not team green or black.. just a slut for Daemon

Never before has he come to you here. Your conversations are polite lines, uttered at official banquets as if the both of you were speaking from a script; animated discussions over histories and doctrine disturbing the silence of the library; or whispered secrets confessed to each other under the wind that makes the trees in the gardens bend.

But never does he come to your room. Why would he? Lord Ormund Hightower has nothing to look for in one of the small guest chambers on the lower floors of his ancestral seat. Nothing to look for except, maybe, in another world but not this one, you. But that would be indecent, and he is anything but indecent.

And yet here he is. His brown eyes glimmer animated as they come to rest on you, his lips curled in that smile you know speaks of dismay not amusement, and his hand resting on the Valyrian longsword Vigilance. He should not be here. But you cannot say that you are angry over it. Afraid, perhaps, but not angry, not distressed. You have not spoken for so long and so, you must confess, you have missed him.

‘I hear you are about to be married, my lady,’ he says.

The air knocked out of you, you set aside the piece of embroidery, and get onto your feet. You courtesy, moving your hand carefully as to not smudge your dress with the droplets of blood dripping from the small cut in your finger. When you rise, you catch sight of his ward—that soft-hearted Daeron Targaryen—but he keeps his head low as he, at the gesture of his guardian, steps outside and closes the door behind him.

‘My lord,’ you just mutter.

‘Well?’ the lord Hightower presses.

You swallow down your anxiety. He is quite a bit taller than you, and so, not for the first time, you find yourself feeling intimidated underneath his shadow. Intimidated, and yet, invigorated. You should not be feeling thus, you know better than to feel thus, and yet.

You force yourself to reply, ‘If it pleases you, my lord.’

You try to smile, as you would after he has let you have a smell whatever perfumed concoction he has created for the day, but you waver. For his gaze is darkening, and little good comes after that. He sets a step forward.

‘It does not,’ he replies slowly.

What are you to reply to that? When your father finally agreed on the match, you prayed to the gods that the lord Hightower would not dwell on the matter. You may share a passion over certain old tomes, and over the art of elegance, and, of course, there is between you a certain fondness that is strange to have ever been conceived in the first place, but you are of an obscure house. Your brother is but his steward. And gods, your lord is married. You were only sent here to attend to his new lady wife, who was supposed to see to your match—but was too enthralled by her own ambitions to bother. A year you have wasted already, you are not getting younger. The match is welcome to you. Even if in your dreams you see yourself with someone else. Someone you should not even dare to think of. to be alone with.

And yet here he is, drawing another step closer. You try to widen the distance, but find you cannot keep him at bay. Your room is modest, and you were already relatively cornered. By the time he speaks next, you are locked between him and the windowsill.

‘Does it please you, my lady?’

He smells of rosemary and mint. Fresh and familiar. Like home. If only he were not to speak in this tone, if only he were not to look at you so. As if any moment now he is about to lose it. You cannot stand it when he does. It always upsets you. You try to avoid his outbursts. Maybe that is why you half-lie, ‘I do not know, my lord.’

He lets out a strained, trembling breath. His gaze almost scorches your skin.

‘It matters little,’ he decides. And almost calming down he says, ‘Your father failed to ask for my permission.’

Your lips part, but an awkward moment passes before the words come, ‘My lord, y-you must grant it.’

‘Must I?’ He arches a brow and then slowly shakes his head. ‘I think not, my lady. There is an order to things and your father better remembers it. If he means to see you wed, he will come to me and seek my permission.’

He is claiming this right for himself. Not for his wife, who should naturally be involved in such matters. But no, he only speaks of himself, even if brokering a marriage for an obscure noble as you is below him. Then again, seeking you out in your rooms without a chaperone—that is below him, that is not the order of things.

‘I will write my father then, my lord, and remind him. But I beg of you…’ You trail off, lowering your gaze.

He takes hold of your hand then, and you stiffen. Not because of the touch. That is what you long for so. No, it is not that. Blood still drips from that little prick in your finger. It matters little that it is but a bit of blood. He does not like dirt, he does not like smudges and blemishes. Disorder. And yet, when he raises your hand, palm up, he softens.

‘My maiden fair, you have cut yourself,’ he says.

Breathless you watch as he lifts your fingertip to his lips. Something inside of your sparks as he takes your wounded fingertip into his mouth and sucks. It is craven. He is tasting your blood, tasting you. Your cheeks are hot with shame or maybe something else. A sort of wicked excitement that would cast you straight to the pits of the Seven Hells. In desperate need of more support, of steadiness, you lean against the edge of the windowsill.

He slowly pulls your hand away once more. Dizzy in a way you could not even have imagined before, you look at your flushed, glistening fingertip. Obscenity. At a loss for words you can only listen to him taunt, ‘So, you would beg?’

As if snapping out of a trance, you pull your hand from his grip, keeping it close to your chest. But it stirs again in his marvelous eyes, that shadow of displeasure, that hint of frustration.

‘Please, grant your permission, my lord. That I beg of you.’

He inhales harshly. He clenches his jaw, accentuating all the sharp and cut-edge lines on his face. You know this look. Fool that you are, you have drawn it out. Clenching his hands into fists he draws back, but then his eyes fall on the single sleeve you were embroidering. You see the moment he realizes it: you are already preparing for this wedding. He grabs the embroidery piece, keeping it up to your face.

‘You have received no permission from your liege lord, and yet you sit decorating your wedding dress?’ he snaps.

And he rips the lush fabric apart, absolutely ruining what you created. Hands over your mouth you watch the scene in horror, suddenly doubting all you have felt for him. All you still feel for him.

‘There is an order to things,’ he repeats in a sneer, throwing the ruined fabric aside. ‘I thought you of all people would understand.’

Tears in your eyes, you let you arms fall by your side. You can handle his pain, you can handle his anger and sorrow, for it is yours too. But this accusation, that you are undeserving of, and you will not stand to suffer it.

‘And I thought you of all people would understand this!’ you throw back. He freezes, his body falling immobile in the most eerie manner. A quiet before the storm. His face is flush with ire and frustration, his dark eyes ablaze. You should not go further, but you do, ‘I thought you would understand that it pains me as well.’

And maybe you have said the right words, for some of the rigidity in his body melts away.

Sniffling you continue, ‘But you are my liege lord. You are a married man! I will not sit and mourn what could never have been, not while there is still hope for my happiness with another who can grant me the safety and warmth of the family that I so desire.’

It happens in the blink of an eye. One moment he stands leering at you paces away, the next his lips are on yours. He cups your face in the palms of his warm, big hands, drawing you close. Drawing you in. He smells of rosemary and mint and he tastes of sweet, warm dreams and a life that cannot be. But for a short while, you are his—for the duration of a desperate kiss, and a possessive touch and an embrace that means to own and possess.

But then you wake from your delusions, and you can do naught but press your hands against his chest and push him away.

‘There is an order to things,’ you whisper. ‘This is not it.’

But he refuses to let you go, he only pulls you closer, wrapping his body around yours as if that could somehow change the pathway of the sun or the will of the gods themselves.

‘I will not grant permission,’ he whispers. ‘I cannot.’