from your hold reluctantly to play around with your tray, rearranging your food and attacking the meat with such precise motions from your cutlery. the smell of it is off putting and you shake your head childishly. you should be more cautious of the things you're eating but lord, is the nausea intense.
"darling," he raises his brow, the fork hangs in the air between you and you press your lips shut in a thin closed line. he doesn't even look disappointed, he just makes a different move with his slender fingers plucking a strawberry from a dish and holds it up instead. and when it takes you a moment longer than necessary to react, he reaches out with his free hand and uses his thumb to drag open your bottom lip, "open," he whispers, "now chew," and the bite is so sweet, you feel a buzz of delight rush through you. its the first proper thing you're able to actually stomach and hopefully keep down. "good girl," he murmurs and feeds you another. he mindlessly licks away the drip of the strawberry juice from this thumb before stealing a kiss from your lips. he tastes the sweetness, the stickiness but more dear to him, he can taste you.
a satisfied groan slips between your lips and he grins, working his way through the tray and trying to differentiate between what he thinks you would like and what you wouldn't be able to stomach right now with this wave of nausea.
"you still didn't say how you knew?"
"our son, obviously." as if there could be no possible other who would deliver the news so fresh and quick.
"god, you're so much alike, it's terrifying," he rolls his eyes playfully, "and yes, though this time it is different my love. i get the feeling it's more final, ormund will be seeing things in a different light now."
"what do you mean? how did ormund take it?" you're half expecting gwayne to list boring details, an adult discussion, talks of ruling the realm and false promises of brotherhood but the tease in his tone is alarming and now when you look at him so up close, barely inches away you see why he's awfully smug.
"gwayne!" you exclaim, taking a stand and hovering over at him. your hands find the side of his jaw, painted with the tiniest of green splotch and a few nails ran at the surface.
"who did this?" you demand and he relishes at how you fuss over at him now, the stark contrast of your earlier conversation. it's only been a few hours but in your absence it feels like years have been missed and he drinks you after a long tiresome drought. you're tender around the bruises but there's haste in how you squash his face in his hands and inspect him all over, tossing him left and right with rapid assessment. he can still feel the stickiness of the strawberries against his skin but pays it no mind.
"i told you," and he leans back onto the bed on his forearms, his biceps pulsing in his shirt. his posture is both lazy and inviting as he shrugs once more "ormund will be seeing things differently now, or rather at least he won't be sniffing those ridiculous salts for a week or so,"
"gwayne!" you gasp louder.
"give or take," and the creases at the corner of his eyes fold with pure pride.
the length of his arms reach out and tug you closer as you fall into his lap. you try and brace yourself, cautious of the weight inside you but gwayne's welcomed you with such ease and pulls you firm in his hold, "i told you," he tucks the free flowing of strands back behind your ear and into the makeshift flower hair clip. "things will be different, ormund knows his ways are unlikeable and unacceptable. that change is greatly encouraged and what matters most is daeron. his tutors will stay the same but ormund will no longer be required to test his recitations or squabble over losses at a wooden game" you hum in agreement, kissing his cheek softly. "ormund may be a fool but he's wise to not lay a hand on our boy. that is final. should they need repeating to him then he shall hear them from his casket."
"thank you-"
"it needed to be done," his voice is firm. his hands wrap around the back of your thighs and he pulls you against him till he's laying flat on the bed, your form sprawled on top of him. it's not exactly rough but it's swift and a little unexpectant that you try and brace yourself with your hands to his chest. your body still collides with his, at solid contact, a tight tangle of your limbs and then it just slips from your lips carelessly,
"gwayne- shit the baby-" and you freeze, eyes blown wide at the admission. it's too late for you to take them back, you clear your throat, try and think of what else to say, maybe a distraction?
but there's nothing distracting about the way he's looking at you now. his hold on you tightens, mouth dropping open as he takes in your words. like you, it's like someone's put his brain through slow motion, the world around him seems to fade. blurs into a streak of messiness but you stand at the core of it, so clear and so beautifully his.
"a baby?" his voice breaks, "our baby?" the heat of his gaze melts your heart and brain to mush, you feel the weakness in your limbs as he sits up. your body in tandem as he holds you in his lap. his movements are snail-like now, soft, careful. every second he pours into you fills him whole in return.
"sweetheart?" he calls out to you, the tenderness is so all-consuming on his tongue and you look at him. really look at him. inches away you can see the freckles that dance his cheeks, the lines of the age from all the years youve known and loved him, the dimple that breaks through the surface whenever he pronounces a word so distinctly even when he's not smiling. the earnest in his eyes is what brings you back home, to him and you try to establish an easy breathing pattern.
"our baby," you whisper, the tears already starting to pool at the corners of your eyes. his breath halts, your confirmation shattering any efforts he has of forming a thought and then he reaches out tentatively, eyes searching for your permission first. his hands brace each side of your body, splashed wide against your stomach and he closes his eyes.
it's an odd angle where he cranes his neck lower but he presses a careful kiss there and buries his head into your abdomen. a baby. your baby. and he feels himself lightweight and soaring, ascending to the heavens already.
in the years of your marriage, you and gwayne have tried many times for a child before. it just had never been the right time and though it was hard the two of you had slowly come to accept it. there were tears, silent struggles you carried though no blame was ever directed, and slowly but surely daeron began to fill the gaps in your and gwayne's heart and loving him was far more than you could've ever wished for.
"the maestars say it's early and i didn't want to get our hopes up, i didn't want to let you down," you admit shamefully and his heart tugs. he raises his head to lean his forehead against yours. he turns his head to side and you can feel the slope of his nose against your cheek as he murmurs so tenderly, softly for your ears alone.
"you," his breath his hot and heavy with determination. its the most outrageous thing he's ever heard and he stamps out any doubt in your mind, his words tickling the shell of your ear, "could never let me down, my love," and he returns to your lips. its slow, its gentle and poured with every ounce of intention and love he is capable of delivering. his heart has already stretched and made room for the next addition to the family and he presses that thought into your lips.
"gwayne," you manage to mumble before he's captured you again, swallowing you and your sure right now, your souls are morphing into one.
"a babe," he laughs against your lips, the delight dancing between your tongues and he scrunches his nose, dimples beaming loud. "we truly have been blessed haven't we?"
the excitement doesn't fade, it settles into something easier and lighter. into a faint sense of longing to meet the little one that is moons away from existing.
"i'm sorry," you apologise to him, "i'm sorry, i wanted to tell you earlier but i just, it's been hard carrying this secret, i've had a lot on my mind with daeron and ormund and researching on successful pregnancies and-"
he listens to you ramble and it all makes sense to him. you spending most of your days in the library, the iron grip on the books hes caught you with. your concerns about ormund, your protective affection with daeron and the understanding washes over him. he picks up your hand and places it on his heart, letting you feel the pulses beneath it and its so warm.
"my darling wife," he starts, "whatever burdens you carry are mine to deal with," his fingers trace your cheekbones, the most intimate of caresses and you lean into his touch, "whatever we do, we do it together."
"i'm scared gwayne, i'm afraid that if this babe is to be born, i don't want them to be subjected to what we have, the sacrifices we have made. i know they won't be in line for the throne like daeron, but with everything to come? i can't let anything happen to them- we can't," you stress.
"hey," he tries to shush your quiet sobbing, "i will not let anything happen to daeron, to this babe and more importantly to you, my heart. nothing will get in the way between our family, not war, not household politics, nothing," the intensity of his promise heals the wounds before they've fully bled and you believe him. gwayne hightower is not just one of the noblest but fiercest of knights, he's a man in love and loves to death. and he most certainly would die in the attempt at protecting who he loves.
"i'm serious," he presses a slow kiss to your lips, lingering in the milimetres of air as he takes his time to pull away. he keeps you in his orbit, swirling as he rotates around your being. "nothing matters more to me than your safety, our family's safety," and when he smiles its as if its the very first time you met him across the courtyard and your stomach flutters an army of butterflies.
"yes well," you muse, speaking down at your stomach, "daddy's doing a fine job of beating people up isn't he?" and he laughs, throwing his head into the nook of your neck. your body vibrates under his shaking chuckles and your laughter joins in a sweet melody, the tune of your love.
"and daddy," he throws you a mischievous look before turning his attention down to your abdomen and drums along your skin, "will fight a million more to keep you, your brother and your mother safe."
"a child," he sighs dreamily, he pulls you down to the bed so you're laying side by side. your gazes shift from the ceiling to each other and the fondness in his eyes is world altering. you're sure galaxies have been moved by the focus of his stare.
"what are you thinking of, dearest?" you ask as gwayne's interlocks your hands in a tight promise of forever and brings them to his lips, and then leaving them to rest over his chest. your voice soothes the flowing waters of his thoughts and he breathes slowly, thinking of the future and whats yet to come for your family.
"what i must have done in my past life to accumulate all these blessings, to have been blessed with you," your breath halts. you don't think you'll ever grow accustomed to gwayne's declarations and love, your ears are blessed with sweet nothings every single day, but each time it feels like the very first time all over. gwayne's easy to love, it's natural, you're so sure you were made solely to exist for each other, you can't imagine to be by anyone elses side.
"you really know how to make a girl swoon, ser hightower" you tease.
"my girl," and he makes a move closer to you, hovering over you slightly, careful. "my wife," his head dips, "my love" and just before he closes his lips over yours, you feel yourself fall entirely into the safety net of his arms and his love for the rest of his life, "mine, all mine."
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i have rewritten this fic a million times and i am never satisfied with how it ends or how it flows but im glad to get it out of the drafts it has been consuming my mind all week. (just in time for tonights episode too!) i think when you think too long and hard about it, you're bound to never be happy with something but yeah, hope you enjoy! let me know what you think! (positive comments only i strictly take NO criticisms sorry x)
@hwaofdreams - sorry it took so long! ty for being enthusiastic about it lolll :p
