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.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
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."
///
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
- 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
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: Haunted by dragon dreams that foretell a future she cannot bear, Viserys' second daughter decides to flee her betrothal before it can begin. Her plan falls apart when the very man she's trying to escape finds her climbing over the Red Keep's garden wall.
Song inspo: ˚˖𓍢ִ໋🦢˚
Notes: Inspired by Queen Charlotte!! I've seen people rewrite this scene with Valarr and I wanted to do it with Gwayne <3
Part two
Gwayne had hoped, above all else, that his future wife would be kind.
It was a small hope, perhaps an unambitious one, but it was the only wish he had allowed himself after his father informed him that King Viserys had accepted the match. Marriage had never been a matter left to younger sons or heirs to decide, and though Gwayne had long since resigned himself to that truth, resignation did not make the prospect any less uncertain. He knew almost nothing about the princess he was to marry beyond the fragments offered by gossip, and gossip was a poor foundation upon which to build a life.
Still, kindness, he thought, could make even an unwanted marriage bearable. Everything else could be learned in time.
The rumors, unfortunately, offered very little hope of that.
Some called the king's younger daughter gentle to the point of foolishness, while others claimed she possessed the wildness of Old Valyria itself. There were whispers that she disappeared from court for days at a time, that she drank wine before the sun had set, that she climbed rooftops with her ladies-in-waiting, wandered the city in disguise, and laughed whenever septas reminded her of her duties. Others dismissed her as odd, insisting she spoke more to ravens than noble lords and spent entire afternoons wandering the castle alone.
No two stories resembled one another. The only detail upon which everyone agreed was that she was... peculiar.
He had intended to reserve judgment until they met. That intention became rather difficult when she failed to appear at all. She did not stand beside her father during his arrival, nor his welcome feast.
His sister and King Viserys greeted him warmly enough upon his arrival, clasping his arm like an old friend and speaking at length about tournaments, knighthood, and the honor of joining their two houses before finally apologizing, almost absentmindedly, for his daughter's absence.
"The princess has been feeling unwell," the king said with a tired smile. "She has retired early."
It sounded innocent enough yet Gwayne did not miss the look and sighs exchanged between his father and sister. She looked toward the doors through which the princess ought to have entered, her disappointment obvious before she carefully concealed it behind practiced courtesy.
No one explained further. No one ever seemed to.
By the end of the feast, Gwayne found himself wondering less about the alliance and more about the girl herself.
Was she truly ill? Or had she simply refused to meet the man she was expected to marry?
-
By the time the castle realized you were gone, you had already vanished into the night.
It was hardly the first time.
The servants searched the places they always searched first, the library, the dragonpit where you often disappeared to sit with the hatchlings long after the keepers had retired, the godswood where you sometimes spent entire afternoons reading beneath the heart tree. Even your ladies-in-waiting were questioned, though they could offer little beyond nervous shrugs and uncertain smiles. They had grown accustomed to your disappearances years ago.
Tonight, however, was different as you had no intention of returning.
You sighed as you reached the wall at the far end of the gardens. For a moment you stood there and pondered about when your father announced your betrothal. Your first thought had been your dreams.
Fragments scattered across years of restless nights, all circling the same terrible feeling that settled deep within your chest whenever you imagined standing beside the man you had been promised to. You had seen cages and felt a sorrow unlike anything you had ever known.
Somewhere between those two moments lay a future you could neither understand nor prevent. And for the first time in your life, you did not wish to discover which vision came first.
So you did the only thing that had ever made sense whenever the dreams became too heavy and you left.
That single thought drowned out every other, beating steadily against your ribs as you gathered your skirts in one hand and planted your slipper against the ancient garden wall. Time seemed to press in from every side so you quickly pushed yourself upward, fingertips stretching desperately toward the thick oak branch that hung just beyond your reach. The bark brushed your fingers before slipping away again.
You frowned, it had seemed much lower when you were a child. Surely you had climbed trees twice this height without a second thought. Determined, you shifted your footing higher against the moss-covered stone, ignoring the way your slippers slipped against the wall.
Just a little farther...
"You appear to be losing your battle."
The voice behind you was warm, low, and entirely too amused.
You startled so violently that your foot slipped from the stone altogether. Landing rather less gracefully than you would have liked, you spun around, silver hair whipping over your shoulder as you searched the darkness for its owner.
A man stood several paces away beneath the shadow of an elm tree, the hood of a dark traveling cloak obscuring most of his face. Moonlight caught only the edge of his jaw and the outline of broad shoulders, leaving the rest hidden in darkness.
You did not recognize him nor did you particularly care to.
You were in far too much of a hurry.
"May I help you?" you asked, though the impatience in your voice made it abundantly clear you hoped he would do precisely the opposite.
"I was going to ask you the same thing," he replied pleasantly. "It seems you are the one in need of assistance."
His tone was infuriatingly calm as though finding a princess attempting to climb the garden wall in the middle of the night was an entirely ordinary occurrence.
"I am not," you answered briskly. "So you may leave."
You turned back toward the wall without waiting for his reply, already reaching for the branch once more. Behind you came the sound of unhurried footsteps.
"I will," he said. "But I confess, I am rather curious as to what you're doing."
You closed your eyes for the briefest moment. "I am not doing anything."
"You are trying to do something."
"I am not."
"You are."
A sigh escaped you. Not the graceful sort of sigh expected of a princess, but one born entirely of exasperation. You turned sharply, fixing the stranger with a look that had intimidated far older men than this.
"Who are you, anyway?" Stepping closer, you tried to make out his face beneath the hood, though the shadows remained stubbornly loyal to him, "Reveal yourself."
"I am simply a guest in the Keep."
The answer only irritated you further, "What an exceptionally mysterious guest." You dismissed him with a wave of your hand before turning back toward the wall yet again. "Well then, perhaps you can make yourself useful and lift me."
There was the briefest pause, "I'm sorry?"
You looked over your shoulder as though he were being intentionally difficult. "If you lift me onto the wall, I can manage the rest."
The corner of his mouth twitched beneath the hood. "I see."
"Come now," you urged, gesturing impatiently toward the branch. "Make haste."
His amusement seemed only to deepen. "Well, if I must assist you, I should ask why you intend to climb the wall."
You groaned dramatically. "If you must know..." Your fingers wrapped around the branch again as though the conversation itself inconvenienced you. "...I am leaving."
"Are you?"
"I am taking my dragon," you said matter-of-factly, testing whether the branch might support your weight, "and flying somewhere very far away. And do not trouble yourself with informing the King or my betrothed. I shall be long gone by the time either of them discovers it."
A beat passed.
"Ah." There was laughter hidden beneath the single syllable, "So your betrothed is the reason you're running."
You shrugged, "He is certainly one of them."
"And they won't notice you've disappeared?"
A small, incredulous laugh escaped you. "Well, of course they will," you looked toward the branch again, "Now, please. Enough questions."
You pointed toward the wall with all the authority expected of a princess issuing commands. "If you would simply lift me over the garden wall, I'll reach the dragonpit before anyone notices."
The stranger looked from you to the wall and back again then he sighed with theatrical regret. "I have absolutely no intention of helping you."
You stared incredulously, "I beg your pardon?" You whirled around fully, prepared to remind this remarkably stubborn man exactly who he was refusing. As you did, he reached up almost absentmindedly and pushed back the hood that had hidden his face.
Moonlight settled across familiar features and you instantly recognized the face you had seen in your sleep numerous times. Everything inside you seemed to stop.
"...It's you."
The irritation vanished from your voice so completely that it almost startled you. Gwayne watched the change with quiet fascination. Only moments ago, you had looked ready to order him dragged from the gardens for daring to delay your escape. Now you simply stood there, staring at him with an expression he could not begin to understand.
He smiled despite himself, "You know who I am?"
You didn't answer immediately. Instead, your eyes lingered on his face, searching it with unsettling intensity, as though comparing the man standing before you to someone only you could see.
When you finally spoke, your voice was scarcely louder than the breeze moving through the trees, "I've dreamt of you."
The words were so unexpected that Gwayne forgot entirely what he had meant to say. His smile faded into quiet confusion, "You've... what?"
You seemed almost surprised that the words had escaped you. Your gaze dropped to the ground before lifting once more, softer this time, almost hesitant. "I've dreamt of you."
Silence settled between them.
Gwayne had heard the stories. The king's second daughter was said to possess the old gift of dragon dreams. He had dismissed them as little more than another courtly tale but standing before you now, he found himself less certain.
You did not look mad.
Nor did you resemble the reckless drunk whispered about by servants and lords alike. He noticed there was no heavy scent of wine clinging to your breath, no unsteady sway in your posture, no careless laughter born from too many cups. If you had drunk anything at all, it had been little more than enough to soothe an anxious mind, and judging by the shadows beneath your eyes, even that had failed.
More than anything, you looked tired. Painfully so.
Not the sort of tired that followed a late feast or too much dancing, but the deep exhaustion of someone who had spent far too many nights fighting battles no one else could see.
His expression softened. "Am I so terrible in your dreams," he asked, a small smile returning to his lips, "that you've resorted to climbing garden walls in the middle of the night to escape marrying me?"
He had meant it lightly yet the smile disappeared from your face so quickly that he regretted it almost at once. Your fingers tightened in the folds of your skirts until the silk wrinkled beneath your grasp.
You said nothing.
For the first time since he'd found you, the lively, impatient princess who had argued with him over a wall simply... vanished. In her place stood a frightened young woman trying very hard not to let it show.
His amusement melted into concern, "...Princess?" He took a cautious step forward, "Are you all right?"
You instinctively stepped back.
"I only jest," he said quietly.
Your voice was barely audible, "I must go."
Before he could answer, you slipped past him, gathering your skirts as you hurried back toward the castle, silver hair disappearing into the darkness between the garden paths.
Gwayne remained where he was for several moments after you'd gone. He should have let you leave, instead, he found himself watching the empty path where you had vanished, turning over those four impossible words in his mind.
I've dreamt of you.
Whatever those dreams had shown you, they had filled your eyes not with hatred but with sadness. And though he scarcely knew you, something deep within him recoiled at the thought that he might one day become the cause of it. For reasons he could not explain, he left the gardens that night with only one quiet resolve settling in his heart.
Whatever future your dreams had shown you, he desperately wanted to prove them wrong.
(Cowgirl)He loves this position because it allows him to admire you fully. He will lie back against the pillows, his hands gripping your hips or caressing your thighs, watching you with adoration. He enjoys watching you taking pleasure from him, and he loves that he can touch your breasts or play with your hair. It makes him feel like he is worshiping you, and he will often encourage you to set the pace, murmuring how beautiful you look on top of him.
➥ Duncan the tall -
(Lotus)He is terrified of accidentally hurting you with his size, so he prefers positions where he isn't crushing you. He loves to sit against the headboard or on the edge of the bed and have you wrap your legs around his waist. Holding you in his arms burying his face in your neck or shoulder.
➥ Aerion Targaryen -
(Mating press)He is obsessive , he needs to every emotion on your face as he fucks you. He loves this position because it feels exposing for you and powerful for him. He will pin your legs back against his chest or shoulders, opening you up completely. He delights in the deep penetration this allows, often leaning forward to choke you with kisses or bite your neck while making eye contact.
➥ Baelor Targaryen -
(Missionary)He prefers missionary because it allows for maximum skin contact and allows him to look into your eyes and kiss you deeply throughout. He rests his weight on his forearms to avoid crushing you,he wants to feel your heart beating against his chest and hear every hitch in your breath, every whimper you let out, he needs to be close enough to whisper praises against your lips, and see your expressions when he’s thrusting into you.
➥ Maekar Targaryen -
(Prone bone)In this position, he can cover your entire body with his own ,He likes to wrap his arms around you from behind, holding your hands or gripping your shoulders, pinning you to the mattress. It allows him to thrust deep and hard without needing to be gentle.
➥Lyonel Baratheon -
(Standing up) He rarely has the patience to make it all the way to the bed before the desire takes over. He loves to lift you up, pinning you against the nearest wall, your legs wrapped tight around his waist. He loves the feeling of you clinging to him for support grasping his shoulders and back.
➥ Gwayne Hightower -
(Doggy style) He is a man who appreciates beauty so he isn't shy about enjoying the view. He loves to lean over your back, pressing his chest against you, whispering filthy praises into your ear while he watches the way your body moves with his thrusts. It allows him to take charge and set a rhythm that leaves you breathless. He’s the type to keep a hand on the back of your neck or tangled in your hair,reminding you who you belong to.
➥ Raymun Fossoway -
(Spooning) he just wants to be close to you. He loves the intimacy of spooning, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling your back against his chest. It allows for slow, comfortable lovemaking where he can nuzzle your neck and whisper sweet nothings.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
divider by: @cafekitsune & @strangergraphics & @uzmacchiato
word count: 3.9k
synopsis: Forced into a political marriage, you and Ser Gwayne Hightower can’t stand each other. What begins as a war of sharp tongues and spiteful jealousy slowly unravels into an all-consuming obsession, proving there’s a very fine line between hatred and desire.
warnings: enemies to lovers, jealousy, arranged marriage
As a Targaryen, you were accustomed to getting your way—or fire and blooding your way through those who stood in your path. Yet, here you were, bound by a political decree to marry Ser Gwayne Hightower. A man whose pristine armour matched his equally pristine, frustratingly smug attitude.
The feeling was entirely mutual. From the moment the betrothal was announced, your interactions consisted of sharp glares, venomous masked insults disguised as courtly pleasantries, and a profound, simmering hatred.
Gwayne Hightower was everything you detested: impeccably groomed, insufferably dutiful, and fiercely loyal to a faction that viewed your family as an existential threat. He thought you a reckless, arrogant dragon; you thought him a rigid, sanctimonious knight.
When your hands were joined before the High Septon in the Great Sept, your skin crawled beneath the heavy silk of your gown, the ceremonial ribbons feeling less like a holy union and more like iron shackles. Later, at the wedding feast, when he leaned in to press an obligatory kiss against your cheek, his lips were ice. His jaw was clenched so tightly you genuinely wondered if his teeth might shatter under the strain of his compliance.
"Try to smile, my lady," Gwayne murmured smoothly through a fixed, public grin. His breath was warm against your ear, a stark contrast to his chilling demeanour, even as the lords of the realm raised their goblets in a roaring toast to your long life together. "The court is watching, and you look as though you've just been served a cup of nightshade."
"I would prefer the nightshade," you shot back, keeping your own smile perfectly, deceptively radiant for the court. "At least it would kill me quickly, rather than boring me to death over a lifetime."
Even once the bedding ceremony was announced, the two of you flatly refused to participate. When the drunken lords and giggling handmaidens finally shoved you both into your marital chambers and barred the heavy oak doors from the outside, the festive atmosphere vanished instantly, replaced by a suffocating silence.
The massive canopy bed sat heavily in the center of the room, lit by dozens of flickering candles. Gwayne stood near the edge of it, his hand hovering awkwardly near the fastenings of his breeches, his green eyes cold and tightly guarded.
You didn't give him the chance to speak.
"If you take that cock out, I will cut it off," you hissed, your voice dropping dangerously as you stood rigidly in your rumpled wedding shift. "I want no part of your seed infecting me."
Gwayne’s jaw went slack for a fraction of a second, his eyes widening in sheer shock before narrowing into slits of pure fury. Slowly, he let his hands drop to his sides, taking a single, step toward you.
"Infecting you?" he repeated, his voice pitching up at your sheer audacity. The polite, courtly knight was gone; in his place was a man whose patience had been stripped entirely raw. "You speak as though my blood is a disease, my lady, when it is your house that carries the plague of madness to the realm.”
He leaned down slightly, his face mere inches from yours, his breath hot against your skin. "Rest assured, I have absolutely no desire to plant my seed in a field as barren and venomous as you. You want no part of me? The feeling is entirely mutual. I would rather couple with a pit of vipers."
"Then we are agreed," you spat, refusing to back down an inch, your eyes flashing with Targaryen fire.
You turned on your heel, violently ripping the heavy furs off the mattress and flinging them toward the far corner of the room. “You can take the settee.”
“I will not,” he growled, refusing to be displaced from his own quarters by a defiant dragon. “These are our shared chambers, and I will not sleep on the floor like a dog to appease your arrogance.”
You huffed, climbing onto the mattress and pulling the remaining silks up to your chin. “Then ensure you stay on your side. If any part of you crosses the center line, you will find that part missing by morning.”
Gwayne let out a harsh, dry laugh, watching you adjust the pillows with furious, aggressive movements. "A charming threat for a bride on her wedding night. Truly, the Seven have blessed me with a fortunate match."
He marched over to the opposite side of the bed, ripping off his heavy, embroidered doublet and threw it to the floor, betraying just how deeply you had gotten under his skin. He climbed into the bed fully dressed in his linen undershirt and trousers, turning his back to you.
"Goodnight, wife," he bit out into the darkness.
"Go to the seven hells, husband," you bit back, staring at the canopy above as the candles slowly burned down to ash.
The first weeks of marriage were a silent war of attrition. You occupied opposite sides of the massive chambers assigned to you, speaking only when absolute necessity demanded it. In public, you traded barbed pleasantries; in private, you weaponized a freezing, unyielding silence. But hatred is an exhausting emotion to sustain in isolation. Soon, the cold resentment turned into something far more volatile.
It started innocently enough. Gwayne was down in the training yard, unarmored but sweating through his training shirt as he ran through gruelling sword drills with the City Watch. He was, infuriatingly, a spectacular warrior—fluid, powerful, and possessing a sort of grace that made it impossible to look away. You watched from the shaded gallery above, purposely sitting beside a handsome young knight of the Kingsguard.
You knew Gwayne had noticed you. From below, his jaw clenched as you laughed a little too loudly at a joke the young knight made. Testing the waters, you leaned in closer to the Kingsguard, letting your hand rest conspicuously on his silver armoured forearm.
Below, Gwayne completely missed a parry. His opponent’s blunt training sword struck his shoulder with a heavy, echoing thwack. He didn't even flinch. Instead, his green eyes locked onto yours from across the yard with a burning intensity. The polite facade cracked, replaced by a dark scowl that promised retribution.
Two nights later, at a grand feast hosted by the Queen, Gwayne executed his counter-move. He spent the entire evening in a candlelit alcove, attentively pouring wine for a beautiful, doe-eyed lady-in-waiting from the Reach. He laughed—a genuine, amused sound you had never once heard him utter in your presence—and leaned in close to whisper something that made the maiden blush furiously and swat at his chest.
A sharp, hot spike of irritation flared in your gut. You didn't care for him, you reminded yourself. You hated him. But the sheer audacity of him flaunting another woman in front of the entire court—in front of you—was a direct insult to your Targaryen blood.
You immediately retaliated by inviting a charming stormlander lordling to dance, pressing closer to him than decorum allowed. Across the crowded hall, you caught Gwayne’s gaze. His grip tightened around his silver goblet so fiercely that his knuckles turned stark white.
From that moment on, the silent treatment was replaced by a silent war. Over the next few weeks, the animosity didn't vanish— it simply began to change. the Red Keep became a chessboard of manufactured jealousy.
If Gwayne spent an afternoon openly escorting a beautiful lady of House Tyrell through the godswood, handing her a winter rose with a theatrical bow, you would ensure he saw you the next morning at the tilting grounds. You would be draped over the gallery railing, tying your silk favour around the lance of a dashing young Royce, ensuring you were caught perfectly in the sunlight.
To formal dinners where you knew he would be seated directly across from you, you began wearing gowns with daringly low necklines, only to spend the entire evening conversing exclusively with the eligible lords to your left and right. In response, he would return from the training yards dripping with sweat, purposely unbuttoning his linen shirt to expose the damp line of his chest while recounting, in vivid detail, the flattering compliments paid to him by the highborn maidens in the gardens.
It was madness. It was childish. It was the only time either of you felt truly alive. The original hatred had evaporated, replaced by a thick, suffocating tension that left you both breathless and constantly on edge. You were playing with fire, forgetting that while dragons thrive in the heat, Hightowers were the ones who lit the beacons.
The explosion finally came on a stormy night, deep within the belly of the castle.
You had spent the evening at a private supper, deliberately sitting next to a dashing southern lord who had spent the night praising your beauty. Gwayne had sat directly across from you, acting as a silent, brooding sentinel. His grip remained white-knuckled around his goblet, his entire posture radiating pure, unadulterated malice.
When you finally returned to your shared chambers, the heavy oak door had barely clicked shut before the storm broke inside.
"He was practically drooling into your wine," Gwayne snarled, ripping off his heavy velvet cloak and hurling it onto a chair. The polished, courtly knight was gone; in his place was a man possessed by a seething fury.
"Who, Lord Lannister?” you asked airily, unpinning your heavy collar with practiced indifference, though your heart was hammering frantically against your ribs. "I found him delightfully attentive. A refreshing change from the sour company I am usually forced to keep."
"Attentive?" Gwayne strode across the room, his boots thudding ominously against the stone floor. He stopped mere inches from you, looming over you, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. "He was looking at you as if he wanted to tear that gown off your back. And you let him. You smiled at him. You touched his arm."
"And what if I did?" you challenged, tilting your chin up as your Targaryen pride flared to match his rage. "Are you going to forbid me? You, who spent the entirety of yesterday afternoon letting Lady Tarly press her favours into your hand? I saw the way you looked at her, Gwayne. Don't play the wounded husband with me."
"I don't give a damn about Lady Tarly!" Gwayne roared, the sheer volume of his voice making the candles flicker.
"Then why do it?!" you screamed back, finally losing your grip on your composure. The weeks of built-up tension, the longing disguised as spite, the agonizing game—it all came crashing down in a single torrent. "Why look at them? Why smile at them? Why do everything in your power to drive me mad?!"
"Because you were already driving me mad!" Gwayne yelled, reaching out to grab your upper arms. His grip was firm and unyielding, but careful not to hurt you. His green eyes were wild, dilated, searching yours with a desperate sort of need "From the moment we wed, you looked at me like I was dirt beneath your shoe. I wanted to see you look at me. I wanted to see you care! Even if it was anger, even if it was jealousy—I needed to know I could affect you the way you affect me!"
The admission hung heavily in the air, sudden and shocking. The storm outside lashed violently against the stained-glass windows, but inside, the silence was deafening.
"You..." you breathed, your voice instantly losing all its venom, leaving only a raw, exposed vulnerability. "You want to affect me?"
"You have no idea," Gwayne whispered, his voice dropping to a gravelly, breathless register. His gaze dropped to your lips, his hands trembling slightly where they held your arms. "You sit there, so proud, so beautiful, looking at everyone in this wretched castle but your own husband. It's torture. I hate it. I hate how much I want you."
The last string of your restraint snapped.
You closed the distance between you, fisting your hands into the heavy, embroidered lapels of his doublet and hauling him down into a collision of lips and teeth. It wasn't a gentle kiss, nor was it a surrender; it was a physical extension of the brutal war you two had been waging on for weeks. It was fierce, bruising, and born of a desperate, mutual starvation.
Gwayne let out a low, ragged groan against your mouth. His arms wrapped around your waist like iron bands, lifting you completely off your feet and slamming you back against the heavy, reinforced oak of the chamber door. The impact jolted through your spine, but the pain only fuelled the fire. You wrapped your legs tightly around his hips, anchoring him to you, pulling him closer until there was no air left between you, your fingers tangling into the thick waves of his auburn hair.
His hands were everywhere now, stripped of all chivalric restraint. They tore at the intricate laces of your gown, bruising the soft skin of your hips, tracing the elegant curve of your spine with a frantic, possessive urgency that demanded a lifetime of retribution for the weeks of forced distance. He kissed you as if he were trying to consume you from the inside out, to brand his name into your very soul, and you answered him with an equal, fiery Valyrian ferocity, biting his lower lip until you tasted the faint, copper tang of blood between you.
"You are mine," Gwayne growled against your throat, his voice a primal promise as his teeth nipped at the sensitive skin right above your collarbone, marking you and making you arch into his broad chest with a gasping, breathless sob. "Tell me. Say it."
"I am yours," you gasped, your fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders, your heart frantic, your mind finally clear of any future schemes. You pulled his face back up to yours, your eyes flashing with a warning fire. “And you are mine, Gwayne. If you ever look at another woman like that again, I will burn this whole keep to ash."
Gwayne pulled back just enough to look at you, a dark, breathless, utterly ruined smile breaking across his handsome face. The green of his eyes was bright with a dangerous, triumphant fire.
"Let it burn," he whispered against your lips, and carried you to the bed.
Inside the marital chambers, the aftermath of the storm lay scattered across the floor—shredded silk, a discarded doublet, torn laces, and the heavy scent of crushed winter roses and sweat.
When you and Gwayne finally emerged into the outer corridors the following afternoon, the transformation was staggering. The icy distance that had defined your marriage for weeks had vanished, replaced by an atmosphere of mutual possession. You did not walk a step apart as you usually did, maintaining the stiff, courtly boundaries of rival factions. Instead, Gwayne’s large hand was wrapped firmly around your waist, his fingers digging into the fabric of your gown and keeping you flush against his side as if daring the world—or his own family—to try and wedge itself between the two of you.
But it was the physical evidence that truly set the whispers ablaze.
The court of King's Landing was a nest of vipers, trained to notice the slightest shift in a lord's posture or the subtle tear in a lady’s sleeve. Today, they didn't even have to look closely; the signs of your mutual destruction were proudly on display. Gwayne, usually the very picture of immaculate, highborn decorum, wore a high-collared doublet that failed spectacularly to hide the deep, purple bruises blooming high on the side of his neck. The illusion of his pristine nature was shattered further because you had playfully, yet possessively forced him to undo the top two buttons of his attire before leaving your chambers, making the marks impossible to miss. His lower lip was slightly swollen, bearing the faint, dark split from where you had bit him in the heat of your desire.
You fared no better, and you made absolutely no attempt to hide it. You had deliberately chosen a Targaryen-red gown with a wider, daring neckline, exposing the trail of marks and the faint, dark shadows of his handprints on the pale skin of your collarbone and shoulders.
The way you walked, slow and languid, spoke of a physical exhaustion that had absolutely nothing to do with sleep. Every lord, lady, and sycophant you passed in the gallery looked, widened their eyes in sheer shock, and quickly looked away under Gwayne's fiercely protective, lethal glare. The court was accustomed to seeing the two of you trade icy daggers with your eyes; they were entirely unprepared for the unified defiance that now radiated from your joined forms.
As you neared the small council chamber, a familiar figure stepped out from the shadow of a carved archway. It was Lady Tarly. She was dressed in a gown of soft, maidenly blue, holding a small silk handkerchief she had undoubtedly intended to offer Gwayne as a favour for the upcoming afternoon drills. Her face was bright with a practiced, flirtatious smile—a smile that died the absolute second her eyes landed on your husband.
Lady Tarly’s hands flew to her mouth, the blue silk fluttering uselessly between her trembling fingers. Her wide eyes darted from the deep, unmistakable bruise on Gwayne’s neck to his swollen, split lip, her expression a mix of genuine horror and mounting panic. To an outside observer unversed in the language of the flesh, he looked as if a wild animal had savaged him in the dark, and she looked as though she were about to call for a maester, the City Watch, or the Kingsguard itself.
She gasped in shock, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “Ser Gwayne, by the Mother... what happened? Are you alright? Who did this to you?”
Before Gwayne could even open his mouth to offer a courtly redirection, you stepped forward, tightening your grip on his bicep. The heavy fabric of his sleeve bunched under your fingers, an unyielding, territorial hold that drew Lady Tarly’s panicked gaze straight to you.
"Ser Gwayne is perfectly well, Lady Tarly," you said, your voice dripping with a smooth, lethal satisfaction. You leaned heavily into his side, ensuring the low, daring neckline of your Targaryen-red gown shifted just enough to give the young maiden a flawless, unhindered view of the dark, possessive marks and handprints decorating your own neck and collarbone. "In fact, I don't think my husband has ever been in better spirits. Or better hands."
"My wife speaks the truth, my lady," Gwayne murmured, his tone rougher and deeper than usual, a lingering remnant of the night's exhausting passions. He covered your hand with his own, his large fingers locking yours against his arm, cementing the unified front. "I assure you, I am entirely unharmed. Though... I admit the dragons of House Targaryen are far more feral than the histories lead one to believe."
Lady Tarly’s gaze flicked rapidly between the two of you, the scandalous pieces finally clicking together in her mind with the force of a sudden blow. The colour drained from her cheeks, replacing her initial shock with a burning, mortified blush as she realized exactly what—and who—had left those violent, passionate marks. The pristine, gallant Hightower knight she had been trying to court for weeks had been thoroughly, aggressively claimed.
“Was there something you needed from my husband?" you purred, the word husband leaving your lips like a final, devastating claim of possession.
Gwayne didn't even glance at the Tarly girl. His gaze was fixed entirely on you, his jaw relaxing into a dark, smugly satisfied grin as he felt the fierce, protective grip of your fingers on his arm. He loved it. The realization that you were actively, publicly marking your territory sent an intoxicating thrill straight through him.
Lady Tarly’s gaze flicked from your grip on his arm, up to the dark marks on Gwayne's neck and then yours, and finally to the unmistakable, lethal look in your eyes. The colour drained from her cheeks, her hands trembling slightly as she clutched her handkerchief.
"I... I merely wished to ask Ser Gwayne if he required a new favour for the tourney grounds, Your Grace," she stammered, her voice losing all its previous confidence, shrinking under the suffocating weight of your stare.
Gwayne’s grip on your hand tightened, his thumb stroking the back of your knuckles as he finally looked at her. "That is most kind of you, Lady Tarly," he said, his voice deep, rough, and entirely devoid of the polite warmth he had used to tease her just days before. "But I have already been thoroughly provided for. My wife has made it explicitly clear that I am to wear no one's colours but her own from this day forth."
He leaned down slightly, pressing a slow, deliberate kiss to the crown of your hair, his eyes never leaving the disgraced lady-in-waiting.
"In fact," Gwayne murmured, his eyes shifting back to you, burning with the very same fire that had consumed your chambers the night before, "I doubt I shall have the energy for the training yards today at all. My lady wife keeps a very demanding schedule."
"I... I see," she stammered, stepping back into the shadows of the archway, her eyes dropping to the floor. "Forgive me, Your Grace, Ser Gwayne. I did not mean to intrude upon... your morning."
"No intrusion at all," you replied, offering her a sweet, razor-sharp smile that promised absolute ruin if she ever dared to look his way again. "But if you'll excuse us, the Small Council awaits. And after that, my husband requires a great deal of my personal attention to heal from his... recent exertions."
Lady Tarly offered a hasty, deeply embarrassed curtsy, murmuring a fractured excuse before turning on her heel and practically fleeing down the corridor, her silks rustling loudly in the quiet hall.
You watched her go, a small, triumphant smirk curving your lips as you tasted the sweet thrill of total victory. But before you could fully savour it, Gwayne stopped walking. With a sudden, fluid movement, he turned his body, using his broad shoulders to trap you against the cold stone wall of the gallery, effectively shielding you both from the main thoroughfare behind a heavy, ancient Targaryen tapestry.
"Satisfied?" he whispered, his breath hot and ragged against your cheek as his eyes tracked the rapid, telltale rise and fall of your chest. The smugness was back, but it was laced with a deep, breathless hunger.
"For now," you countered, tilting your chin up to meet his gaze, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing you flustered. Your fingers curled tightly into the fabric of his tunic, resting right over the steady, frantic beating of his heart. "Feral, am I? Is that what you're telling the court, Ser Gwayne?"
"Utterly," Gwayne breathed, his thumb tracing the elegant curve of your jaw before resting right over the racing pulse at your throat. "And I have absolutely no intention of ever letting you be tamed."
content tags are extreme diabolical yearning, fluff, canonical views of gender and marriage, canon divergence, reader uses she/her pronouns, discussions of sex but no smut, pet names, reader walks him like a dog, no physical description of reader, this is my first time writing for gwayne so i hope you like it :) thanks for reading <3 update: part 2 is here part 3 is here
Marriage was duty. Marriage was merely a political strategy. An arrangement to be struck between families; marriage had no place for matters of the heart. That is what Gwayne Hightower told himself before he met you, his betrothed. He told himself it did not matter if he found you beautiful or not. It only mattered to produce viable heirs and that you become a capable Lady of House Hightower.
He corresponded with you via raven weeks before your wedding day. In your letters, he found you were friendly, a little erratic in your sentence structure, but prompt in your replies. He wrote to assure you that he intended to give you a good life as Lady Hightower. You would be well cared for in Oldtown; the Reach would offer a climate that you would find very enjoyable. He promised that he would not rush you into marriage consummation, or sharing a marital bed, since you were only meeting for the first time on your wedding day. He wanted to make sure you were comfortable in your new life, as he could hardly imagine being in your shoes. He hoped you were pretty, or at least kind, but did not let himself hope for much. Marriage was duty, nothing more.
Standing at the alter in the Starry Sept, Gwayne mentally cursed and kicked himself a thousand times over. When he lifted your veil, he was met with the most dazzling girl he'd ever seen. Your bright eyes shone under the candlelight, the air around you seemed to sparkle, aided by the twinkling jewels pinned in your hair. Your mouth quipped into a half, nervous smile, that made is knees turn to jelly. He could tell you were accessing him back, brow furrowed in concentration. The crinkle that formed between your eyebrows was downright adorable. And with your wide eyes blinking up at him, you reminded him of a deer wandering a forest. When the Septon asked Gwayne to repeat the sacred words And I take you for my lady and wife, his mouth felt impossibly dry and disconnected from his body. He tore his eyes away from you, to look at the Septon instead, so he could concentrate. "And I t-take you for my lady and w-wife" Maybe he had been wrong about marriage before.
Honor? Duty? Where did it get him? Now, it seemed like those things, once upheld in his family's name, had doomed him. Gwayne had already put you at an arm's length by telling you that he did not expect you to share his bed. So all he could do was be a kind, doting husband, hoping that eventually you would feel comfortable enough to desire him the way he already did.
Gwayne observed you and helped you as you settled into life at the Oldtown. You were acclimating well, greeting everyone you met with a warm smile. You made an effort to learn each servant's name, offering genuine compliments on their work. Gwayne decided that he adored your smile, and you were as beautiful as the Mother, herself. Before he met you, he had faintly hoped that you were beautiful. But now, he wasn't sure if your beauty was a blessing to his eyes, or a curse that he had suffer to look upon you at a respectful distance. You were practically skipping through the corridors. Gwyane noticed you always moved so quickly, never simply walking, always seeming to be in a hurry to get to the next place. Suddenly, the ribbon tying your hair back slipped free and onto the floor. You bent down to pick up the ribbon, the fabric of your dress straining against the swell of your breasts. He’d always thought that a woman’s thighs were the asset he favored the most. But when he noticed the curve of your breasts, he wanted nothing more than to squeeze them, knead them, commit the softness to memory. Your nimble fingers twirled the ribbon, hands so petite and pretty. Perhaps one day they would intertwine with his? He could hold your hand and guide it along his cock, showing you how to stroke it and-
Then you were gone. Scurrying away and out of sight. Only the aroma of your rose scented soap was left for him to bask in, and replay over and over the time he had written that you were not expected to share his bed, and hate himself for it.
The day you came into his solar to show him your new dress, a part of him died inside. He was scribbling a letter to his father when you entered. When he looked up at the disturbance and saw it was you, he stood up so fast he almost sent his chair falling backwards. "My dear wife. What do I owe this pleasure?"
"So formal" you tease, your twinkling laugh lighting up the dim room "I just came to show you this!" You hold out your arms to display your attire, causing Gwayne's breath to hitch in his throat. You were wearing a rich green gown, with gold beading and embroidery all down the length. The design curled around your hips and torso, clinging to all your curves. The candlelight reflected off the gold shimmer, making you look like an angel dripping in Hightower colors.
"Do you like it?" You step closer to Gwayne, always on tip toe, and quickly, like a graceful doe. “Do I look comely?”
Your husband chokes on the words, watching you move closer to him- closer to his grasp. You are so near, he can count each if your eyelashes. “Come-? Comely?” Gwayne’s ears burn red at his misunderstanding. A feeble cough, then he manages to speak. “Yes. Very.”
"The seamstresses fastened the dress itself, but I did most of the embroidery work. See?"
Tentatively, he reaches out to graze his fingers over your hard work. He brushes the gold embroidery at your hip. You're babbling about the time that it look, and the technique you practiced, but Gwayne is zoning out. Only focusing on the warmth of your skin he can feel under the velvet. Your backside, that he had admittedly gawked at whenever you walked in front of him, was under his hand, splayed over your hip.
Your voice fades into the background as his hand, on it's own accord, moves up to your elbow, your shoulder, then brushes against the ends of your hair ever so slightly. It was so much softer than he thought possible. And when he brushes the tips of your hair, the smell of your rose soap wafts up to his nostrils. He watches in anticipation as his hand, seemingly pulled by an invisible force, moves to rest on the small of your back. You do not falter or pull away. In fact, you don't react at all. You just continue smiling, talking about your dress. Then you hold up the fabric of your skirt.
"Here, feel." You instruct, and Gwayne tentatively runs his hand over the gold beads. "I stayed up half the night to finish it. But I think it's worth the trouble." You laugh softly. "What do you think?"
"It's beautiful." He swallows, and meets your eye. "Like you."
Playfully, you roll your huge, doe eyes and there it is again - that laugh that makes his heart flip inside his chest cavity. Your lips brush his cheek so quickly, he thought he might have imagined it. But it was real. You kissed him. The dampness of your lips leave the irrefutable proof on his skin. Just as soon as you entered, you are moving away, towards the door, and out of his reach. "I think I will lay down to rest now. I am weary after staying up so late."
Gwayne must be unwell. He must see a maester. He feels unsteady on his feet and his heartbeat pounds mercilessly in his ears. Because after you leave his solar, his legs jerkily pull his body towards the door. You're fast. Much more agile than a young lady should be. Because you're leagues ahead of him, already out of sight down the castle corridors. He walks in a trance, following the trail of rose, stumbling after you. His cock jerks in his pants, half hard simply from touching you and the green fabric of your damned dress. Feverishly, his skin burns hot under his clothes. You're ill, you're reverting back to being a green boy, he tells himself. He wills himself to gain some sense, and stop following you like a lunatic, but his legs still carry him the way to your bed chambers.
When he arrives at your chambers, he enters without ceremony. He falls against the door and stumbles inside. It looks like you are getting ready to leave, having changed into a simple grey dress, and clutching your prayer book with a startled look on your face.
“Gwayne? Are you alright?” You ask, concerned for your husband’s current state- looking dazed in the middle of your bedchambers.
He does not answer your question. “I thought you were going to lie down and rest.” He blurts.
You were supposed to be getting ready to rest, he thinks, wearing your soft nightgown that I know you own because I've seen the servants filling your closet with clothes before you moved here. And you're supposed to be rubbing your eyes, sleepy and soft. I know you get like that when you're tired because once we dined together early in the morning. And I adored how you looked, one foot still in slumber, the other in wakefulness.
You smile, helpful, but so infuriatingly oblivious to his torment. “I was, yes, but then I remembered I am meeting the Septons this afternoon. We are discussing aid for the poor.” A pause. “Are you alright?” you ask again.
A broken sound emanates from your husband. A mixture of a groan and whine. He falls to his knees in front of you, hands clambering, pulling at your skirt. Gwayne knows he is a knight of the realm, but in this moment he does not care. He is a beggar at your feet. “Sweet girl. My sweet wife, please. Please do not leave.” His fingers fist tighter on your skirt.
Oof. You grunt, tugged off balance by your imploring husband. “I must go. I am new to my duties as Lady Hightower. And I can’t be seen shirking them so soon.” You rake your fingers through his auburn hair, as he presses his face firmly into the junction of your thighs. Gwayne’s hands have lost all restraint, pawing at your arse, tugging your cunt even closer into his face. With every trace of your fingers through his hair, his cock grows stiffer, straining uncomfortably into his pants. This surprises him, the reaction to your touch in his hair. All these new discoveries, particularly the unlimited bounds of his yearning, has his mind reeling.
You sigh. "By the seven, I really am late." You thread your fingers at the top of his head, and pull his gaze up to meet yours. "Oh Gwayne, what am I going to do with you?"
He strains, gazing up at you with watery eyes, "Oh dove, I-"
"Later." You tighten your hold on his long hair, secretly enjoying how much there is to tug on and manipulate in your small hand. You could feel his hot breath against your cunt, panting, building on the dampness that already gathered the moment he fell to his knees. You smile, giggling at the second whine that escapes his lips, "Have some propriety, husband." What were you going to do with him?
cw: (mdni +18), oral (f!receiving), praise, face humping, fluff fluff fluff, unplanned voyerism (cole watches them lol), dirty talk, hair pulling, sub!gwayne if you squint really hard, scent kink, pussy drunk gwayne, dry humping, (1.7kw).
synopsis: It is said Ser Gwayne knows not how to please a woman. Is it truth or lie?
Ser Criston taunts Gwayne about his supposed inexperience with women, even if he has a lady wife, betrothed to him for a few fortnights already.
Surely he doesn't know how to please you, right?
Too pious, too knightly to even know where to put his cock, most likely. Oldtown's teachings must've left him bereft of any talk about a lady's cunt or other erogenous places.
He's sure all those letters the knight keeps sending back to Oldtown are full of prayers and flowery words meant to soothe his lady, and nothing sort of salacious, like the other knights oftentimes scribble on the parchment meant for home.
A man like Gwayne has no knack for such things, Cole is sure of it.
"Your lady longs for you so much that you're sending a second letter this fortnight, Ser Gwayne?"
And the Hightower heir can sense the slight dissatisfaction beneath Ser Criston's tone, but he does not dwell upon it. Only smiles, nodding. "Yes, Ser. My lady worries, for her heart is pure and sensible. I must do what I can to quell her doubt of any mishaps that might've befallen me."
"Ah, of course. A most dutiful husband you are, Ser."
It isn't until their troops inevitably need to fall back to Oldtown two moons later that Gwayne gets to see his sweet lady wife again.
You've been waiting for this moment for so long, your heart hammering into your chest like a bird's wings as you see your husband's horse trot through the gates.
No one and nothing matters when you finally are cradled in Gwayne's arms, pressed to his steel-clad chest, sweet nothings whispered against your temple as your man peppers your warm skin with kisses of tenderness and longing.
Ser Criston looks away from the sight, scoffing. He knew the acclaimed Hightower heir was good for nothing but sweet presses of lips and warm embraces. Not even a kiss on the lips when greeting his lady wife? He should be ashamed to not bestow such gifts upon a gorgeous creature such as you.
Later, when the crowd had thinned and most knights were off to their sleeping arrangements, the Commander had to do one last search of their horses and supplies before calling it a night as well.
What Cole didn't think to find in the stables was Gwayne, on his knees, head squeezed between your thighs as he feasted on your cunt, moaning like a man starved, the sound muffled by the folds of your pussy.
The sight stopped Ser Criston dead in his tracks.
Ser Gwayne. Pious, dutiful, ever devoted to the faith, now sitting in the same position one would for prayer, but using his mouth not to plead to the Gods, but to bring his lady pleasure.
And what immense pleasure he did bring, for your hands were fisted in his auburn hair, tugging with intent, the demand for more crystal clear. You wanted more, smushing the knight into your heat, hips grinding against his face with abandon as you whined, trying to quiet the volume of your wantonness with your hand pressed to your mouth, but it was in vain. Nothing felt as good as your husband's tongue between your legs, only second to the feeling of his cock splitting you open.
"Yes, yes, my love, yes," fell from your ruddy lips, eyes glistening with unshed tears from how good Gwayne was making you feel. "I missed your mouth greatly," you lilted, fingers unrelenting as they weaved through your husband's hair, offering him respite from your rough insistence, petting him as you would an obedient hound as he continued to circle his tongue against your hole, the tip of his nose bumping against your clit. "Couldn't wait until we were together anew, husband."
All you got in return was another moan, unbashed and wet from the slick of your cunt against Gwayne's mouth, your words spurring him on, broad palms smoothing up your thighs to lift your skirts higher, bunching them at the waist, held in his fists. "My sweet wife," he babbled, flattening his tongue from hole to clit, parting your folds on the ascent. "The moons without your cunt have been dreadful," your knight says, words woven around a whine, lapping at the peeking nub between every word, kindling the heat in your lower belly. "Not being able to taste you each morrow left me wanting, even in times of battle and bloodshed."
Oh, what a debauched picture that was. Your dutiful husband, ever present when called to arms, thinking about worshipping between your legs as he swung his sword, falling enemies and stealing breath after breath from steel-clad men. The thought made you shiver, brushing auburn hair from Gwayne's temples to get a good look at those baby blues you so cherished, a dopey smile onto your lips as you whispered. "You must be cautious, my love," you chastised, albeit tenderly, running your fingers through his hair to soothe, hoping the ache for you had dwindled, if only a little. "Such thoughts might distract you, and then you might not come back to me."
Gwayne shook his head swiftly upon hearing your reprimand, leaning into your touch as a flower moves towards the sun, soaking up all its warmth down to the marrow. "Never," he protested, eyes widening, ever eager to prove his devotion to you. "I shall never fall to another man's sword, if it meant not seeing you again, sweetling," and he turns his face towards one of your palms, pressing a searing kiss upon the skin as he whispers. "That is my solemn vow."
You feel like your heart is going to burst out of your chest and splatter at your husband's feet from the earnestness of his promise, weaving warmth along your body, from your head down to your toes, a full-body gratefulness at having such allegiance offered to you.
"A vow you had upheld valiantly, my love," you praise, your hand shifting to cradle his jaw, thumb brushing against the plump of his bottom lip as you slowly tug him down, back towards your cunt, to which he allows without resistance. "One for which you shall have the prize you so dreamt of, even in bloodshed."
Gwayne's tongue lolls out as you guide his head, eager to have you on his palate again, eyes fluttering shut as the sweet musk of your pussy becomes more potent. It coaxed him to dip his chin so he could press his nose in damp curls and inhale deeply, exhaling a punched-out groan, as if he had forgotten the smell of you in the mere moments that had passed since he'd been tongue deep between your thighs.
"This cunt is a gift from the Gods, sweetling," he praises, mouth open and panting against your folds, just breathing you in lungful by lungful. "I wish I could have it with me on campaign," Gwayne continues, white-knuckling the skirts bunched at your waist, as if the imagery of such a thing wounds him. "Feast on it from morrow to dawn. Allow you to have my tongue whenever you please, my love."
You cannot help but moan at such a confession, fingers returning to his auburn strands to grip and tug, eliciting a muffled whine from your husband, whose tongue dipped between your folds anew, flicking at your clit on the upstroke, knowing how much you favoured it. "You're so good to me, husband," you coo, lips curling into a loving smile, holding your knight still by his hair as your hips resume their grinding, humping against Gwayne's awaiting tongue, using him for your pleasure.
And he loves it. Gods, does he love it. Blue eyes half-lidded, heated with love and lust as he only gives you more of it, poking his tongue as far as it would go for you to rub your clit against, moaning with each movement of your hips, bringing you even closer by the grip on your skirts.
"Oh, my sweet husband," you moan, feeling the heat tingling up your spine and pooling low in your belly with each wet swipe against your clit. "I can't wait to have your cock as well." The words are the opposite of pious, not at all what a lady wife should offer her betrothed, but you are past caring. "For your mouth feels heavenly, and still, I cannot wait to feel you inside me again."
The words melt and light Gwayne in equal measure, feeling his cock strain even harder against his breeches, hips kicking, rubbing himself along the seam of his pants in anticipation of what's to come. He nods, the motion making his tongue rub in rapid succession along your clit, the stimulation so delicious it makes you cry out, wanton and unbashed. Words fail him, the only thing that matters now being making you cum so he can sheathe himself into your pussy and have you milk him for all he's worth, like a prized stallion made for breeding.
It doesn't take long for your back to arch off of the hay bale you are lounging upon, Gwayne's name on your lips, your juices flowing down his tongue and chin, which your husband laps greedily. He has to stop the grind of his hips to not cum into his breeches like an untrained squire, even if the friction of his hard cock against the material of his pants feels heavenly.
He knows your pussy surpasses that by the thousands, which is why he forces himself to still the pathetic humping of his hips. It's only moments now until he'll be inside you, letting you catch your breath, pressing sweet, open-mouthed kisses to your inner thighs and behind your knees as he massages the muscle there, willing you pliant and lax for what's to come. "Thank you, sweetling. Gods, so pretty for me," he whispers against warm skin, reverent and grateful, mouth still wet with your slick. "Missed you so much. Never want to be away from you again. Never, never—"
Perhaps it's safe to assume that Ser Criston Cole will not utter a word about Gwayne and his lack of prowess anytime soon, after what he witnessed tonight.
