Gwayne gives you nothing in response.

For the first time since you met — late in your adolescence, when he needed something to prove and you needed coin to make; when everything between you was all warm cheeks and trembling hands — Gwayne is at a loss for a clever word, and unmoved by the slyness of your grin. He closes the distance between you instead, flinging the door shut behind him with a careless hand and staggering with each uneven step.

You meet him in the center of the expansive apartment — paid for, in part, by his Hightower coin alone. You hold him tentatively by the forearms, and feel the worn wool crack stiff with dried mud. “Gwayne…” you murmur gently to him, all the mockery long gone from your voice. You search his empty face with worried eyes. “Look at me— Are you hurt?”

He does not answer that either. Instead, his trembling hands lift to find your waist. The callouses along his palms snag briefly in the soft silk of your robe. He finds himself very suddenly overcome by the familiarity of having you in his arms again; a nostalgia that rises in his throat and strangles him. His dirty chin quivers as he leans further into you, burying his face in the crook of your shoulder and knotting his fists hard into your dress.

You feel the trembling start in his shoulders before you feel something warm and wet smear along your collarbone. The man weeps over you with great, shuddering snivels that he hides into your neck. It is the most vulnerable you’ve ever seen him, you think, even more so than the day you met — when all the other highborn boys teased him for his lack of experience, saying that he must not have the appetite for women, and sent him scrambling here to prove himself. 

He found you instead; a girl of his age, new to both Oldtown and the Honey Inn. A girl who saw right through him and refused to take his coin, or anything else he offered that night; but embellished enough stories that made all the taunting whispers about him finally stop. It was a small kindness, though one that threatened to undo him entirely. 

He’s warmed your bed ever since, both as client and something less easily named. You hold him now the same way you did that first night, asking nothing of him and expecting even less.

You draw him a bath once his breaths come more easily to him. You peel the ruined gambeson and sweat-stiff small clothes from his pale skin, and make no comment about how thin he’s grown as you lower him into the steaming water. The water runs brown, then dusty rose, and then finally clear as you work a soft cloth over his skin. Across his shoulders, down his spine, and over the frail skin of his hairless chest. 

“You needn’t—” Gwayne attempts to speak, his very first words since he crossed your threshold, though his voice comes out cracked and low with disuse. He feels half smothered beneath the foreign tenderness you offer him, but he does not flinch under your touch. He never has. “You needn’t do this for me, you know?”

“I know…” you nod and smooth the cloth along the milky-white column of his throat when he tips his chin to look at you, kneeling just outside the tub. “But I want to.”

When the warm water cools, you towel him dry and dress him in clothes a size too big for his frame — softly worn trousers and a loose linen tunic; souvenirs from previous patrons, washed by your own hands. Gwayne tries not to think about who might have shared your bed while he laid shivering in the mud. It was much easier to imagine you as his and only his, though he’s never quite found the courage to ask that of you.

“I’m sorry,” he says from where he lies within your silken sheets, wrapped in the sweet scent of your perfume and the particular stench of sweat that clings to the walls of the establishment. He doesn’t ask if you’ve taken clients today; he doesn’t want to know the answer — but the hour is early enough that he lets himself believe his body is the only one your hands have touched so far.

“For what?” you scoff, sliding beneath the cool sheets to join him. The feather mattress dips slightly under your weight until your legs tangle with his scruffy ones out of habit. “For tracking half the Kingsroad across my good Naathi rug? Because Mistress Aleena will absolutely dock you for it— whether you bought it or not.”

Gwayne exhales hard through his nose in place of a laugh, pink lips curling into a tired grin. “For all of it,” he says, pale eyes as dull and empty as his voice. “For… coming here like a beggar, for… crying on you like a child. For—” 

“Gwayne,” you sigh, splaying a free hand over the newfound hollow of his jaw. “You have nothing to apologize for. Not tonight, not ever if I have any say on the matter. Do you understand?”

Gwayne’s eyes soften around the edges as they flit back and forth between your steady gaze. His chapped lips part but cannot seem to summon an answer for you. Your soft grin widens into a more devilish thing as your hand trails down the curve of his jaw, past his sternum still flushed from the bath, and over the soft trail of auburn hair above the hem of his trousers. 

“I said…” Your fingers creep beneath the fabric to find the dense patch of coarse hair there. “Do you understand?”

The words of a response die on his tongue when your palm squeezes gently at his cock, soft like velvet and achingly sensitive under your touch. A broken sigh spills from his parted mouth as he tips his head back, damp auburn hair wild on the pillow. He twitches slowly stiff in your hand, dribbling pearls of pre-cum at the soft pink tip that you use to lubricate each slow stroke. 

He only vaguely feels the tip of your nose nudging the side of his, right before you press a tender kiss to his chapped mouth. He exhales hard through his nose as your lips slot effortlessly together, breath fanning warm along your cupid’s bow. His hips buck up into your hand with a sort of desperation you haven’t seen from him in quite some time, and your mouth curls into a smile pressed against his.

The distant creaking of the fourth step in the hall — an old plank that’s had a way of warning you of every approaching patron since you first took this room — shatters the moment entirely. Your head tilts upward against Gwayne’s when the heavy oak door swings open without a pretense of a knock, as if the man on the other side didn’t know that closed doors in a house like these only ever meant one thing.

Gwayne makes a weak, wounded sound in his throat when your hand slows around his cock. “Why’d you stop?” he mutters against your mouth, heavy eyes fluttering open to find you glancing off towards the door.

“It seems like we have company…” you croon with a smile.

Gwayne’s brows lower in confusion right before his head turns against the pillow. The screwed look drains into something far closer to dread when his eyes fall on his cousin looming in the doorway — standing a head taller and twice as broad through the shoulders. He reaches for the silver pomander chained perpetually to his scabbard and lifts it to his nose. His nostrils flare as he inhales the earthy incense, trying hopelessly to escape the stench of sex clinging to the walls of the Honey Inn.

You knew Ormund Hightower mostly by reputation rather than appearance. He’s handsome in the manner that most Hightower men were handsome, and chiseled cold in a manner that suggests all the unkind stories Gwayne’s told you about the man over the years were likely unembellished.

“So… This is where you’ve run off to,” Ormund says in a melodic voice as he strolls further inside. He scans the room with pale, attentive eyes — the tub running low by the window, the discarded clothes just beside it, and his cousin freshly home from war and spending his return in a whore’s bed. A thin smile curls at the corner of his mouth accordingly: “I confess, I do find myself surprised, cousin… I hadn’t realized you possessed the… appetite for this sort of thing…” 

Gwayne goes rigid underneath you while his cock softens once more in your fist. An age-old humiliation flickers behind his eyes — the same look you remember seeing on him all those years ago. 

“It’ll cost you extra if you mean to join us, my lord,” you call to the older man, with an ease about you that suggests you’re utterly unbothered by an audience. Your head tilts to your shoulder as you study the man, eyes raking slowly over his broad form. “Though I’d wager you have more than enough coin for it… And the face for it, too, no doubt…”

Ormund’s chest burns with a strange mixture of offense and pride. His strong, shaven chin lifts slightly upward as he drops the pomander back on its chain, giving you the whole of his attention now. “My faith does not permit such… indulgences,” he says in a smooth voice. “As I’m sure you very well know.”

“Mm… Well, if the Seven are half as kind as everyone insists, they wouldn’t begrudge a man for having a little fun now and then,” you answer without missing a beat. “Could do wonders for you, my lord— You look dreadfully tense.” 

Ormund’s pale eyes do not stray from your squinted stare. There’s something almost involuntary in it, in the way his gaze snags and catches with yours — even when your hand starts moving again under the blankets and Gwayne’s pale form tenses beneath your touch.

“Well…” Ormund hums, trying hard not to choke on his embarrassment. “You’re a bold thing, aren’t you? For a woman who sells herself by the hour.”

“And you’re a bold thing for walking into a lady’s room uninvited, my lord,” you quip and watch him falter at the volley. You turn back to Gwayne with a huff, and swing your leg to straddle his thigh as you call back to the older man, “You can watch if you like. Or wait your turn in the hall— Either way, I’m afraid I’m with a patron at present.”

Gwayne’s eyes you with a wide, worried gaze as you coax him hard again with your hand. You swipe your thumb over the bulbous tip and gather the pearly beads drooling there, before lining him at the entrance of your cunt. His pale hands settle on either side of your waist, clenching hard at the delicate fabric of your robe. Any words of protest that might’ve risen onto his tongue dissolve into a broken moan when you pierce yourself with him, slow and without concern for the man still standing across the room.

Ormund lingers there for a while longer than he’d like to admit. He tells himself that the sour feeling curling in his stomach is disgust — decent and godly disgust that any devout man ought to feel at such a display. He, admittedly, has always been good at telling himself things. 

But still, his feet do not move. And the longer he watches your hips move slowly on top of Gwayne’s — the sight of it only partially shielded by your robe and the sheets gathered at your thighs — the harder it becomes to name the thing coiled in his chest. A curiosity, perhaps, of what your hips would feel like in his hands; of what it would feel like to be nestled in your cunt— 

Ormund despises himself the moment the thought surfaces, for how long the dreadful image lingers in the back of his head before he can shake it away. 

He turns on his heel and storms towards the door with a mixture of jealousy and disgust and distant intrigue rising into his throat like bile. He pulls the heavy oak shut behind him with a resounding thud that fills the quiet room.

Gwayne shakes his head against the pillow when he’s finally gone. His pale eyes are still wide with alarm but glassy with a lingering pleasure too, as you continue grinding your hips over his lap. Your velvety cunt squeezes him with each pass, threatening to milk his orgasm from him entirely.

“You should not have done that,” he confesses breathlessly, and wears the warning etched across his pretty features.

“Done what?” you respond through panted breaths, bracing yourself on his soft chest. “Defended you? Dreadfully sorry, my lord— next time I’ll let him have the last word—”

“That’s not—” He inhales sharply and grabs hard at your waist to stop your movements, so that he might concentrate on something other than your warm, drooling cunt for more than a second. Gwayne peers up at you with a suddenly solemn look. “He’ll want it now. My cousin— What he saw now in this room. He’ll want it now simply because it’s mine.” 

You arch a brow in a playful look. “So I’m yours now, am I?” you joke.

Gwayne exhales hard through his nose when you fail to heed his warning with any real seriousness, chest deflating under your touch. Your smile only widens at the half-hearted glare he gives you then.

“You don’t know him the way I do,” he mutters.

“No. I don’t,” you agree, planting your palms on either side of his head as you lean down over him again. The plush of your breasts threatens to spill over the low neckline of your robe; you smile when you catch Gwayne’s unabashed staring. “And I’d very much like to keep it that way… Which is a pity because I might’ve made an exception for that face of his… A shame, really, that the Gods wasted such a pretty face on such an unpleasant man…” 

 Gwayne’s mouth lifts into a crooked smile despite himself. “You’re going to be the death of one of us, you know that?” he tells you, close enough now that your noses brush with every word. “Though I can’t be entirely sure which…”

“Mm…” you hum, and feel Gwayne’s chest rumble with a groan when you roll your hips over his again. “I do hope it’s the more tiresome cousin then.” 

You kiss him before Gwayne can argue the point. And this time, he does not pull away — and he does not for a long while after.

Gwayne makes himself at home in your bed the way he has since boyhood. He returns not quite a week later, when word of Criston Cole’s death reaches Oldtown — his handsome head struck from his shoulder and mounted on a pike by the Winter Wolves, no more than a three-day ride from the Reach now. He tells you this with his heavy head laid in your lap, staring distantly at the crackling hearth across the room, and blinking back burning tears before they can stain your pretty silk dress.  

His auburn hair slides like silk between your fingers as you run your hands through it, with the same unthinking tenderness you’ve shown him a thousand nights before this one, though he feels far less deserving of it now.

“You needn’t perform this for me, you know?” he mutters, rubbing his cheek along your covered thigh while his thumb smooths absently over your knee. “I know what I am to you…” 

“Oh, really?” you say with a smile evident in your voice, though he cannot see it from where he lies. “And who might that be?”

Gwayne turns his head to peer up at you. A weary half-smile hints at the very edges of his mouth as he answers, “A man who’s paid twice over for the privilege of your company over the years…”

You flinch at his words before you can properly catch yourself. It had been years since Gwayne last put coin in your palm for anything; longer since, perhaps, than he’s stopped truly needing to. He’s filled your larder more times than you could count, dressed you in silks finer than half the highborn ladies at court, and furnished this very room with the good Myrish looking glass and the featherbed you share now — all without once being asked. 

So it stings a little now, to hear him speak of you still in the language of ledger — as though even after everything, he still cannot quite let himself believe he might simply be loved and not owed.

“Yes…” you sigh, combing your fingers from his temple to the side of his neck. “You’ve paid me a great deal of coin to take care of you… But no one pays me extra to love you. And I find that I very much do.”

The words threaten to undo him completely. He has not grown any more accustomed to tenderness since the war ended than he was before it began. He was not raised to think himself particularly deserving of love; not with a family that whispered often of his peculiar appetite and a cousin who made a sport of his shame at every turn. And then you came along and never once made him feel like the freak everyone at court had long decided that he must be. You are, he thinks, the closest thing to a miracle he’s ever been given.

“Where will you go?” he wonders suddenly aloud, auburn brows pinching low in curiosity. “When Rhaenyra’s army arrives, I mean?”

You shrug, and the thin sleeve of your nightgown slips from your shoulder. “The crypts with everyone else, I expect—”

“What if we left?” he blurts before he can properly weigh the words in his head. His eyes dart wildly across your face, aglow now with a prophecy he can see so vividly in his head. “Daeron has Tessarion. And surely the three of us are not so heavy a burden for a dragon to bear. We could be gone from the city before anyone thought to look for us— and already leagues away before they could try.”

“And do what, exactly?” you wonder with a warm laugh. “Comb my hair by firelight and pray the open road pays half so well as Oldtown? I have a trade here, Gwayne, one that will long outlast this useless war. And one that does not travel well.”

“You wouldn’t need a trade,” Gwayne scoffs. The mattress dips under his weight as he sits up ahead of you, drawing his knees to his chest and resting his forearms across them. His face is very suddenly close to yours now, and very suddenly solemn. “I’d take care of you.”

“So I’d go around being your whore then? Is that it?”

His face screws in a pained sort of look. “You wouldn’t be my whore. You’d be my lady.” 

The promise steals the words of a clever response from your mouth. You’ve heard enough of them fall from enough men over the years to fill a maester’s ledger — vows made drunk with sex and unmade sober when it was done; declarations of earnest men who meant well but were misled by their own wanting. You’ve learned the sound of deceit well enough over the years to recognize that this was not one of them. 

Gwayne was, perhaps, the first man of any real means to offer you true courtesy that was not only spent with his coin; and you would like nothing more than to return the favor, to be his lady. But you learned long ago, the hard way a girl born into nothing usually learns such things, that some fates are simply not written for women like you.

A strange feeling settles heavy in your chest accordingly. It weighs down the edges of your tender smile as you reach to smooth a piece of silken auburn hair back from his temple, if only to buy yourself half a moment before you answer him.

“I cannot leave,” you mutter gently to him. “The road is not… gentle to women, whatever protection you mean to offer me… What if we were separated? What if you grew bored of me? What if I became a burden to you—?”

“Never,” Gwayne protests, words sharp with hurt.

You meet his frown with a much softer look in return. “Whatever’s coming for this city is no kinder than whatever’s waiting for me out there…”

Gwayne’s face falls. His taut look of offense softens slowly, through a thick swallow in his throat — the kindling hope of the fleeting moment folds in on itself like a flower at last light.

“But I do want you to go, Gwayne,” you whisper, bringing both hands to cradle his flushed cheeks. “You’ve never been happy in this city, not truly, not since I’ve known you. Take the boy and go somewhere it’s safe. You deserve that much, if nothing else."

He shakes his head between your palms, though not quite in protest. “Who will take care of you with me gone, hm?” he asks with a sad sort of grin.

“I take care of me," you answer with narrowed eyes. “I always have. Long before I found you, and long after I expect.”

Gwayne falls quiet for a moment thereafter. It takes him a while to find the words to speak again, and when he does, the words go as distant as his forlorn gaze. “I’m not certain I could manage it regardless… Ormund watches everything— every-one. He always has… He’d know I meant to slip away before I’d so much as breathed a word of it to Daeron…”

Your thumb stills on the warm apple of his cheek. “All you’d need as a distraction,” you shrug. “Something shiny enough… And perhaps close enough to his own doorstep that he’d have no choice but to look at that instead of you…”

Gwayne catches the change in your voice before he catches the true meaning underneath it. His brows lower in a dubious look. “…Do you have something in mind?”

You give him a slow, sly, and devilish smile in response. “Oh, I have a great many things in mind…” you coo to him. “Do try to keep up, my lord…”

The plan comes together slowly after that, whispered low against the pillows with the candles burning down to near nothing. You outline the basics of it, and Gwayne fills the gaps with everything he knows of his cousin — of his habits, his pride, his cruel nature. And though you find yourself almost fond of it, the surest way you can think of to buy Gwayne and his nephew their escape, the man cannot quite stomach the thought.

“Ormund is not the kind of man who plays fair,” he warns you in a whisper. “Even in games he thinks he’s winning, if he so much as suspects—”

“He won’t,” you assure him, tracing a slow finger along the tense edge of his jaw. “I’ve made a trade of reading men like him, Gwayne, and it’s only for one night. You find Daeron, ready the dragon, and leave your cousin to me. Trust me, I have handled far worse men for far less worthy causes.”

“The scouts say they’re a day’s ride out, maybe less,” Ormund says beneath the soft scraping of his boots along the dim passageway. His voice bounces off the walls, where the torches gutter low with the late hour. “Though… Rhaenyra’s army has proven rather slow as of yet, haven’t they? Dragged down by supply, no doubt, and by the unfamiliar country… Much to our advantage, just as I knew it would be.”

Gwayne tenses his jaw, struggling to stomach the older man’s hubris — a thing he has choked down often enough over the years that it should no longer taste of anything at all, though it still has a way of burning going down. There is a small satisfaction in it, though, Gwayne realizes; in knowing something that, for once, his cousin does not. A little victory in knowing that Daeron is saddling Tessarion in the dragon’s stable at this very moment, while Ormund waltzes through this castle, utterly unaware of it.

“Many men will die regardless,” Gwayne reminds him.

“Yes. We will lose men,” Ormund nods on an exhaled breath, then tilts his head to flash the man a feigned look of sincerity — a kind, tight-lipped smile with no warmth in it at all. “Which means you’ve got nothing to worry about, cousin. You were never counted among the men anyway, were you?”

He lifts a ringed hand to pat the younger man on the shoulder, a little harder than necessary, before wrenching open the door ahead of him. Gwayne stands in place and watches him, jaw flexing as he grinds his teeth. He clenches his hands into fists, exhales a slow breath through his nose, and lets the insult pass slowly over him. He watches, instead, as Ormund strolls into his solar and falters a half-step past the threshold.

Ormund’s nose catches it before his eyes do — a strikingly foreign scent hanging in the air, of warm oil and crushed petals, sorely out of place amid the leather and parchment and wet stone. His nostrils flare faintly as his eyes finish the work his nose began. His gaze scans the room until it lands finally on you, arranged on the couch by the hearth like a thing to be painted. The sleeves of your dress threaten to slip from your shoulders as the neckline dips low enough to reveal the canvas of your plush breasts, kissed by the flickering candlelight.

Something in his chest leaps before he can help it, a red-hot flare of gladness at the sight of you lounging so delicately in his own chamber, which was only ever possible in his dreams before now — vividly and more often than he’d like to admit, since the morning he found you at the Honey Inn. He told himself it was only the irritation of you that lingered, the bitter memory of a woman far too bold for her station, though the lie only stuck so much.

He swallows down the boyish excitement rising like bile in his throat, and disgust follows hard on its heels — first at himself and then at the reflexive worry of some guard or handmaiden or septa seeing someone like you waltz into his chambers looking like that. He has spent too long manufacturing his reputation for it to go to waste on some common whore.

“What… is she… doing here?” Ormund spits each word like venom.

“You said it yourself. Rhaenyra’s army will likely make Oldtown before break of day,” Gwayne says lowly as the door clicks shut behind him. “This could very well be the last night either of us has left… And I thought you might want one happy memory before you give yourself to the dust.”

Ormund’s ringed hands twitch into loose fists at his sides. He tilts his chin and swallows hard and finds that it’s near-impossible to break your stare, no matter how plainly he wears the mask of disgust across his face. It takes him a second too long to turn away from you, and to plaster a brittle smile on his mouth when he looks over his shoulder at Gwayne.

“So you’ve brought me your leftovers?” he says with a short, humorless laugh. “How generous of you, cousin.”

“Well, leftovers would imply that I was once his, my lord,” you call from your place on the couch, twisting your pointer finger around the golden tassel of the pillow just beside you. “And I don’t much recall belonging to anyone… It’s bad for business,” you punctuate your quip in a whisper and with a devilish grin.

Ormund gives you a realer smile this time, though it’s quickly swallowed by his usual narrow-eyed look of composure. “Well… You’ve certainly got a mouth on you, don’t you?”

“Hm…” you shrug, and let the sleeve of your gown slip from your shoulder. “So I’ve been told.”

Your glimmering look of amusement stays locked with his pale-eyed stare as he saunters slowly towards you, like a predator to prey — though you look rather pleased to be caught in comparison. So much so that Ormund struggles to tell which of you is the apex now, even as he towers over you lounging form.

“You’re very devout, I hear,” you tell him, tilting your head to your bare shoulder to study the breadth of his frame — his long legs, his ringed hands, his broad chest, his sharp jaw, his cold cold eyes. “The Faith frowns on this sort of thing, doesn’t it?”

Ormund scoffs out a laugh. “Whoring?”

“Idle hands.”

You shift on the plush cushions until you’re on your knees before him, eye level with his scabbard and the silver pomander glinting in the torchlight. You reach for his hands in a smooth, unabashed motion — palms soft against the rough skin of his knuckles as you splay his ringed fingers flat against your ribs, just beneath the swell of your breasts.

His hands go stiff beneath yours, forgetting how to move them for a moment. And though his breath catches at the foreign contact, he does not step back from you, not even when a faint red flush begins to climb up the column of his throat. His mouth parts softly as his pale eyes go lidded, and your smile sharpens at the sight of it.

“You can touch me if you like, my lord,” you tell him, smoothing your hands over his green-leather coat up towards his shoulders. “I promise I don’t bite… Unless you’d prefer that I did.”

Gwayne watches your arms curl around Ormund’s shoulders with his stomach in knots. He feels suddenly very nauseous, watching his brutish cousin rest his undeserving hands where Gwayne has lain his own a thousand times over. Even now, knowing exactly what game you’re playing and why, he wants so desperately to pull you away and take you back to the Honey Inn and drown in your silk sheets forever.

But the gods aren’t that kind, and you are far too stubborn to come with him, so he clears his throat and bids his final goodbye. “Well…” he calls into the quiet, forcing a lightness into his voice as he folds his hands behind his back and moves towards the door. “I guess I’ll leave you to it…”

“Stay,” Ormund commands in a flat voice, without once taking his eyes off yours.

Gwayne freezes mid-step. His eyes widen right before an awkward laugh sputters from his mouth. “What?” he chuckles, forced from a half-strangled throat. “You’ll surely not have much fun with me standing about, cousin—”

Ormund turns finally to face him. A hint of a pleasant smile sits on his mouth, though his eyes carry a much icier glare in comparison. “Stay,” he repeats. “It’s only fair, isn’t it? You’ve been keeping her to yourself all these years, I’ve heard. Now you’ll have your turn to watch. I find I rather like the idea of you learning what that feels like.”

A flicker of anger passes over Gwayne’s face.

Ormund’s smug grin widens. “Do sit, cousin. You’ll want a good view, I expect.”

Gwayne does not move from where he stands but does not close the scant distance between him and his escape either. He has seen what Ormund does to people who do not abide by his every command, and he is less inclined to witness it himself now — or, worst of all, have that cruelty brought upon you.

You watch the exchange with an unreadable expression and file the encounter in the back of your head for later use, should you need it. One hand drags from his shoulder to his neck, coaxing him to look your way again with gentle fingers splayed along his shaven jaw.

“Fond of an audience, are you, my lord?” you murmur to him. “I confess, I wouldn’t have guessed that about you before now.”

Ormund nods, almost pleased. “There’s a great deal about me that you couldn’t possibly guess,” he retorts in a low voice.

“Good thing I’m a quick learner then, isn’t it?”

You urge him further down and tilt your chin to meet him halfway, slotting your lips in a lingering kiss. He’s warm and firm pressed against you, though his tongue tastes of nothing more than mint leaves and well-water when you lick into his mouth; as clean and sterile as all the rest of him. So much so that you think he could probably get drunk on the Dornish wine stained on your tongue alone. And you figure that he must, the way he relaxes against you with a slow breath, planting one hand along the back of the couch to brace himself and urging you backward along with it.

Your lips part with a quiet click. You smile to yourself when Ormund attempts to chase your mouth, nudging the tip of your nose against his broader one. “Let the poor boy go,” you coo softly to him. “I don’t suspect you’ll want an audience for the things I have planned for you, my lord.”

Ormund’s broad chest warms at the promise in your words, but his stubborn will never wavers. “No… I don’t think I will.”

You try not to let your face fall completely as you scramble for another excuse that might set Gwayne free. The auburn-haired man scoffs a faint laugh from across the room. “Cousin, I—”

“You will stay,” Ormund commands. “And learn exactly how it feels to stand apart and watch.”

Something cold and heavy settles in the pit of your stomach at his words — at Gwayne’s previous warning come to life right before your eyes. “He’ll want it now,” he’d told you. “He’ll want it simply because it’s mine.” You hadn’t understood the true weight of his meaning until now, with both you and Gwayne trapped beneath the man’s easily irritable, if not dangerous temper; and watching the promise of freedom slip through your fists like grains of sand.

You replace the distant look of worry on your face with another small smile the moment Ormund turns back to you, and try hard to kiss him back without reservation when he presses his mouth to yours again. There is little restraint in him now — in the tongue he licks between your parted lips, or in the ringed hands that trace the neckline of your dress.

His fingers curl beneath the thin fabric, urging it down down down until your bare breasts are exposed to the firelight and your delicate nipples pebble in the cool air. They’re sensitive within his rough hands as he cups them in his palms. You sigh hard in place of a moan, and feel Ormund grin softly into his kiss at the sound of it. His wet mouth smears across your skin as he trails his kisses from your mouth, to your jaw, and down your neck, before planting them to your left breast.

You sit back on your haunches and cradle the back of his hand, whimpering quietly when his tongue flicks across the sensitive nipple. Your eyes fall to Gwayne’s on instinct, where he remains across the room with his jaw locked tight, his hands balled into fists, and his pale eyes flaming with a withheld rage. He feels every inch of the late hour slipping away from you both — Daeron is still waiting for him at the stables now, and soon it will be too late to flee. And somewhere beneath his fear is a simmering jealousy, as he’s forced to watch his cousin’s undeserving mouth caress your body.

Your eyes dart to the door just beside him; a silent plea for him to leave with Ormund now distracted, as his mouth trails to your right breast. Gwayne answers with a curt shake of his head, to the left and back again. He wouldn’t make it down the hall before Ormund would realize he’d gone, and the both of you would likely suffer far worse for it.

So he suffers the sight before him instead, watches Ormund’s swollen mouth pluck off your breast and kiss the breath from your lungs once more.

He pulls off of you with a rosier grin. “Alright,” he pants. “Undress me.”

And though you’ve undressed many men over the years, your fingers tremble around each clasp of his leather coat for a reason you can’t name. You struggle now to meet his gaze with as much confidence as you had moments ago, as you urge the heavy fabric from his shoulders. His tunic goes next — the lace unknotted and the hem pulled from his trousers. You tug it up and over his head until the golden canvas of his body is revealed to you, toned from years in the training yard and unblemished from years of hiding from battle.

You run your hands down his shaven chest to the sparse at his stomach, a line that leads down into his pants. You unbuckle his scabbard next and then loosen the knot at his trousers, urging the fabric down his scruffy, muscular thighs. He sighs through his nose when his cock meets the cool air of the solar. He’s a few inches shorter than Gwayne, but thicker where it counts, with veins that trail in jagged lines from the base of his cock to the soft pink tip.

“Go on…” Ormund coaxes with a nod. “Kiss it.”

He’s half-stiff and smoother than velvet when you take him in your fist. He twitches harder in your palm when you duck your head to press a languid kiss to the satin head of his cock, right before swirling your tongue under the ridge of it.

Ormund watches you from the bridge of his nose, laughing through a low moan in the back of his throat. “Look at that… She is a good whore,” he hums with a smug smile, as he cradles the crown of your head in his wide hands. “And I didn’t even have to pay her…”

His head swivels in Gwayne’s direction, where he finds the younger man still scowling by the door, mere inches away from his escape. Ormund’s grin only widens at the sight of it.

“Careful now, cousin, or I’ll start to think you’re jealous… She said it herself, didn’t she? She doesn’t belong to anyone. Bad for business… Right, dove?”

You nod with your lips still wrapped around him, suckling the sensitive tip of his cock and using the remnants of your spit to jerk the rest of him in a slow, firm fist. Ormund grumbles a moan in the back of his throat and tips his heavy head back. His toned stomach tightens as a pleasured feeling coils in the pit of it, wound tight by your expert mouth upon him.

He tries to even his wavering breaths in a feeble attempt to make the moment last — if only to make his cousin watch a little while longer — but the wet sounds of your mouth are enough to undo him. And when you reach a hand to squeeze softly at his heavy balls, he nearly bursts entirely.

“Enough—” he hears himself blurt, pulling you off by your hair. Your lips part from him with a smacking sound. The thin string of saliva connecting you to him pulls thin until it clings to your bottom lip. You peer up at him with wide, glassy eyes. His broad chest heaves with every panted breath as he fights to regain his slipping composure.

“Get out of that dress,” he commands breathlessly, lips quirking into a grin. “And get on your hands and knees.”

You feel your heart thrumming hard in your throat when you reach for the sleeves of your dress, having long slipped from your shoulders now. You slide your arms out and roll the remaining fabric down your torso. The silk pools like water at your feet when you rise to take it the rest of the way off. The air feels cool against your flaming skin, and leaves chills pebbling in its wake. When you turn to plant yourself on the couch, just as he commanded, you feel Ormund swat your ass with a less-than-kind hand.

“Facing him,” he scolds in a gentle voice. “Give him a show now, shall we?”

You settle on your hands and knees along the lush cushions, angling yourself to face the door — to face Gwayne. Your bare chest heaves at the sight of him, pretty face etched with an anger you haven’t quite seen from him before. The quiet wretchedness of a man watching a thing he loves be claimed by a hand that’s already taken so much from him, and knowing that he cannot save you from any of it.

You want so badly to tell him that this is only a means to an end — that you do still love him — but you cannot risk Ormund hearing the words aloud and cannot hide the slick of primal excitement going sticky between your thighs.

So for now, you can only hold Gwayne’s wet-eyed gaze, and hope he can read the apology written in yours.

Gwayne cannot seem to look away from it, not even when Ormund settles in just behind you, with one leg bent on the cushion and the other still planted on the floor. Not even when the man presses two long fingers at the entrance of your weeping cunt, and hums in satisfaction when they slide without friction within your sticky walls.

“Mm…” he laughs beneath your whimpering. “You are lovely, you know— wasted on this trade, if I’m honest…” He curls his fingers and feels you clench around them when he pulls them back out again. “Perhaps I’ll wash some of that sin off you tonight… Make you clean… Make you mine… Would you like that?”

He reaches around to press his pointer and middle finger to your bottom lip, still glimmering with your slick. Your mouth parts for him on instinct, and he presses them to the pad of your tongue. You nod wordlessly with his long fingers in your mouth, salty-sweet with your honey, and imagine their Gwayne’s instead.

“You’ll agree with anything I ask, won’t you?” He laughs when you nod and slides his fingers out of your mouth again. “Like I said… Good whore…”

He grabs himself in his fist and presses the head of his cock to your pulsing entrance. He pierces you slowly, and feels your eager cunt spread around him inch by inch. Your airy sigh mixes with his rumbled groan when he buries himself to the hilt, with his hips pressed flush to your ass.

“Are you watching, Gwayne?” he calls proudly to his cousin, smoothing his rough hands along the canvas of your back.

Gwayne’s fingers curl and loosen into fists at his sides as his features flicker with a choked-back rage. “I’d prefer to take my leave now, cousin,” he answers, half-strangled.

“No…” Ormund coos with a sympathetic shake of his head. “Not until she cums, anyway. So… best work quickly, dove.”

He fucks into you a second later with a sort of precision you’d expect from a man like him. His thrusts are shallow and rhythmic and methodical. His balls smack your leaking cunt with every pass, creating a lewd symphony of sex all around you — of skin clapping against skin, of panted breaths entwining. Gwayne figures the sounds of war must’ve been far less cruel than this.

Ormund braces one hand along the back of your neck, like you’re a hound to be forced into submission, while his other slithers around your hip. The pads of his fingers press hard to your clit and a cry falls from your mouth before you can help it, filling the otherwise quiet solar.

“Rather sensitive for a whore, aren’t you?” Ormund chuckles from behind you. “Because you’ve never been fucked by a man before, I’d wager. Isn’t that right, cousin?”

Gwayne’s eyes burn under the weight of his unshed tears. He has faced death a thousand times over in the past few weeks, yet none of it was quite as heart-aching as this. His rage simmers to a boil in his throat, and it feels like fire when he swallows it down again.

Ormund’s thrusts grow sloppy thereafter, led purely by the pursuit of his own pleasure. But his fingers remain merciless on your swollen clit, and a white-hot pleasure begins to swell in the pit of your stomach accordingly. You grit your teeth and clench your fingers hard around the gold arm of the lavish couch in a feeble attempt to fight it — for your own pride, and perhaps for Gwayne’s, too.

“You’re mine now,” you hear Ormund say from just behind you, choppy between his faltering thrusts. “You’ll answer to no one else’s bed but mine. From this night forward. Is that understood?”

You nod wordlessly in response, if only to appease him for the moment, and feel his hand tighten on the back of your neck.

“Say it.”

“…I understand,” you just barely manage to squeak out.

“Then cum for me.”

He presses harder on your clit. Your face twists with a pleasure you can no longer fight away. You squeeze your eyes shut when your gaze falls instinctively to Gwayne’s, and when his pained features make your chest sear with a burning feeling. Your mouth falls open in a silent moan as your cunt gushes around Ormund’s twitching cock. He thrusts into you once, hard, and shudders just against you. His rough groan mixes with the sound of your quiet whimpering as he spits ropes of warm cum into your fluttering pussy, milking him for every drop of it.

“That’s it…” he spits through gritted teeth, fucking you sloppily through the rest of his high. “Take it all— There you go…”

He swats your ass once he’s finally spent himself inside you, gripping hard at the plush skin there and forcing you flush against his scruffy thighs. A satisfied grin sits crooked at his mouth when his lidded gaze falls once more to the man across the room.

“Oh, don’t sulk, cousin,” Ormund calls to him, flushed chest still heaving. “I’ll have another whore sent up for you, if you wish.”

Gwayne flinches instantly at the very thought of it, at being with anyone else but you — at some other woman’s hands being where only yours have been, at having some other stranger’s mouth on him instead of the only one he knows by heart. His features flicker with an involuntary disgust before he can hide it.

“Oh…” Ormund grins wider. “Did you… Did you think you could have this one?”

He punctuates his question by thrusting hard into you once more. You make a pained noise in the back of your throat at your growing sensitivity; head bowed and shoulders heaving as your weeping cunt clenches around his softening cock. Ormund chuckles through another moan at the sensation.

“No. No, no— See, this one’s mine now…” Ormund continues, pale eyes icing over into a glacial sort of look. “And you’d do well to remember it, cousin… Because I’d hate for anyone to come to harm over… so small a misunderstanding, wouldn’t you say?”

Gwayne’s blood runs cold at Ormund’s promise, because he knows his cousin far too well to mistake it for anything less. And he knows now, too, that whatever escape he, Daeron, and Tessarion might’ve made tonight has long since closed in on itself, and will surely not open again while you remain under Ormund’s dangerous, unforgiving hand.

So he will stay. And he will wait for Rhaenyra’s army to march through these gates. And he will make certain that his cousin does not live to see the end of it, so long as it means that Gwayne gets to have you to himself when the ashes finally settle over Oldtown.

he doesn't crumple the paper, the contents of it he knows will be valuable to his cousin no matter how hot the blood boils in his veins at the alternative potential outcomes. instead he thrusts it in daerons direction and looks away abruptly, taking his seat at the table and continuing with his tea. "see to it that this is put somewhere safe," he rolls his eyes with a groan and daeron, like the maids before him had moments ago, scurries away in confusion.

he knows he shouldn't be prying, but he can't help it to see what news had come that has irked his uncle in such little time.

he recognises the sway of your handwriting as it firmly prints on the paper. the ink is smudged slightly, likely sent in haste before it had dried and he sees the name and smiles. you know what you're doing and you're clever about it to make the address vague. only you and gwayne are rhe exception to riling ormund up and getting away with it and daeron chalks it up to the three of you having grown up so closely with each other. he's thankful for it, often hiding behind the two of you when he bares the brunt of ormund's intensity for so long.

his eyes skim over your words and he melts, he knows it'll be of great importance to gwayne. possibly the greatest gift gwayne will ever receive and now the raven is no longer the messenger but daeron is, and he will guard this with his life.

he summons a small wicker basket, weaved from the market stalls in tumbleton and knows that despite ormund's irritation there will be more to come and daerons decides that it will be his upmost priority to see these messages to your husband. he giggles at the contents, knowing that he won't be reading the following to come out of respect and makes a note to write you back. to let you know it has been received and it will be treasured. he just needs to find a way to do it without ormund's knowledge for the elder is bound to be angered by the future monarch's correspondence.

he folds the parchment as carefully as you had and lets it rest before walking away and returning with his day. he doesn't blame you in the slightest, you're miles away back home, governing oldtown whilst the rest of the hightowers are bidding for kingslanding and daeron miss you endlessly, he cannot begin to fathom how his uncle must feel with you missing.

lord hightower,

i love you

(this is a test, please confirm if this has been received!)

your darling wife

three days have not yet passed before the next raven arrives at the gates. there's still hope building in ormund, he's yet to hear from his cousin about news of aemond and vhagar to join their conquest. he knows his nephew to be ambitious and eager, but as the days pass ormund can't help but feel like adjustments will need to be made in his absence.

he snaps at the servants too often, schemes too late in the night and the fatigue is catching up to him slowly. so when the dark raven squeaks and a letter is landed in his palms, he whispers a small prayer with closed eyes and a restless heart.

he shoots an encouraging smile at daeron, who sits at the table waiting for the news but it never comes. ormund stares at the scroll with disgust, the recipients name in lopsided cursive and faint hearts drawn around the letters. it is you, again. his loyal cousin-in law and the bane of his existence. he should be glad that you're holding down the fort in oldtown, that his cousin has such a loving and incredible wife that some part of him is bitten in jealousy. he doesn't want to open the contents, to have the colours of his house green as day across his face. he throws it to the table with a snarl, and motions for daeron to pass him a free parchment and holds the quill with a steel grip of death.

"women," he mutters under his breath, "so emotional. it has been what? i can't even count the distance," his handwriting is tenacious, annoyance etched in each syllable and he hardly wastes any time on the response.

"perhaps it has truly been that long that the true amount no longer matters, distance is distance," daeron tries to argue politely in your defence, "a matter or minutes or moons, what is a number to the distance when the love is stretched nonetheless?"

ormund drops the feathered quill and inhales slowly, his frame stalks over to his nephew and lands a hand to his shoulder. it presses down firmly, a small danger as his gaze darkens. daeron knows not to move a muscle, not to give in to the taunt, to not appear weak but also disobedient and he meets ormund's eyes, "you are becoming tender-hearted," ormund warns, "and where will this softness take you when you cannot protect the ones you "love"?" he whispers lethally and daeron swallows his breath. "do you understand?"

"yes, sire," he fights the stutter and surrenders. he knows it not to be true deep down, gwayne hightower is proof that you could be gentle and brave, nurturing and noble. to fight with honour and live with love, it's all he's ever taught daeron. but he knows against ormund his words are futile so he bites them down miserably.

ormund nods in response, safisfied with the submission and turns to a servant, "perhaps she has run out of embroidery, send a stock of coloured threads and see to it that her mind is kept elsewhere, enough of this nonsense. it ends now."

they scurry away immediately and ormund takes a seat opposite daeron, setting up for a new game where daeron knows in the end, ormund will always win.

my noble, strong-hearted gwayne,

it has been just short of a month and i am to live in this loneliness for many more to come?? i shall die. i miss you more than life please return to me.

cousin,

do not send word unless you are in danger. do not put yourself in danger, unless you would rather your husband kill me also and then we both shall roam the seven hells in punishment together.

ormund.

the nonsense does not end then.

you truly do have horrific and cursed timing. it continues with a furrow in his brow at the letter addressed to him. it taunts him as its tied so prettily in a green bow and the house sigil messily embroidered in the top left corner, the colour green bleeding in its snagged threads. its poorly executed but the point remains, you did not care enough to put true effort in for its recipient. he rips it open with brute force and eyes scan it immediately. when he finishes, the paper is crumpled, ripped into a million shreds and then he changes his mind and burns the damn thing instead.

smoke and flames engulf him but nothing can erase it from his mind. how dare you? he would have your head if he could, if only his cousin hadn't stolen your heart and wore it upon his sleeve. in this moment, you've enraged him more than the possibility of aemond abandoning him that he forgets about the large dragon his men are out hunting for a single second.

the memory returns however when he reads the second letter addressed to him, your husband's handwriting sprawled. its shorter than yours and more direct, a stark contrast between the two but he feels the shift in the air. gwayne has provided an update to his and criston cole's journey from harrenhall to the riverlands next.

ormund knew aemond would be a longshot but your taunt along the confirmed print of betrayal stings. this time, his sword is ripped open from its sheath and straight into the oak of the table, batted against the solidness does his fury try to set it alight. "cunt," he screams out, four strikes to the table each with a new curse that could be heard across the seven kingdoms.

he breaks his stream of violence for a second as his eyes find the stack of needles accompanied by your note, each one threaded with a different string of colour he had sent for you. it infuriates him like a sick joke and he throws the metal to the fire also with a snarl, "seven fucking hells," he roars. "this fucking household of ours, two are chained in kingslanding, one burnt alive, our only hope is nowhere to be seen and then these two idiots," he spits but there's an odd fondness lingering at the edges where you and gwayne are mentioned, "are lovesick," it rolls off his tongue horrified, "i need to be alone. i am clearly the last hightower with wits and sanity, i need to be preserved and alone or we shall all just burn like alicent's foolish firstborn."

it echoes and bounces off the walls of the house and with each thud, ormund envisions your words and your husband's and sighs in resignation.

evil cousin or rather the devil himself,

i can feel your jealousy poured into the ink that dries and your idiocy that my soul would be sent to hell, you possess far more evil than i and you are cruel enough to not think that the greatest danger a wife could hold is missing her husband. it is you who has subjected us to this separation and torture. put an end to this and send my love back to me. also, tell him i love him. tell the same to daeron. that is an order. also, the next time you send me needles you will find them threaded through your eyeballs in the thick of the night, i suggest start sleeping with them open. that may help combat the surprise. or better yet, do not assume i am bored and dawdling with feminine pursuits.

lady hightower.

ormund,

aemond is not coming. we have searched in harrenhal and cannot find even his ghost. vhagar is yet to be spotted and under the leadership of ser cole we will march forwards towards the tully camp and the riverlands to try and gain the advantage. it seems ridiculous but it is our last hope. i pray to the seven that daeron is well and you are intelligent enough to bring forth a new plan as we fight on the battlefield. please send word to my lady wife, let her know of my safety and my desire to come home. and most importantly, of my unwavering love. i shall keep you updated.

the next letter arrives for daeron two days later. he had been training in the yard all morning, sweat beading down his neck and sticking to his skin that when the scroll is passed to him, he feels a swirl of pride brew in his blood.

my loving boy,

my sweet summer child, i hope the air of tumbleton and lonesome company of your uncle ormund is not dampening your spirits. i hope you are well, i hope you are happy. i know nothing of what ormund may have in store for you but just now my darling love, you are always welcome back here no matter the circumstance. i am waiting for you, i miss seeing your smile and heavens forbid, your sulking. come home soon, my little prince. and give that dragon of yours a loving snuggle from me too.

he tries to send a letter of his own, but is stopped at the very second by ormund. the corner of his lips curl in frustration and he snatches the paper from the poor boy's hand, ripping it to shreds.

"how do you think this looks, daeron?" his eyes darken, "correspondence from the future king? any information you give could get into the wrong hands and endanger all we are building for, do not be so stupid." ormund catches sight at the letter daeron holds close to his heart and laughs cruelly.

"i only wanted to update her, send her my regards," he tries justify, his voice timid. living with ormund has him reverting ten years younger and he hates it. a king should speak with confidence, lead and command in assurance. "i want her to know i am well."

ormund rolls his eyes, "she knows you are well because i am your ward. gwayne and her have left you to me, do you not feel well, daeron?"

"i do but-"

"but nothing," ormund decides, "i will write and she will no longer send any more ravens. this business is finished."

cousin,

gwayne is en route to the riverlands. his return date cannot be predicted. do not send another raven, i am warning you. you raise suspicion with each correspondence and if something should happen, it will be of your consequences. you have our regards. daeron sends his love. enough.

ormund.

five separate ravens arrive during that day, one every three hours and this time, ormund laughs. you are stubborn and too good at your game. it is clear that this will never be enough regardless of what he says and does. with you in charge of oldtown, his command may not be followed very well from the far distance from tumble and thus, his fight must be directed elsewhere, you will not give up any time soon and he had been foolish to think otherwise.

gwayne,

i

gwayne,

love

gwayne,

you

daeron,

i love you also.

ormund,

do not play the fool and threaten me with your useless words. i would murder you if i was allowed nearer. be careful of the foods you consume. i can always provide alternative means for an end.

dearest cousin,

if i cannot stop you, then all i ask is for you to be discreet. give the poor birds a break, send fewer ravens.

ormund.

the next ravens that arrive no longer hold a thin scroll of paper, tied in a perfect green bow. no, they also do not send one letter. they send three at a time. each one is folded into an intricate shaped heart, bows and hearts drawn prettily around your husband's name at the centre. and somehow you have managed to get your hands on different coloured papers, pink, red, oranges. on some you've drawn little figures of your family. you truly have poured your heart out into these sheets and thrown them to the wind in hopes it'll end up with your lover. its signed with love and a lipstick mark of your lips, sprayed with your perfume and any stranger in the whole of westeros would know without a doubt that these notes are meant entirely for gwayne hightower.

it is not discreet in the slightest, it is more pointed and direct and a strength of your marriage that holds you in pride. ormund can't even be mad at this, he tried warning you of the dangers of correspondence between the hightowers, what their enemies may assume could be war plans and details but this? these paper hearts, notes of love and longing are not between king and conspirer, house to house, they're nothing more than the sweetest of oaths between husband and wife.

my husband,

ormund asked for discreetness with these letters but the nine kingdoms and galaxies above will hear how much i think of you. i love you loudly in hopes that you'll hear me across the cities. i know you will. the sun hears it with every rise and set, its whispers carry in the wind. i know you will.

my life,

dinner always tastes better with you. interpret that as you will, i mean it in every way etched into existence.

gwayney love,

i think we are in desperate need of new curtains, preferably something darker. something to hide the extra space in our bed so that when i wake, i am not met with the vastness of your absence. i sleep on your side of the bed and imagine you there. rest does not come as easy as loving you does.

my love,

i have discovered that nectarine tea is marvelous, now i only wonder how it will taste from your lips.

my everything,

how is the road? your comrades? i know i will not get a response but i will imagine one nonetheless. i know there's no clementines or roses or a featherbed but i hope there is laughter and kindness in the wilderness. i hope you are in good spirits, healthy, but not whole. a piece of you is missing and i am right here. i pray to the seven that you return back to me and complete me.

gwayne,

i think i am gaining weight and you are to blame, husband. i never used to like lemon cake, but they're your favourite and i have the cooks prepare at least every morning in hopes of your return. every night, i eat it alone.

my knight in shining armour,

i have found one of your old helmets, its an awfully shiny thing. small, however. i wonder how anyone would get to see your beauty in this junk of metal. though maybe its a good thing, your gorgeous face gets protected from harm and only i am allowed to see it. what a blessing. i shall hang this as a trophy and print your face on the house banners. i am proud to be yours. always.

wayney,

the servant girl with the hair as black as the night is with child. the stable boy's child! :O i hope the raven echoes the importance of this note and shares in its scandal, i wish i could see your face right now.

my dearest gwayne,

i think of you every day. tell me you are thinking of me too. or at the very least, tell me you are safe. that is all i ask for.

lord husband,

i am angry. i hate your cousin ormund. i miss my nephew and i miss my husband. this is tormentoud and disastrous and i have reached my ends. a lady does have her limits and the idiotic men of the realm would be wise to remember this.

"dear god, i can feel the heat of her anger from this parchment, move quick daeron lest you'd like to be burned," ormund thrusts the paper heart at his nephew with a snided chuckle and daeron's heart aches for you. he longs to send you a note of his own, but he's so afraid of ormund's wrath that he misses you in the silence. in the beating moments when ormund's voice raises, bounces off his ears and echoes like a migraine in his mind. or when the rage radiates from him and he's trapped in a deathly grip, and worst of all in the moments when he's just daeron the child, daeron who's knows to little and is expected to be far too much. daeron who craves his mother's touch in a fierce hug, the one he knows would never leave him willingly. (you). he keeps the letters you've sent him previously tucked under the silks of his pillow as they whisper to him goodnight, a sweet lullaby as he tries to picture you there. he longs for oldtown, for supper with you and gwayne, midnight rides with tessarion and the absence of a crown he has no wish to care for.

"you are lurking," ormund mutters with disapproval at the shadowing figure blocking his game. "out with what you have to say now, boy."

boy.

it settles like acid. it's different to "my boy" that falls from your lips and carresses his heart tenderly. the endearment given with a gracious smile and warmth that could light a thousand fires.

"is there anything for me, uncle?" he asks, praying that his voice doesn't break with the desperation that tugs at his heart.

"not today," ormund says absent-mindedly, hardly sparing him a glance. the desperation tugs a little harder till he's unravelled and he holds in the disappointed sigh like he's about to combust. with a clear of his throat and a tight nod, he holds his head high as he walks away. the paper heart is fragile in his hands as he adds it to the growing pile, a small mountain of love that daeron hopes he'll find himself one day.

it's only when he places it so delicately in the basket he realises that there's another heart of pink parchment tucked in so tightly in fear it may have fallen in flight.

he sees the endearment and softens immediately. he knows its not for gwayne, there's something lighter about this note and he almost hallucinates, imagining your voice calling out to him. a sweet song that hums in the halls of his heart and welcomes him home.

my beautiful boy,

i hear they call you daeron the daring, and to that i say how dare they? the perfect title if you ask me, what you'll always be to me is daeron the dearest. how do you like that, little dove? my heart aches to think of you alone with your uncle. i know its foolishly early to hope that gwayne is with you, baring the weight of ormund hightower's devillish plans but it makes me feel better to think of you safe, to know that you are cared for over there.

i have your chambers made and cleaned every morning in case you are ready to return here, though i must admit i have missed you on one too many days that i've taken a nap in that rocking chair near your bed and goodness is it stiff on the spine. though no ache is greater than your absence and i feel it every day, my son.

i wait eagerly for you to respond, i hope the last letters received you well? i could not care less about whatever tutoring ormund has you hooked to, little dragon. i care what you have eaten, when you have slept and how you have been feeling. how are you, truly? please, spare no details, i want to know everything. i hope you striving in good health and despite the difficult circumstances that distance us, i hope you are happy, my boy.

i hope you are always happy and that you feel the warmth of my love in a hug and hold i wish i could give you now.

be brave and be strong, daeron the dearest. you are my boy and i am back home waiting for you with open arms and a stretched heart and more than anything, i love you.

i am proud of you. and i will remind you enough that you'll never have the slightest possibility of remembering it.

he feels the tears well long before he can even stop them and presses the letter to his heart, recording the last sentences into a perfect recitation of his memory. he misses you, even more so now and wants nothing more than gwayne to come to tumbleton to save the both of you.

its silent as he shuffles his feet to his chamber, this letter won't join the other two under his pillow, no this one he folds back into the paper heart and tucks it under his sleeve. its an invisble trophy but his greatest pride and weapon, and it will always stay close to him at all times. he'll wear your love into battle and make you proud.

he thinks, and thinks and decides that action needs to be taken. he hatches a plan and with a slow smile that graces his face, he knows just what it is he has to do. he just needs gwayne to come to tumbleton first.

my soul,

a spell must be cast upon me, a wicked curse even. i cannot eat, the food speaks of you. i cannot sleep, the moon spotlights your side of the bed, i cannot breathe. my lungs cannot be filled with air when they're full of thoughts of you. i cannot speak, not when my tongue only knows the call of your name.

my last letter was rash, unfair and it is deeply selfish, i know, truly. i am not angry, least not at you, no, never at you. you are out there fighting in our good name for the safety of our home and son and i sit here with my heart in my hands, ripped open waiting for you. your nights are not promised, and though i lie here in the comfort of our home it is nothing more than a house without you. i am defenseless, laid bare for you, weakened by the loneliness and a broken heart. you are out in the cold, with whatever scrounges of food and i am ridiculously sulking like a child. i am foolish, though i assume love makes us that case i'm trying to be brave, to hold strong. i tend to the council, our people, the gardens and our home and pray for your return. the flowers sing songs of praise and your bravery and i water them with love. they shall never die.

please do not die. please do not go somewhere where i cannot follow you further, you are the map to my soul, you have become a larger part of my life that i cannot see past you. i do not wish to see past you. please do not make me. it is a cruel endeavour for grief and love to be so initimately intertwined together; the cost of loving is losing but it is so dreadfully disproportionate and out of control. i lose all of myself when a part of you is lost. someday, i dread when the raven will arrive and the details of your death would be found stuck between its claws. the raven can keep it, i cannot bear of shoulder that pain, i would rather miss you for an eternity and live with your memory than your ghost. i cannot imagine you out there alone, hurting, blood spilling as easily as my tears fall.

no, i will not believe this. our love is as strong as the both of us are and we will persevere. i'd implore you to come back home, but i know if it were your choice you would've never left so i ask you, again, my love, please. please just come back to me. whether its minutes, moons or lifetimes, i'll be waiting gwayne. i won't stop waiting because i won't stop loving you.

wars could not even separate us truly, the distance is cruel but i think of a fate far crueller. though i hope even in decomposition and death, my soul would still find yours.

i miss you more than you could fathom,

forever yours.

when gwayne hightower finally returns to tumbleton, it's as if he had been knocking on death's door for so long, it would have been more merciful to have just been taken than turned away.

he stands in front of his cousin and nephew, rugged, torn and bleeding. the mud stretched across his face in battle attire, his clothes reeking of sweat, shit, the riverlands and cries of the dead. despite being almost unrecognisable, he still manages to look pretty whilst the exhaustion seeps from his skin like an open wound.

ormund's nostrils clench on instinct, his palm raised to warn his cousin to not draw nearer.

"my wife?" is the first thing gwayne asks ormund, shattering the silence between them. "is she well?" the rasp in his voice stretches in longing as he thinks of you across the lands that seperate you. "how is she? any word from her?"

"plenty," ormund rolls his eyes and motions to the basket in from of him, "if that isn't already obvious."

a smile laces on his features and his heart sings at the pile of parchment, each individually folded into a paper heart, coloured in hues of pink and reds, a bleeding oldtown sunset and your writing looped so prettily.

the surge of love is overpowering and takes control over him completely. he ignores ormund's stutters of protest and takes a step closer to the desk, fingers carressing the edges of the hearts so fondly and he almost breaks. he's weakened, melting at all the love you have poured over him that he cannot wait to read each one and treasure them for an eternity.

a laugh bubbles in his throat, its messy and hoarse and all for you. he's come damn near close to hell these last months and now to be at the gates of heaven with even just a sliver of your love, the dynamic has him swaying on his feet. he just stares at each note, there's easily tens of them and part of him doesn't even want to open them, to ruin the pretty intricate craftsmanship by your hands. to know you spent your time doing this for him whilst he's been away, trying desperately to make it back home to you.

"your dornish friend?" ormund interrupts him, "what news of ser criston?"

gwayne pauses thinking of his greatest friend, sincerity weighs over his heart like a shadow, "he is marching towards a certain death, for every one of us there are a hundred of them."

"and you what?" ormund questions, the furrow in his brow etched deeper by the second, "left your honour there with him?"

"do not speak to me of honour, ormund," he grits out, "i am exhausted, i haven't had the pleasure of a feather bed in lord knows how long yet you hide in these walls and play costume party with our nephew. do you even have a plan?" he bites back in a hiss, "honour," his scoff is outrageous, "you have not lived a day with it compared to my lifetime."

"yet it is clear you have not lived with clean water and perfumed oils, daeron escort him to the chambers and see to it he takes a bath," ormund stands, its a weak insult and the only one he can manage against his cousin but the three of them know it to be true. the hightowers sans gwayne have been sheltered, polished and privileged enough to have been engaging in a war from a thin walled room, whilst their own has been fighting for his life near enough every night.

its a good thing gwayne hightower is back, ormund thinks. he will be useful at his side, he knows what allies rhaenyra is surrounding herself with and who may help turn the tide. but today he wont engage in the pleasure of complimenting his cousin, not when gwayne has stung him in front of their nephew and guards, undermined him infront of those he leads.

he watches as gwayne and daeron disappear through the hallways and out of his sight before he relaxes. today, gwayne can rest and refuel but tomorrow, tomorrow will be a new day where the house of hightower will be one step closer to victory.

tomorrow does not come the way ormund expects.

he stares at the empty chair with his fist already clenched. his lips are blood-red, bitten with the heat of his anger and the metallic smell is so protruding he can inhale it.

"where is he?" he grits out, the bark already having the room flinch. "please tell me he has fallen asleep in the tub," and he closes his eyes, trying to gather his patience.

daeron shifts uncomfortably. the thick of his collar scratching at his neck and he's suddenly aware of all the strands of hair weighing his head down. he tries to feign uninterest, to not draw attention to himself but ormund hightower's eagle eyes find him and pin him there, frozen to the chair.

"daeron."

"yes, ser?"

"you were the last to speak with gwayne. where is he?"

daeron thinks it could be wise to lie in the moment, claim he doesn't know his whereabouts, that some information is beyond him. but he knows the walls will whisper. they will echo the distraught of gwayne's face when daeron had told him you had been ailed with an illness, a sudden fever that burned like a thousand suns for days with no relief.

he felt terribly lying through his teeth, to see his uncle gwayne pull at his hair in distraught and clutch the wall in agony.

"i must ride to her, i must leave now," his declaration came in broken breaths.

"you cannot go to her in this state," daeron had advised, panic rising in his throat, fearful of his other uncle who had sat metres away.

"how long has she been like this? when was her last letter sent?" and daeron stuttered for a moment, brain cells doing pure gymnastics to think of a believable timeline, shit, he really needs to get better at this.

"a week, a week and four days i think? maybe? but that is not the point, uncle, you must leave as soon as you are ready," he gripped his uncle in a bone crushing hug. he just got him back, but for a few days he's ready to let him go if it meant there would be someone at your side again.

"a week," he gasped, his jaw almost dislocating in shock, "alone in sickness," he pulled back and the pure desperation swirling in his eyes cracks through daeron's soul, "i will take leave at once and i will return daeron, i will let ormund know."

"no!" he shouted, clearing his throat and tried again softer, "no." his breath was steadier as he inhaled, "forget about ormund, i will pass the message, you need to ride to oldtown and when you reach there, please. please tell her i miss her, please send my love."

gwayne placed a hand on his nephew's cheek lovingly, patting it gently and then put a kiss to his hair, a mirror of how you like to do it to daeron tenderly, "she knows it," he promised the younger, "i will tell her but believe me son, she knows it and she loves you with every breath she takes."

daeron smiled, hope fizzing in his bloodstream and he's sure his little white lies will be easily forgiven in later moments. within the next hour, gwayne had set back on his horse, alone with no men to draw attention to his quest, and set in the direction of home. nothing but some food and water packed in haste in a bag with each and every love note you had written for him; that would keep him fuelled for forever really.

"daeron, you are hiding something, you know i do not like secrets," ormund narrows his gaze at him now, hoping the younger will squirm under the pressure.

daeron reaches into his pocket and pulls out a scrap piece of paper, gwayne's signature scribbled at the bottom and carefully places it in front of ormund. he motions for the servants to leave, clear the room just in case but ormund opens it tentatively, as if the very ink is infectious. he's grown tired, plain exhausted every time a letter is delivered to him that his time he closes it, folds it poorly without thought and throws it to the distant end of the table. he breathes in two breaths and exhales six, stretching the last till his lungs squeeze dry and then heaves out.

cousin,

i have set foot to oldtown to ensure my wife is nursed back to health. i will return as soon as i can.

gwayne.

"these fucking idiot cousins of mine, i will kill them both, the cunts!"

gwayne rides and rides, till he can no longer feel his legs and the hazy moon and nightfall blurrs his vision. he rests little, his mind racing at the thought of you, the uncertainty of your state and the panic of daeron as he relayed the news.

he travels easily 40 miles a day, for what feels like an eternity but if he could count its 10 days and he does not feel that he's fast enough.

he camps under the stars and in the biting cold, he imagines your arms, your warmth, your love as he draws near. he hears your voice as it hums him to whatever sleep may he be blessed with and for a second he hallucinates. you're lying in the field next to him, your eyes boring into his soul and they shine back at him, brighter than the sea of stars above him.

you reach out and he tries to also, to meet you halfway and just inches before his hand can find yours, you vanish. he stumbles, looking around rapidly in search of your ghost, your lingering frame but he's met with the empty stretch of loneliness that he's been left in exile for the last months. tries to call for your name, the lines in his forehead wrinkling with confusion and his own voice haunts him back in a devastating echo.

when his screams for you finally die down and are stolen by the chill of the midnights, he settles back on the grass, whispering your name softer now in broken hope to his lap and he closes his eyes. his fingers reach into his pocket and finds your love notes. they spread across the weeds and the flowers and he is so spoilt for choice when he blindly reaches for one. he reads it again and again, recites it from memory and whispers it like the holiest of prayers.

the moon listens and pities him as he lies down, back meeting the earth as his heartbeat vibrates into the ground. he doesn't fall asleep again, how can he when you are miles away alone and could even be dying. he finally knows how you feel, how every night you spend not knowing if it'll be your last before you are declared to be a widow. to know that if the raven came would it bear news of his death? would you be able to see his body before hes laid to rest? what would your last words have been? what if he had never been in receipt of your letters? would you have them buried with him?

the thoughts plague him like a disease and he can feel himself spiralling, the cord pulling tighter and tigher and as the circulation almost cuts him off, he sees you again standing at the centre, this time however, it is you who calls out for him. the soft tremor of "gwayne" that breaks him free and he gasps for air like its his first time breathing.

he will reach oldtown soon, he will find your solace even if he has to almost die getting there.

its a strange blend or navy to a faded sea of blue when the night decides its time to take leave. gwayne can hardly call it sunrise without the bleeding hues of orange and pinks that stain the sky but he knows its early in the morning, too early for you to have risen and started your day.

he almost lunges off his horse the way he steps down from it. one smooth swinging motion where he feels as though he could become airborne and take flight. his horse, bless her, is glad to take some rest and a steward escorts her to the stable for some much needed care.

gwayne would love the same treatment to, but he's more concerned about your health, and your whereabouts. he enters the house quiet, his footsteps tiptoeing as he ushers the guards on watch to his shared silence. he roams the hallways with an intensity in his step, a battle march to victory. he draws nearer to the dining hall, empty, save for a few servant girls starting to set the table. he pauses for a moment, his heart swelling at the way his seat at the table is still being prepared despite the girls not knowing that their lord would be in company this morning.

the smell of lemon wafts through the halls and he thinks of your words once more. your love is all around him, everywhere, consuming every ounce of him that he has to offer and like lightning he quickens his pace in anticipation to find you.

he all but runs to your shared chambers and is confused to find the door unlocked. the knob rattles under his shaking hands as he rips the door from its hinges, "m'lord," the guard tries but gwayne pays him no attention. he stalks through the room, then through the bathing chamber, he tries behind the dressing screen and turns the entire room upside down.

you should be here. sleeping. resting. recovering from whatever illness daeron said had troubled you.

he cries out in frustration, his lips curling in a snarl as he leaves the room in haste. he knows it to be unfair to be cruel before the sun has properly risen but his long legs stretch to the maestar's chambers next.

his fists pound on the door in unsettling knocks before an older man opens it weakly, "lord hightower," he gasps, "you are here?" the door is open a sliver but gwayne's large palm fights against it and opens it wider, his frame leaning into the maestar's personal space in warning.

"why was word not sent immediately of my wife's sickness?" he breathes, nostrils flaring in defence. the maestar blinks slowly, perhaps this is a dream he thinks. the haze of sleep still swallows his features that it takes him longer than a second.

"answer me," gwayne grits out, drawing closer, "answer your lord why his lady's ailments were hidden from him!"

"my lord," the man gets out, "what sickness?"

gwayne scoffs in pure outrage, the chuckle that leaves his lips is dark that the maestar doesn't recognise the knight in front of him, he is something else entirely.

"my wife?" gwayne rolls his eyes, sarcasm in his tone, "she is not your lady of house hightower, that you are sworn to protect and serve? that lady? my wife?" each word is stretched in annoyance as the maestar stands in confusion, "are no bells ringing, healer? surely the old age is not weakening your abilities?"

"ser gwayne, if you will. i haven't the slightest what you are saying. my lady is well, the last i saw her was yesterday morning in the gardens where her greatest enemy was the pollen," he speaks softly and gwayne straightens.

a strange concotion of doubt and embarrassment begin to rise in his stomach. it just doesn't make any sense. "maybe you should do well to eliminate the pollen next time, even the smallest of enemies are still enemies," he gets out before launching himself off the door and into the walkway once more. perhaps it is the lack of food, sleep, the nightmares and the stress clouding his judgement that he's finally going insane.

he tries to think. youre not in the main living hall, you're not in the lounges, the dining hall, he's scoured the hallways twice, the maestars haven't seen you, your chambers are empty and as he roams the gardens in pure exhaustion he groans out into the morning air. the poor guard standing watch by the pillars halts at the sight of their lord, tugging his copper strands by the root in despair. his eyes widen when he looks away in shame, fear of being caught before they rise again. and this time, he's inches away from said lord. so close he can feel the fuming breath of gwayne hightower landing at his neck.

"where is my wife?" he seethes, "where in the seven hells is she?"

the guard scrambles, the pinks of the roses creeping up his neck in intimidation as he squirms, "her ladyship likes to start her mornings at the beacon tower," he squeaks, "her personal guard escorts her and she gave strict instructions that no one is to follow," he breathes. "ser," he adds when gwayne finally takes a step back, nodding in acknowledgement.

"very well, boy," gwayne clears his throat, "back to your post, good work."

"yes, m'lord," he rushes back to the pillar inmediately, his sword clattering at his waist. "the house welcomes you home, lord hightower."

gwayne doesn't bother to hear the long-awaited welcome, his feet are already racing to the tower. he remembers when he and ormund were boys, eager to beat each other every morning as they would race to watch the sunrise. gwayne would always let ormund win, save for the days he knew you were to be there. and somehow, no matter how early he rose, no matter how quick he timed his steps, you always beat him to the first sight with a smile that could rival the very sun he loved to watch.

you became the sun, you became the greatest view he would spend every morning looking forwards to.

and now as his legs and heart race till he can no longer feels the air in his lungs because the sight of you, his morning sun and reason to live, has stolen it right from it. you sit peacefully in a chair, different coloured papers and inks lie at the table beside you but your hands have yet to wield sweet words into them and gwayne's heart. your focus is on the sky, the watercolour hues that blend so beautifully that youre enamoured with it. it reminds you of gwayne and you're so lost in the memory of him and the longing that you don't realise he's made it to the top and is standing a few feet from you.

your personal guard tries to make a move to alert you but gwayne shakes his head, his palm raised as an order to halt and the guard does. you blink at the sky, the feeling of numbness hitting you as you've been staring so intently at it for far too long. when you draw your tired eyes away from them, you stretch your neck, the kinks of a sleepless night holding you hostage and then you look up.

you really do look up.

your mouth opens and closes trying to find the words and you stand, so abruptly that the chair scrapes back in a deafening screech though its practically a murmur under the shattering of your heartbeat. your pulse roars in your ears and you shake your head in disbelief. he stands politely, his hands behind his back in restraint as he waits for you to call him.

"lord husband, oh-" you begin, you don't get to finish however because he's crossing the distance and he lifts you in his arms. your hands try to find his shoulders to steady yourself but he carries your weight effortlessly. he spins you and holds you close in sweet relief. and when you laugh, breathless and unguarded he swallows it with his lips till you melt back against him.

"i thought you were dead," he whispers into your kiss, he tries to lean in again and chase your lips but your hands on his chest stop him.

"you what?"

"i received news you were sick, a fever that could not be tamed and i rode here immediately, perhaps i am too late and it has passed-"

"gwayne, my light," you shake your head in confusion, "there is no fever? i have been well, i am unsure as to what news you received, who told you of this?" you hand comes to cup his jaw tenderly, the warmth of your palm radiating to his skin and he leans in into your touch, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of your hand, just above where your pulse beats gently.

"you are well?" he searches your face and then your body for any injuries, any illness or fatigue or just anything for proof of the claims. but he finds nothing more than your softened heart and teasing eyes, glinting at him in amusement.

"my husband, i have been well. my greatest sickness has been homesickness," you muse, both of your hands come to cup his face now as his stay planted firmly at your waist, fingers kneading into the soft fabric of your gown as though you might disappear again. "i have been sick, missing you," and you press your lips against his. its not a kiss yet, you're patient, waiting, the heat of his breath landing on the corners of your mouth as he stands inches away.

he bites back the smile growing on his face and then decides to let it break free instead. he dips his head, leaning down closer to you and then also decides to wait. he plays into your teasing game, seeing who will break first as his lips press against yours. they dont move in tandem like they did before, they just settle like a feather weight. then he feels you whine against him and like a moth drawn to the flame, he swallows the smirk to bites down gently on your lower lip instead. its a soft nip that has your lips parting for him before he kisses you deeper. more intentionally, filled with all the words and letters he never got to send you but wishes he could. he feels the weight of yours in his pocket and pulls you closer to him, his hands wrapping around your back now as yours travel down from his face to the back of his neck, interlocking in a sacred promise to never be apart again.

"i cannot believe it," you laugh like light itself and galaxies must explode at the very sound, gwayne's own world is at a standstill, its orbit slowed as the air around you bends and creates a new axis where he will rotate outside that sweet melody for the rest of his existence. "you truly came,"

"you called?" he whispers between you, "daeron said you had sent word that you had never been so unwell and you had called for me," and as the words leave his mouth, recognition hits him like thunder, a loud smack to his breath and he closes his eyes.

you're laughing louder now, in pure delight that you knock your head against his chest and bury yourself in the nook of his neck. the giggles are ticklish but he doesn't squirm, he welcomes your happiness like the air he breathes, its part of his survival. "our smart, loving, scheming boy," you breathe and gwayne murmurs in agreement.

"i wonder where he gets that from," he shoots you a knowing look and you hit his chest playfully.

"i do not know what you are accusing me of, lord husband," and he rests his head on top of yours. your skull slotting beneath his chin like the missing jigsaw piece and he inhales you in.

"well, our son has returned the role of messenger back to me now and i have one for you," he sways the two of you in his hold before letting go for a moment. he reaches into his breast pocket and pulls open the note he was instructed to give to you on his return.

aunt,

please do not be mad. i know you always taught me that lying is a cunning and deceitful trait, not to be toyed with. but i could not go myself to you the way i continously wish so i have sent the next best thing that would ensure your happiness. (please do not tell gwayne i said that, he is the best to exist) i wish i could be there with you, i miss you more and i am well here, thank you for asking. when this is all over, i cannot wait to sit by your side again. i know i am here as targaryen, as the next king, but i am your son, your hightower and by your gracious name, your daeron the dearest. i shall count down the hours till i can see you again.

your boy,

your daeron.

"oh," you look up, hoping the fresh brew of tears will pour themselves back inside of you and not fall hopelessly. its futile, gwayne has his fingers hooked under your chin to bring your gaze back to him, to settle and soothe you and they fall so freely. he catches them with his thumb, brushing them off as strays and cradles your head against his chest. "i miss him," you muffle against his doublet. "i wish for him to come home."

"soon," he promises, "i shall bring him back safe to you, you have my word," he swears a new oath and you know with every cell in your body that gwayne will uphold it with his life.

"he hadn't sent word, i had been so worried, for the both of you" you wipe away the tears and sniffle. gwayne presses small fleeting kisses to the streams of the tears and the paths they have taken down your face, the salt settling on his tongue.

"most likely ormund," he scoffs, "i will send the damn ravens myself,"

"that means you have to leave once more."

"and i will return, my heart, always. your safety is paramount to me, worth more than anything anyone could put a price on and i would love for you to follow me to the ends of the world, but i cannot have you in harms way, have someone end my entire world," he nuzzles his head into yours, his forehead lightly butting against yours as the skin electrifies.

"perhaps i will send word that i am sick, and then you can return to me more often," and gwayne laughs, so loud and boyishly, the last ten years of his life lifted from his shoulders with such ease that you buzz with pride. its his laughter thats only reserved for you, that you could bottle and quench the most dying thirsts from endlessly.

"i cannot believe him," he shakes his head and you shrug.

"i for one am thankful for his sweet lies, who knows how long it would have been before i would have the privilege to see you again? to hold you like this? laugh like this?"

"i am too, but i tell you dearest, i have never stopped loving you like this, not for a single milisecond or more," he brushes his nose against yours, as his index finger trails down your jaw and the length of your neck. it taps against your pulse tenderly before resting on the edge of your collarbone. "i got your letters," he murmurs and you blush vividly, the reds of the roses could rival your embarrassment. you try and curl inwards, shy away from him but he protests immediately with a grin and holds you in place.

"did you?" you curse him for rendering you speechless at the sight of the way they practically pour out of his pockets as he holds them in his hands like theyre made from pure gold.

gwayne hightower is truly, the richest and proudest of men.

he nods, lips biting his grin as he puts the paper hearts to the side and undoes the top buttons of his doublet.

you gasp, your fingers already reaching out in awe. there, pinned across his shirt just above his heart sits your last letter.

" i wear it close to my heart. its yours, really. i wear it closest to you, and when i'm out there, in whatever uncertainty that has been bestowed upon us, i wear it like armour and it defends me with such unwavering strength that it brings me back home to you each time," he confesses, your fingers trace the edges of the paper and this time you let the tears fall easily, you don't fight it.

"gwayne," you whisper and he rolls his head back, ears perking up at his name, like a dog with a treat.

"say it again," he softly commands, his head dipping into your embrace, he buries his face in your neck till your fingers find the hair at the back of his neck and you tug lightly.

"gwayne," you repeat, his name clouds every corner of your mind, in the designated drawers he calls home and every space after. you feel each syllable pulse in your bloodstream till hes all you can live and breathe.

"yes?" he mumbles into your skin, peppering your neck with kisses. he cuts you off however, his eyes lighting with mischief as the sun bears a bright fluorescent above the two of you, the oldtown air welcoming him home back to his heart, "wait," he starts and you do, you've waited this long, what is a minute more.

"i have yet to taste this nectarine tea you speak so fondly of, let us have a cup prepared," he tells you and you smile. he interlocks the two of your hands as you begin the walk back to the house, ready to break fast and spend the day in his hold.

"i will get a pot ready," you tell him, the breeze kissing your hair and he sends you a cheeky grin, flashing the pearly whites of his teeth.

"oh no wife, do not trouble yourself. one cup will be fine enough."

"but gwayne? honey, i do not intend on sharing," you frown, a slight pause in your steps, "i have missed you surely but do not be silly now." and the look of pure seriousness on your face has him weak in the knees.

"oh darling," he exhales dramatically, he takes your joined hands and stretches them out, walking backwards a few paces to face you directly. he then stops, tugging on the interlocked with a gentle grip till you almost trip and fall into him, "i will taste it from your lips," and with that sentiment, he kisses you. this time its not slow and filled with the longing of the distance, its quick and feverish, and he's all over you, as your laughter comes in the ragged breaths in between.

"you are a nuisance, teasing me with my own words, how cruel," and the sarcasm wraps around him fondly.

"do not worry my love, what is it you also said? dinner tastes better with me? and in which way did you mean? would you like to clarify? please-" and he raises his eyebrows in a way that takes you back to when you were both ten and two, and he had stolen your heart for the very first time. you shove him in defiance and try to storm away. your stomps only make it short of a few inches before he's plucked you from the ground and in his arms once more as he carries you to the hall, your protests overcome with bright laughter that rings gloriously in his ears.

gwayne hightower may be in oldtown for only a few days, but with you by his side and your love etched on his heart, he is home forever.

“I know you’re not.” You say back, thinking the sleep deprivation was getting to him as his hand is where the babe is kicking.

“Oh, is there anything I can do?”

“No.” You say, just having to accept it as you try and get some sleep. Daeron then letting out a cry as if he knew you were just about to sleep. “Not it.”

“Why not?” Gwanye whines while untangling himself from you.

“I’m with child.” You sass, moving your pillow so you can get more comfortable.

“Fair enough.” He says stumbling out of bed to reach the boy. “What’s all this noise for little prince?”

-

“Dove!” Little Daeron shouts while sat on the floor playing with his wooden toys.

“What?” Gwanye asks the boy, swearing the boy just said his first word.

“Dove!” Daeron shouts again giggling hitting his toy on the floor.

“Love! Daeron has just said his first word!” Gwanye shouts for you, happy you’re just in the next room. You immediately wading through as fast at you can. “Look.”

“Dove!”

“Oh my gods.” You say covering your mouth in shock, eyes welling up with tears as you sit on the chair behind the boy who clambers into your lap. “Aren’t you such a smart boy.”

“Why do you think he’s saying dove?” Gwanye asks smiling, so happy he was able to witness the boys first word.

“I’m not sure love.” You respond kissing the side of your boys face making him giggle, his ginger hair a mess.

“Dove!”

“Oh.” You both say in unison, him trying to stifle him laughter while you giggle. Now knowing he’s trying to say love.

-

“Baby.” Daeron demands laying on your bed with his toys while you place Aerion in his crib. Daeron being absolutely fascinated by his little brother.

“He’s sleeping Daeron.” You say loving how much he loves the boy but also finding it a bit inconvenient as he always wants to hold him.

“Baby.” He whines dramatically flopping back into Gwayne who was leaning up against the headboard reading.

“You’re still a baby.” Gwayne tells the boy, placing his book beside him so he can pull the boy closer and tickle him.

“Nooo.” Daeron giggles loving when Gwanye plays with him like this.

“Yeees.” Gwayne teases, the boy still giggling in his arms.

“I no baby.” Daeron says back shaking his head.

“Are you sure about that?”

-

“Gwanye what are you doing?” You laugh, finding your husband reading a children’s book on his own. Him even doing the voices for different characters.

“Daeron said I don’t do voices as well as you do so I’m practicing.” He responds clearly embarrassed as his cheeks flush red. Not noticing you look at him with complete adoration in your eyes, him being so perfect you almost don’t think he’s real.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” He smiles, holding an arm out for you to join him. “Now come help me.”

-

“Are you alright?” You ask Gwanye seeing his pull an exaggerated look of confusion. You all having a picnic as the weather is nice and sunny.

“My strawberries keep disappearing.” He responds grin on his face as he doesn’t even like strawberries that much. Your son’s loving them, Daeron especially.

“How odd.” You say pretending not to hear the giggles coming from your sons. Both boys clearly having been eating strawberries as their chins are red and sticky. “We must have a thief on our hands.”

“We must.”

-

“Nyra has asked if she can visit.” You tell Gwanye as you get into the bath with him. Your husband having snuck off when you were putting the boys to bed, wanting a bath.

“That sounds good.” He says kissing your shoulder when you lean into him, his hands picking up the soap to clean you. Despite the fact you already bathed earlier. “When are they coming?”

“Next moon.” You answer moving your head so he can keep kissing your neck. “Laenor, Jace, Luke and Harwin will be coming as well obviously.”

“That’s good, Daeron and Aerion will be happy to have others to play with.” He answers, knowing the boys will be happy to see Jace again. You not having seen each other in over a year, her having given birth to Luke a few moons after you left. “What chambers will they be staying in?”

“Jace and Luke will be in the nursery, I was thinking we could put Rhaenyra in the chambers next door.” You say turning to give him a look, the man just smirking him response.

“That’s a brilliant idea my love.”

-

“How’s our girl?” Gwayne asks a few moons later, Rhaenyra and her family having stayed with you for five moons before the king called them back.

“We don’t know it’s a girl.” You say resting your hand on your stomach as the babe moves. You having been knitting Aerion a new dragon snug, the boy wants to match his dragon.

“It’s a girl, I can tell.” He says giving you a soft kiss, loving the look of you carrying your child.

“She’s doing well, she’s not as active as Aerion but I don’t think it would be possible to be more active than him anyway.” You answer, letting out a small laugh at how much Aerion moved. The boy still unable to keep still even now.

“That’s true.” He responds sitting next to you and stealing some of your food. “What did the maester say?”

“Normal movement, she’s growing brilliantly.” You reassure, both of you slightly worried given the girls lack of movement compared to her brother.

“That’s good.”

“What about our boys?” You ask, going back to your knitting, knowing that Daeron will want one to match Tessarion when he sees it.

“Both finally napping.” He says, having been the one on nap duty while you saw the maester. “They demanded three stories.”

“Both of them or Aerion?” You ask raising an eyebrow knowing it’s not Daeron who’s the bossy one out of the two.

“Aerion, he’s a very bossy boy.”

“He gets it from my father.” You muse, knowing that the boy is very much like his grandfather in attitude. “Whereas Daeron gets his sweetness from you.”

“I wonder what our girl will get from you.”

-

“Daeron what are you doing?” You ask when you hear the door open and a little voice telling his toy dragon to be quiet.

“I can’t sleep.” He says, cuddling his toy close. Having just woken up from a nightmare. “Can I sleep with you?”

“Come here then just don’t tell your brother.” Gwayne says lifting the sheet so the boy can slip in. Him knowing it was wishful thinking that he’d get a night with you all to himself.

“Don’t tell me what?” Aerion asks having followed his big brother when he heard him get up. The boy not wanting to miss anything.

“Nothing, I take it you’re also sleeping in here tonight then?” Gwanye sighs knowing that the boys will sleep in the middle of the bed and that Aerion kicks in his sleep.

-

“She’s boring.” Aerion announces looking at his sleeping sister. The ginger girl only a fortnight old and swaddled in a pink blanket.

“She is a newborn sweetheart.” You say, smiling down at the sleeping girl in your arms. You all sat in the family solar.

“When can I see Jace again? He’s not boring.” Aerion asks going back to his toys. The horses having declared war on the dragons.

“Don’t be mean.” Daeron tells his little brother, the boy sat next to Gwayne practicing his reading. While you rest, Aerion making that rather difficult. “You used to be boring too.”

-

“My father is coming to visit.” You warn your husband, having just received word from Laena. Her being the only one to give notice, your father preferring to just show up.

“Does he have too?” Gwanye whines, looking forward to seeing Laena as he’s become friends with the woman but finding your father annoying. Especially when Ormund is also there, the men constantly bickering.

“I’d like to see Laena and the girls also Laena would like to meet Lynesse.” You say knowing what he was going to ask. You having already planned a nice trip for Ormund to take to highgarden so he’s not here to argue with your father.

“Then can’t they just come and leave him at home?” Gwanye tries, knowing he’ll be polite as he always is with your father.

“We can only hope.”

-

“Hello Baela.” Aerion says to the girl having missed her almost as much as he misses Jace. Them both being his best friends. “Do you want to play tag?”

“I’d love too.” She says smiling before running away from the boy knowing he was just about to tag her. Neither child caring that they haven’t greeted the other’s family’s yet.

“Father.” You say smiling at him, despite all his many faults you still loving the man.

“Daughter.” He greets giving to a gentle hug before nodding to your husband. “Hightower.”

“Prince Daemon.” Gwayne replies before looking at Rhaena who clearly doesn’t know what to do. “Daeron why don’t you go show Rhaena where she’ll be staying with her sister.”

“Yes kepa.” The boy says with a smile at the girl, not wanting her to feel left out as he knows how much Aerion is obsessed with Baela. “Come on Rhaena.”

“Congratulations.” Laena says smiling at you, pulling you into a hug. Happy for you having a daughter. “You look incredible.”

“So do you.” You respond smiling having missed your friend. “How’s your mother doing?”

-

“Ormund would like the dragons in the gardens.” Gwayne tells you almost a year later when you’re packing for a trip to kingslanding, Rhaenyra wanting to see you.

“Why?” You ask in confusion, checking you’ve packed the boy’s favourite blankets.

“He wants their kennels cleaned.” Gwayne responds with an eye roll, thinking his cousin crazy.

“Please stop calling them kennels.” You say giving him a look. “And he does know we’re going to kingslanding again soon doesn’t he?”

“He knows, he’s looking forward to all the cleaning that can get done.” He replies with a smile. “And what else am I supposed to call them?”

“Point taken.” You say letting your husband pull you into his arms. Both of you needing a break. “So shall we have a picnic this afternoon then?”

The lords he treated with sometimes let that particular fact show, but Jeyne, despite her honesty, never took any pleasure in educating him when he failed. Cregan had treated him in that same way, and he would forever be grateful for it.

“Thank you, my brother,” Jacaerys said as all that was left to do was say farewell, the men waiting for their commander to mount his horse and lead them home.

Standing in the middle of the courtyard, they embraced like kin. “The North is yours, my king,” was all that Cregan answered before he turned to his horse and left the young king to govern on his own.

To many at court it was the end of a reign they had detested, but Jacaerys was determined to prove to them that he could reign without Cregan’s influence. 

He watched as the last Stark banners crossed the threshold, escorting the whole caravan out into the city, then turned to attend to the matters that waited for his ascend. However, he had barely set foot within the Red Keep that a squire came running.

“Word from Driftmark, your grace,” the young man said, handing him a letter bearing the Velaryon seal. 

As Jacaerys broke it and unrolled the parchment, he knew within first glance that it was from Baela, from the unmistakable, elegant loops of her handwriting.

As all had been fearing in the last few months, the Sea Snake had died, and with him a legend was ending, although its legacy would continue in his sons and granddaughters—it was what he had wished all along, to leave his name behind and with it, shoulders to carry it.

The air was somehow colder on Driftmark, you thought as you made your way there for the funeral ceremony. You had never set foot there, and you regretted that you would only see it for such a grim event. It was also the first time the realm would see you, outside of the lords and ladies of the court, and the fact that it was for a funeral weighed on you as though it was a bad omen. 

During the ceremony, you stood next to Jacaerys, the both of you dressed in similar black cloaks, embroidered with the same trimmings, although he wore a different sigil than yours. The Council had insisted that you showed a united front and as such you wore the Targaryen three-headed dragon on  your  cape, however you had found out upon arrival that a turquoise seahorse was embroidered at the chest of his doublet.

Now that he carried the Targaryen legacy, you had almost forgotten he had come into this world bearing the name Velaryon. 

The gesture was clearly appreciated by the nephews of Lord Corlys and his heirs—Lord Alyn gave him a firm bow of his head, and Lady Baela’s smile wavered into sadness as she saw him, however she regained her composure before she greeted you with formality. 

Despite the lack of outward hostility, you were unsure how to act towards the woman who should have been queen instead of you, and that shared such a close childhood with Jacaerys. You let nothing of it show and instead stood as you had been instructed to, silent and compliant, out of respect for the dead despite the raging storm in your chest.

The sea air brought clearer thoughts, in a way, after months of being confined to the Red Keep. The words of your mother and your cousin were still very much present in your head, and you were torn apart between loyalty, reason and duty, without any possible consideration for what you wanted. 

You had been a pawn all your life, leveraged for influence or strength either at the benefit of Ormund or Aegon, and now that you were supposed to be the most powerful woman in the realm, you found yourself once more in the same position, possessing none of the authority you ought to have.

Once the ceremony was completed, you walked accompanied by a guard as you always were, along the ramparts of the castle, and it wasn’t until you came upon a balcony overlooking the sea that you realized the feeling in your chest was not anger after all, but terrible loneliness. 

Along the shore, down the cliff that fell into long stretches of gray sand, the two silhouettes of Baela and Jacaerys were walking on the beach, and seeing them standing so close awoke something you could not yet name.

The two cousins had excused themselves from the rest of the party half an hour before, and all thought it appropriate that the king should confer with his kin on such a day.

“I am sorry, it was not how I wished to tell you,” Baela explained as they walked side by side, light rain falling in irregular droplets around them, leaving small craters in the wet sand. “Alyn and I have grown closer in recent months, and Grandsire had wanted to see us wed before he went.”

Jacaerys kicked slightly at the sand that was sticking to the soles of his boots, although it was rather pointless. “It is fitting that you should rule Driftmaker together,” he said earnestly, and it eased his burden to know that there wouldn’t be a crisis regarding the succession. “I know Corlys named Alyn as his heir, but I’ve always thought the Driftwood throne should have gone to you.”

As Baela did not answer he looked to her, finding her turned back towards the cliff, and together, they looked at the looming castle. “I thought of my mother a lot, today, and the first time we met, at her funeral,” she said, and there was much more to her words than she had just said.

“I wish I did not come to Driftmark only ever to commit its lords and ladies to the sea,” he replied.

“Its doors are always open, it can be your refuge whenever it is needed.”

Jacaerys was grateful for the offer, but his heart was heavy with grief. “There was a time when I thought I would visit Lucerys here. When we were older and wiser, each in our rightful place. Him ruling the seas while I ruled Dragonstone,” he said quietly. 

For a while Baela did not speak, simply held his hand in hers, and they both clutched at each other. In that simple touch lived a life that would never happen, one that was too painful to even put into words.

“The world is so different now,” she sighed, and there was nothing more to say about it. “It is quite strange to look upon this place that saw so much life and death alike, and to think that we are now its stewards.”

“I feel much the same about the Red Keep. There’s ghosts around every corner and I’m supposed to rule as though nothing is amiss,” he lamented. “There remain so few of those who have peopled our shared youths, some days I think they will soon disappear from memory and the thought of it is unbearable.”

“We will remember them,” Baela promised, taking his other hand into hers, and for a moment he thought she would kiss him on the forehead like an older sister would. He wished she did. “All of them. All of those we have loved and lost. You do not have to carry this grief alone.”

“Well, I am alone,” he replied, leaning into her for a moment before pulling away. He no longer was the boy she had grown alongside of, nor the one she had nearly been betrothed to. He was her king now, her sovereign, and no matter how close they were, the crown would always stand between them. “The throne is a lonely place. My mother had warned me and I did not believe her.”

Baela watched him take a few steps away before following. “You are not alone, you have a queen.”

“A Hightower they all tell me I cannot trust,” he retorted, frustration bleeding into his tone, and he loathed that he was unloading his grief onto her on this day where she mourned her kin.

However, as usual she showed him only support, setting her own sorrow aside to help carry his burden. He wondered how he could ever repay her loyalty. “She is a Targaryen as much as you are. Do you not trust her?” she asked. 

Jacaerys laughed, a cold sound that the wind carried to the sea too fast for her to hear. “In all honesty, as little as I trust myself.”

“Build trust along with her, then,” Baela encouraged, linking her arm with his and leading him back to the warmth of the castle, and he wished he could share in her optimism. “In each other and in yourselves.”

Baela’s words weighed heavily on his mind throughout the remainder of the day and well after supper, even more so when he found himself alone in his guest chambers. All day he had seen the way Baela and Alyn leaned together in their grief, and he was grateful that she had such support by her side.

While he had not stood alone, there had been no warmth against his shoulder, and for once he wished he could set aside the demands of the crown and be a simple man—a living, breathing man that longed for a hand to clutch or a breast to lay his head on. 

For nearly an hour he debated with himself, weighing his arguments and inevitably, surrendering to the aching loneliness inside of him. The more he waited and paced, the more shoulder throbbed, made even more stiff by the wet air around him.

He summoned Ser Adrian through the door. “Ask the queen to come and see me,” he ordered the man.

“The king is in pain,” Ser Adrian whispered to you as you walked along with him a minute later. You stopped for a moment and looked up at the man and the pinched expression on his face. 

You had not expected to be summoned to the king’s chambers, as you had never been in the two months since they had married. You realized now, seeing the pained crease between the kingsguard’s brows, that this was the moment you had been waiting for, the sort of moment many queens before you had lived, what made them who they were—a comfort for the king, a relief for his pains.

This was your leverage, how you gained power and influence.

You stepped into the room and forced your apprehension off your face and all the rest down to the pit of your stomach. Jacaerys was leaning his hip against a table, his right hand under the top sleeve of his night robe, clutching his left shoulder.

“You wished to see me, your grace?” you asked, meek in a way you never were, and Jacaerys glanced at you with a strange look in his eyes, but his pain seemed to overpower him.

“An arrow to the shoulder, and another to the chest,” he answered the other question you did not ask out loud, absently reaching down near his armpit. Then, he cleared his throat and gestured to the armchairs sitting in front of the hearth. “I thought we might keep each other company.”

He was in obvious pain, trembling with it, and you fell into the role that was expected of you easily. Aegon had been in pain too, and in the few weeks you had been his wife, you had learned how to soothe a man’s aches, of both the mind and body. 

You stepped up to him, closer than you had ever stood since the night of your wedding. For the first time perhaps you watched his face in detail—his defined cheekbones, the way his lashes fluttered when you pressed a hand into his shoulder. 

He seemed confused when you pressed up, your breath fanning over his face, and you felt joy surge up in you—for once, you had the advantage over him. “No,” Jacaerys gasped, turning his face away, and the rejection stung despite their mutual enmity. 

“Why?” you asked as an accusation, suddenly turning cold. 

“My reasons have not changed. This is not why I called on you,” he clarified, and he did not expect the sudden outburst that followed. 

You removed your hand from his shoulder and took a few steps back as though he had struck you, and while he thought he had seen your hatred for him before, it was nothing compared to the fury etched on your face at that moment. “Then why take me as your queen?” you blamed him. 

“Whatever is it you mean?” he asked. 

“I am a prisoner here and I cannot even comfort myself in the fact that I am the queen, because I am not.”

“Did you not stand by my side as such today? Did you not treat with your cousin as such?” Jacaerys reasoned as best as he could—he did not understand where your anger was coming from, and why you were unleashing it upon him now. “You are the queen.”

“No, I am nothing but a puppet!” you shouted, and he winced, unused to anyone raising his voice at him, and he was glad that it was Ser Adrian outside the door, as he was the man he trusted the most among his guards to keep his private matters secret. “You haven’t touched me, therefore I am not your wife, I am not the queen, I am no one!”

Your voice broke on the last words of your accusation, and Jacaerys had the decency to look guilty. “Loathe it as you may, you might have to force yourself upon me,” you added, hammering your point deeper.

“I will not. That is not the sort of man I am, nor the sort of king I intend to be,” he replied, holding fast to his values, and under any other circumstances, you would have found it admirable. 

While it did not appease you, it deflated your anger until all that was left was your sorrow, and your loneliness. “Then why did you take me as your queen?” you asked again, and this time it was not so much a reproach than profound regret.

“Because it was the overwhelming advice,” he replied, and you could tell it was the truth, no matter how terrible it was. 

“As a way to subdue me. To cage me and merge my blood to yours so my line could be forgotten.”

“No,” he protested weakly, then his confusion turned into anger as well. He paced the carpet, a hand still clutching at his armpit, his shoulders still tight with pain, and you relished seeing him without his usual composure. “Do you think it is my will, to see you this way?”

“Yes. You are the king. Your word is law, and even your suggestions are to be obeyed as commands,” you scoffed.

“I do not have this power you think I possess. If anything I am powerless,” he cried out.

“Do not speak to me of powerlessness,” you answered, venom in your tone, and he knew deep down that you were right, and he had no ground to stand on. Whether it was his grief speaking instead of his mind, or simply the fact that power tended to reveal one’s flaws, he loathed how weak he had become since he had ascended the throne, doubting his own mind more than he ever had, even at war. 

“Do you think me thriving? I am alone!” he shouted back. “Nearly everyone I’ve ever loved is dead and I sit on a throne that should not have been mine for thirty years!”

“Nearly everyone I’ve ever loved is dead as well and I am away from the only home I’ve ever known!” came your reply, and Jacaerys thought it a sorry sight, that a king and his queen should blame each other in this way when they shared such sorrow.

Raising his voice had made his chest ache and he now found himself nearly breathless, the back of his eyes prickling with hot tears. “I cannot annul our marriage nor send you away,” he argued, desperate for a solution that would appease you both. “What would you have me do, give you a place at my council?”

“Yes!” you screamed, and to your utter surprise, he seemed to settle instead of doubling down. Silence fell around the two of you once more, and you could see him pondering the issue before nodding to himself. 

“Very well,” he concluded, as though your shouting had actually settled anything between you instead of digging up all your grievances. They all hovered around you, the air thick with them, nearly suffocating, and yet you felt you could breathe easier than you had in weeks.

“Is there anything else I could do, to ease your burden?” he asked, and to your amazement, you saw that he was sincere. You could not make sense of the way he acted towards you. You watched him wordlessly as he walked to the nearest armchair and lowered himself into it with a groan. “I would not have you as a puppet queen,” he promised. “We may not truly be husband and wife, but we are king and queen, you must believe that.”

“Will the council accept me?” you asked. “I am aware they named me as queen but do not trust me.”

You did not ask whether he would accept you, even if he would be the one to appoint you. Perhaps this was a way for him to appease you momentarily, only to dismiss your word and remind you of your true place. 

“They will have to,” he said with a wave of his hand, staring into the fire. He looked older than he was suddenly, his eyes dark and dull when you had seen them bright and full of life at other times. 

“If you command it,” you countered, but that made him frown. “If they fear you they will comply.”

“I don’t want to rule with fear,” came the defeated answer.

You carefully sat on the armrest of the opposing chair, remembering the nights you had sat with Aegon when his pain prevented him from taking you to bed, and how he attempted to convince you of the imaginary fear he inspired. “I’m afraid you may have to,” you reasoned—even if he would not take you into his bed, mayhaps this was how you could gain influence over him, with words spoken in the late hours.

“Why does power come with an obligation to command others into blind submission?” Jacaerys retorted, his frustration bursting through once more. “If this is power, I don’t want it. I don’t want any of it—”

He stopped himself, nearly ashamed of his outburst, unsure of why he was being so suddenly vulnerable in front of you. He would blame the ache in his shoulder if his heart was not so similarly bruised.

“Why did you summon me?” you asked again, quieter and softer in a way, but he could not answer. The truth was plain in the defeated line of his shoulders. “Surely you have a lady to keep you company, or tend to your needs.”

Baela came to both their minds even though her name was not said out loud. “No, I wouldn’t take another woman to my bed, not until we have consummated at the least. Not until your position is secure with an heir,” he explained, and you swallowed the hostile remark that rose in you about his parentage, wondering why it sounded like an other’s voice rather than your own.

“And yet you will not submit me,” you retorted. “You may come to resent me for it. Many a king have resented their queen for the lack of sons.”

“I would still like to think I am different in that regard,” he sighed.

“Perhaps you are now, but power changes people,” you murmured. 

Jacaerys looked up at you then, watching the shadow of the flames dance on your face. Your grief was plain for him to see, and he knew in his heart the ghosts that haunted you—he had heard of Lord Ormund’s temper, and knew of Aegon’s less than pleasant manners. He also knew the way the realm treated girls.

He wondered if he was the first man of power you had ever met that didn’t seek to use you for his own gain or pleasure. “I will not let the crown change me,” he vowed, as much to you than to himself.

Author's Note ✢ Dividers by @zaldritzosrose.

Series taglist ✢ @chaotichereticcavern @galactict3a @qtmoonies @multyfangirl @obsidian-gold1239

@thegirlwithoutaname87 @harryssattelitestomper @rtyuy1346 @kplatzman @neenieweenie

@cinnamoonfairy @g0oshtt @orchidsinthesun @darling-darling3 @pookynknowntranger

@cloudyzip @softlittlevigil @at-a-rax-ia @noneedtosearch @darkrion

@tappyj @tojisprincess @strangersunghoon @devil-on-acid @minaridior

@mimrntgx @chimmysoftpaws @soleil-lei @dreamybarbarianprophecy @fa0nz6ain

@glooblyglob @starmy4life @kentucky-criedfricken @gracesalvatore @magnol1aaa3 @ellej

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To be betrothed to someone you don't love, nothing has seemed scarier. It is why you decided to leave your family much to your own mother's disagreement. Aurora, your little sister seemed to think it was all a game which you cannot fault too much considering she is but young herself.

Otto Hightower being the man he is he listened to evry rumor and pulled every loose thread he could find about Aurora until he had found she was sneaking around with the local baker's boy.

This wouldn't've been an issue to Gwayne at all, with his forward thinking nature and he's heard of countless men that bed women before they are set to be married and that's not even mentioning the amount of men that were married and still bed women after women on their travels and such.

Regardless of Gwayne's opinion, Otto had found you... Just about to be vowed as the first "High Septa." What a foolish idea he had thought to himself but you defintely wouldn't have shammed yourself like your sister had. Perfect for his son. In Otto's mind if you are foolish enough to follow the seven then maybe you might be easy to control, easy to bend to his own will.

"Excuse me, I hate to interrupt you but this came for you via a Raven, It must be important." One of the followers of the Seven that volunteered and devoted his life to the religion came in and handed you a rolled up letter. You thank him him before dismissing him. You were supposed to vow to the Seven in but a few hours but you read the page.

"It is your mother and we know of your wish to become one with the Faith but Aurora has shamed our family and we now don't have anyone or anything to give the Hightowers as promised, she is to be casted out. I fear for the life your little sister. Please head to the Hightower, you must wed his son Gwayne for the sake of us, for your family. Act with haste, Your Mother."

Your forehead wrinkles just a bit as you furrow your brows... Aurora shamed shamed the family? She was to be removed? You love Aurora despite it all she is your sister, you would do this for her and your family but mainly her. Mother and Father had never doted on her nor you, always having been consumed with your brother that passed shortly before you had been born. Fear of marriage without love suddenly didn't matter if it meant saving your little sister.

Quickly removing the religious robes you had put on for your vows tonight, you run through the labirynth that is OldTown. You need to get to your sister, several smells hit your face as you bolt through the streets, pomegrante, moonbloom and as you get closer to the Hightower...the salt spray of the ocean.

"Where is she?!" You shout as you rush into the "dinner" that is being had "willingly" between the Hightowers and your family. Your mother looks rather please with herself, your father looks rather distant and Aurora is shaking and has clearly been crying. On the Hightowers side, Otto seems to have the same expression as you mother, Gwayne seems uncomfortable like this is the last thing he wanted to happen and last Ormund sniffin whatever concocktion he had put in that stupid bottle.

"A woman shouldn't speak such a way around her to be husband and his family." Ormund says to which you say nothing because you know of his temper and you just clench your jaw.

"Let my family go, we will handle matters like civilized people not dogs in the streets." You tell Otto, wanting nothing more than Aurora safe and far from these cruel people.

"You are in no place to order anyone to do anything." Ormund again opens his mouth without a shred of permission.

"Enough, They are free to go, as are you nephew, this matter no longer concerns you." Otto speaks in a distinct pattern, it's cruel but no doubt he demands respect. Otto scoffs and your parents leave without Aurora, she sits there unsure of what to do since she had nowhere to stay. As Otto's attention is fixed on you, Gwayne hands her a small pouch with many coins quietly slipping it into her hands. She leaves with haste as well but due to fear and nothing otherwise.

"You ask of me to marry him then I will but do not think you can use my sister as a pawn. I will NOT allow it." Otto goes to speak but he's interrupted by his own son, Gwayne.

"Nor will I. She will marry me and her family's debt will be paid to ours. We should not dangle others like puppets lest we want others to treat us so poorly." Gwayne speaks and the pain and tension in your head that had turned to a blinding pain behind your eyes seemed to subside a bit, you had been under the impression that all of this family was just as cruel as your own but he's quite quickly proving otherwise. Maybe this wouldn't be nearly as bad as you had thought, maybe you can grow to love the man you are now intending to marry.

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