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i-want-men-i-cant-have · 2 months

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˗ˏˋ꒰ Say ‘I Love You’ ꒱ .

HOW THE FROSTHEIM BOYS WOULD ACT IF THEY HAD A CRUSH ON YOU. ft. jin kamurai, tohma ishibashi, lucas errant, & kaito fuji

wc : 2.5k

warnings : sfw, gender-neutral reader but implied afab for tohma's part

JIN is the definition of a cocky bastard. he acts high and mighty, always getting you to do the most insignificant tasks he can think of, all the while being a completely different person when it's just the two of you.

you have a test you need to study for? forget that. now you have to visit jabberwock to hand milk some beast king seal for his daily cup of tea.

if you're lucky and don't ask too many questions or take too long, you might get a sip. if he's in a good enough mood, he might even pour you a cup to commemorate a job well done. of course, this is rare when he prefers to share an indirect kiss without your knowing.

take a sip and position your lips wherever you want on the cup. he’s always going to put his own directly where yours were.

if he can’t sleep, he’s the type to wake you up at 3 am by phone call solely to have you look out the window to see the moon. he could fall asleep in the known presence of you, so calm and stable. just don't ask him if he’s going sentimental on you or he’ll hang up immediately without even wishing you a word.

don't let these small sweet moments fool you. the second you think he might be catching feelings, you see him out in public, and you’re nothing more than a fly on the wall that needs to be swatted (with utmost care).

even with his on-and-off attitude, he makes sure to become the lifeline you deserve. he can see that the second years don't exactly have the… disposition to take care of you as he could. lucas and the other one can try and protect you all they want, but he’ll be the only one to actually do something. he is the captain of frostheim for a reason.

the second you tell him about someone from his house even raising their voice at you, the best-case scenario is that they get shipped off to dig ditches in the desert for some mission and are gone for so long they have to retake the year.

of course, if you questioned the students' absence, he would wave you off, saying their families were too poor and needed their kids back home to help pay rent.

just remember, no matter how docile he may come off with you, the second someone else enters the room, those walls come shooting back up, acting as if he never caressed your hand, showing you how you could have easily checkmated him before he took out your queen and king all within four moves.

just pray it’s not tohma, or else jin would be taking jab after jab while trying to make him leave his room by any means necessary. all the while the vice-captain filled up your tea, sweet-talking you, and wondering why the door was locked while the two of you were alone all night; something you hadn't even noticed when coming in midday.

just hurry up and confess to jin already so tohma can stop his prying. he's not patient enough to deal with your mixed signals and dilly-dallying.

TOHMA wouldn't even try to cover how bad his excuses for everything were. it’s always going to be 50/50 on how realistic they sound. go fetch this work. go do this and that. he needs to help you study for an upcoming quiz. you need to try out this imported tea. blah, blah, blah.

there had been some minuscule to nonexistent complaints about the formal uniform at the dances and how it should be more elegant. buckle up because this man has ordered the most embarrassing things for you to try on.

the next week, there was a package filled to the brim with luxury clothes on your doorstep. the finest silk materials all adorned your body while he watched, camera and notes in hand. please excuse the quill in his hand writing everything everyone says; that’s just to track your true feelings. oh, the camera? it was for your candid reaction to pair with the pen. you really must work on masking your emotions more; maybe he could help you later.

starting off with a dress for someone your age was a nice start. nothing too sexy or childlike, being more on the modest side. the only skin showing were some ankles, chest, and all of your arms. the next few would be similar, only to ease you into a false sense of security.

somewhere sandwiched in the middle of the modeling session would be dresses tighter and smaller. you felt like your whole body was on display with him, the push-ups on your chest only contributing to your stress. when you asked tohma, he said he had no idea about when he ordered—as if he hadn't done research prior and took quick photos as you came out, pretending to act shocked when he saw the revealing clothing.

oh, the dress has a bit too much skin? well, that’s all the rage from what the female poll said they wanted for their dress uniforms. they did pay for their bodies; they should show them off.

to him, this was your way of opening up to him. if he's already gotten a sneak peek of what you have to offer, then what’s stopping him from seeing the rest? after all, you and he would complement each other so well.

not to mention he would work tooth and nail out of all his free time, dedicating it to figuring out how to get you to confess to him. he would never put his feelings on the line and somehow get rejected by someone like you.

you had to go to a random anomaly library to search for an anomaly book? that’s not too hard.

wrong.

two hours after being stuck in the never-ending location, and a mental breakdown later, tohma already secured the book without your knowledge. now he’s just waiting and making small talk, trying to rip out any piece of information he could use to make you sink your teeth into his hold on you.

both figuratively and literally, you were being brought together. the deeper you went into the library, the closer the shelves seemed to be.

when he had the chance to put the book on the highest shelf, watching the way your face lit up, he almost felt guilty putting this much effort into his plans. but you had to realize your feelings for him, not the other way around.

when you went to grab the anomaly book—along with the massive stack of books it was placed upon—it came avalanching down. instead of being swallowed alive by pages, you were pressed tight against the vice-captain, his shoulder saving you from your doom.

what you didn’t know was how tohma plastered your scent in his mind so he could hopefully find whatever perfume, shampoo, or just your smell somewhere.

LUCA would be the sweetest thing if he liked you. he would, of course, deny these feelings, thinking, or understanding them as platonic.

he would make you feel like you were in a classic, unproblematic, 90s shoujo manga. you could practically see the rose petals following him around whenever he’s with you.

it wouldn’t matter whether he recognizes his feelings or not or if he acts on them; no matter what, you’re going to feel special and wanted.

often, he would find you perusing the halls and randomly start a conversation. he would tell you about the differences between darwick and the uk campus, trying to find a reason to talk just so you wouldn’t leave. sometimes he finds himself purposely getting lost to spend just a couple of extra minutes with you.

he probably has some phone tracking app on you just in case something bad happens. of course, he would manipulate it in his favor—nothing bad, truly just misguided—so he could “accidentally” bump into you.

he’d probably subconsciously check his phone every few minutes hoping you texted him or anything. if you hadn’t seen him in a while due to being stuck at other houses for missions, he would use his favorite app at the moment to send a ‘stay safe!’ message for you to respond to and tell him how it’s going.

when you meet up, whether it be after a class or a whole week, he would, of course, grab your bags and make sure you're feeling alright. your feet hurt? here, get on his back. you have a migraine? here, have some medicine and a nice head massage.

what kind of gentleman would he be if he didn’t give his friends the courtesy of being comfortable?

he would take you to sho’s food truck, ren’s job, the cafeteria, or anywhere to have an excuse to spend more time with you (same goes for subaru).

100% a gentleman and doesn’t believe in splitting the tab 50/50. he invited you and you took the time out of your busy schedule to meet up with him.

yeah, there’s no way you're pitching in even a cent. he has money and he isn’t afraid to spend it on you.

he will open the doors for you and wait with bated breath as you walk by, thanking him each and every time.

he will treat you how you should be treated. he believes in the golden rule of treating others how you would like to be treated or how they would treat you, and you’ve shown him nothing but kindness. all he can do now is return the favor of being his first friend at this new school.

at one point, when his feelings were developing, he took them to yuri. instead of realizing any feelings, he thought your curse might cause him heartburn, only to be met with the doctor shoving him out and telling him to figure out his feelings before wasting his time on sappy romance.

it's safe to say everyone but luca knows about his feelings for you.

when he did realize his feelings were more than platonic, he cranked up that gentleman's act by one thousand.

you know those classic suave princely characters? that’s him to a t. patient and caring all without acting like a father and instead a friend.

if you did date him, it could only work out. it would be like dating your best friend, but not in an incestuous friendship-type way. an actual budding romance, no strings attached, but true undeterred love.

he would wait until he had completely understood his feelings until trying to make “moves” on you. think of things he’s heard kaito say to girls he’s trying to flirt with. suffice to say it only made you laugh.

instead of forcing you to confess to him like the rest, he’d much rather stake his emotions on the line than yours. he just wants you to be happy, even if it comes in the form of rejection or love. as long as you’re happy, he’s happy, whether that be as friends or something more.

be prepared to just enjoy time with him. if you do or don’t romantically like him back, it doesn’t matter. no matter what, you’re just going to be genuinely happy.

even if he’s not the best at picking up signs or reading people, he’s still going to be making sure you’re enjoying yourself.

his brother has already disappeared; he needs to cherish every moment with you, even if it’s one-sided, as friends, or as lovers.

KAITO'S unofficial love language is making you watch movies to make you fall in love with him.

scary movies? you can cling onto him, squealing into his big, strong, herculean muscles. romcom? maybe that can get you in the mood to stare at his plump lips and share your very first kiss. action? maybe you two can try and replicate a scene and accidentally fall on top of him, staring into his deep cerulean orbs, realizing he was always the one for you, not luca.

he is the most unorganized and delusional of the frostheim boys.

he will probably plan a few minutes in advance and, if not, he will get in his head and forget how to talk to you.

the most he’ll plan ahead of time is explaining how you two need to sleep in a bed together because he can't sleep in a pew of the church.

see, once you two finish binging a movie series, he can sleep and spend the night at your place. walking back is just too hard and dangerous at night, you know? besides, just one night in your small bed wouldn’t hurt. it would just end up with you two waking up in each other's loving embrace, confessing your undying love for each other.

in reality, he was scared he would accidentally fart or kick you as you slept and was too afraid to even move. he slept on the corner of the bed while hiding under the covers, trying to ignore the creepy shadow-like monsters of your room.

he has tried and failed to change his personality to match every single one of your interests, only to fail miserably. trust me, if you post a lot, he will stalk you back to your first-ever post by accident and have a mental breakdown after liking the post.

he wouldn't speak to you for a week after the incident until you liked his first-ever post to somewhat ease the burn.

the same goes for if you see him zoning out on you. do not try and provoke him in the wild as he watches you walk from class to class. if you even make eye contact, he's shriveling up to a prune.

unfortunately, everyone in the area sees him making an effort to stalk you and endlessly teases him for it.

even if he doesn’t necessarily look it, he will protect you. if you even seem somewhat stressed with a mission, he will be running across campus to help you out, no matter what the other house says.

he wouldn’t be a lap dog for you, more so an eager friend. not in a hundred years will he let you be stalked or threatened if someone took an interest in you. not on a yandere level, just a worried friend who would steamroll someone if need be, even if he had to fight. he will suck it up for you.

hopefully, you are genuinely interested in ranting or are a master at tuning things or people out because this man is insane. he will tell you all about his day while saying nothing at the same time.

he will send you his entire for you page and count down the seconds from when he posted to when you liked it. god forbid you take a day or week because you’re busy. if a form of snapchat exists in darwick, your streak will be insane. literally, how you track the number of days you started at the school.

“you forgot to open one.”

#x reader #tokyo debunker #tokyo debunker x reader #tdb #tdb x reader #frostheim #jin kamurai #jin x reader #tohma ishibashi #tohma x reader #lucas errant #luca x reader #kaito fuji #kaito x reader

272 notes · View notes

asumofwords · 11 months

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Lighthouse - Sailor!Aemond x LighthouseKeeper!Reader - Mini Series

Summary: You work as a lone Lighthouse keeper on a small island just off the coast. Everyday was the same routine, tending to your duties and the lamp with not much time to spare. But what will happen to your routine when a storm rages across the sea, and a handsome man washes ashore?

Warnings: This fic is 18+. Readers discretion is advised. Warnings will be added in their relevance. She/Her Pronouns. Slow burn, pining, kiss.

Note: EEEE! Here is chapter two of my little mini-series! Thank you all so much for your patience for this update, to say it has been hard has been an understatement. An odd thing to put into the notes of a fanfic, but From the River, to the Sea. 🇵🇸

Chapter 2: Unfamiliar Changes

The next few days were the same routine as usual, but with a new addition; A man who had been at deaths door, recovering in your bed.

The lighthouse, you knew.

You knew the way to light it, tend to it, care for it. It had been your life for many years ever since your Pa had died, leaving its responsibilities to you.

It had been him who taught you everything. He who had raised you to know what you now do, to do as you now do each day. And you were thankful. Thankful to not be married to a Fishermans son, or market boy at a young age, to squeeze out child, after child, in a marriage that had no love or care but rather a societal duty.

But now, there was a man in your home.

A man on your small, little, isolated island which you sought refuge in. An island and isolation that had been all you had known, and yet now, here he was, laid in your bed with hair like spun silk that lay around his head, a violet eye you had only heard in the tales on shore, a scarred cheek and sharp mouth.

Was he a pirate?

You had heard of those, but for some reason, he didn’t seem to be as brash and roguish as those stories either. And whilst his presence was not all begrudged, it did throw your small little world into a loop. So with the duties of old, came the duties of new.

You would rest, only shortly, wake, and tend to the lamp, the storm slowly moving away inland, but the winds too high to take your small boat alone, or send your pigeon with a letter to alert them of the wreck and lone survivor.

Thereafter, you could come back inside, fix yourself a tea, and here began the new routine; you would make two instead of one.

Two plates or bowls of food.

Two cups or glasses of water, or tea.

Two of everything.

One for you.

And one for the man.

A man who still had not told you his name.

That was until that evening.

The winds had begun to yield, but the soft grumbling of thunder still prevailed in the near distance.

You were eating the last of your stew together, though this time, he was seated at the table. You having dragged the only other chair on the island down the many stairs of the lighthouse to the cottage.

He was still rather pale, and wheezed and coughed on occasion, but after his many days in your presence, you realised that he was not pale because of his ailment, but rather, his skin was just as white as the porcelain William’s wife owned. His cheeks however, gained some colour, and his lips were no longer cracked and dry, but now hydrated.

And plump.

And soft.

And-

“-Aemond.”

The spoon you were holding clinked back onto the side of the bowl.

“Pardon?”

“My name,” The man put another spoonful of stew into his mouth, chewing before swallowing politely, “Is Aemond.”

You tested the name on your tongue. It was definitely not a common name from around your part of the world.

“I take it you are a long way from home?” You chewed on a chunk of potato, watching as the man nodded.

“Aye.”

“Your ship-“

“-Vhagar.” So that’s what its name was, “Sunk to the bottom of the sea, I presume.” His lips pulled down at the sides.

You nodded solemnly, “Was your family-“

“-No. No family. Just me and my crew.”

You cleared your throat awkwardly before nodding, “I’m sorry. Though we have the Gods to thank. They favoured you when they washed you ashore.”

Aemond, the man before you, scoffed, “Favoured. Sunk my ship and my men. Drowned me.”

You sucked your teeth, feeling slightly guilty about your choice of words, “Yes, and yet you are here. I prayed-“

“-You prayed?”

A nod, though his gaze seemed more intrigued than mocking, “To the Drowned God. Prayed to anyone who would listen to spare your life.”

You watched as the corner of his lip twitched, “And why should a Lady such as you, pray for a sailor such as me?”

“I’d hardly like to deal with a corpse on my beach." You stirred your stew, "And I am no Lady, I have told you this.”

The snort from his nose made way into a smile that was contagious.

At least you could be blunt.

And in some ways, you supposed that he liked this bluntness.

You shared your meal together quietly, the crackling of the fire and sound of rain and occasional thunder outside. You found, much to your displeasure, that you did not mind having his company after all.

He did not talk to fill the space, and seemed to think deeply before he spoke, at least when he was not irritated or slightly offended by your own remarks. All in all, he was a welcomed presence in your modest home.

And that was what scared you.

“Do you often have drowned men wash ashore?” His spoon was delicately placed in his bowl, bread devoured shortly after given to him. The way in which he ate, the manner in which he sat back, rod stiff, indicated to you that he came from some form of high society, far higher than you, and likely came from money and wealth that you could do naught but try to imagine.

You smiled coyly, “You’re the first. An achievement to some end, I am sure.”

The corner of his lips pulled again, yet this time, it developed into a full smirk, “Then I am honoured to have been the first, Miss.”

A blush rose to your cheeks, and you had to look away.

The way in which he spoke, the way his voice became deep and smooth like the whiskey in your cupboard, had sent shivers down your spine with the implication that perhaps there was a double meaning to what he said.

To what you had said.

But then he continued, “And how does a woman of your stature become the keeper of this Lighthouse?”

“My Pa. He was the keeper before I. Taught me all there was to know. It was just me and him on this island for a long, long time, and now it is just me.”

“Is your father-“

“-Dead.”

“I see.” Aemond nodded, “I am sorry for your loss.”

“Don’t be.” You gave him a small smile, “He died doing what he loved.”

A silver eyebrow raised above the man’s seeing eye, “And what was that?”

“Drinking on the job.” You poked your tongue in your cheek to stifle the laugh as you watched Aemond’s composure become flustered, “It’s okay,” You reassured him, “You can laugh. My father was not a solemn man. I like to think he enjoys my humour.”

A hum was all you received, though he did not smile as you had hoped.

You had not fully seen him do so yet, and although there was glimmers of a more playful and relaxed man, you wondered in that moment if perhaps he was simply just a rather stern and serious sailor after all. That his nature was to be stiff, and bold, and unbendable.

And if he was to be that, a small flicker inside of you wished to make him bend.

Gods, what was wrong with you?

Had you grown so lonesome in your isolation that the first man to wash upon your shore, literally, was whom you would grow some sort of desire for?

Sure, you were no stranger to pleasure, chasing your own peaks with your hands as often as you’d like, of course, if it did not endeavour to endanger the care of the lighthouse. And now, that a man was sat before you, kept in the confines of your home by storm and ailment, you wished to taste what it truly meant to be pleased.

It had of course crossed your mind once or twice on your rare travels to shore. Speaking to the locals in shops or on the street, friends of William, or any decent man who cast you a glance. You had thought about it seriously, allowing some sort of dalliance to form, to warm a mans bed and then leave on the morrow to go back to your life of solitude.

In fact, it had almost happened.

A sailor named Dalton Greyjoy had caught your eye on the occasions he would be on shore at the same time as when you were. He was sailor from a well known, and well to do family. He came and went as he pleased, and it was no secret that he liked his women. Dalton's hair came below his ear, curling slightly atop his head, the colour as black as night and with his eyes to match his hair; a piercing, deep black which captured and lured anyone who caught his gaze.

And you had caught his, on more than one occasion, and each time, he had tried to woo you. Tried to offer a trip on his sturdy ship which carried more than one hundred men. Or a tour of his home which lay on bountiful lands on shore.

He had even offered a drink in the local tavern, and a meal, with a desire to speak to the ‘beautiful woman who keeps my ship from ruin’.

And you had thought on it, had almost given in, and when you had rejected him the last time, you had meant to offer him refuge on your island, should he ever so need it. If he was ever so inclined to have a tour of your own homestead, of your lighthouse which kept him from ruin.

But when you had moved to tell him thus, he was gone, back to the seas for the Gods only know how long, perhaps months, before he returned to shore. And that had been two months ago, and you had almost kicked yourself at the missed opportunity of having a man warm your bed, and then leave.

The convenience was lost.

You were under no impression that it would be anything more than a release for the two of you, and in your eyes, it was perhaps, a perfect arrangement. Yet, you had strung him for too long, and the seas had called him once more.

You had thought to wait to look for his ships arrival as it passed from you to shore, and lowered its anchor within eyesight. You had thought that perhaps at the sight of it, you would send your pigeon to her, the large ship, or to shore to send word of your request of his presence. But then, you thought, perhaps you would make a quick stop to the markets, weather permitting, and keep your eyes widened for the dark black hair which you sought.

But now, as the man you had come to know as Aemond, grew stronger with each day, the desire to meet your desires with Dalton faded, and were now replaced for the desire of a man who was the stark opposite.

No black hair, only silver. No black eyes, only lilac.

Would his lips be as soft as they looked?

Would he hold you passionately? Whisper in your ear? Give you pleasure that you had only read of?

This was what you thought of, thighs clenching as you pulled the old wick from the lamp to replace it with a new one, careful to not spill any oil around the lamps enclosure or yourself. You were exhausted as you lit the flame, night crawling towards you rapidly.

There was not much rest that you could get when sleeping on the worn down lounge of your home, mind reeling at the thought of the handsome man not too far from you in the warmth and plush of your bed.

Once you were positive the lamp was fine and well lit, you trudged down the stairs, eyes struggling to stay open as you made your way back to the cottage, the wind blowing your hair roughly as you closed the door behind you.

The fatigue dragged you down, limbs feeling as heavy as stone as you moved to make yourself some tea, feeling all the more exhausted than before, eyes half shut.

Once your tea was made, you sat on the couch and stared at the fire, blowing the steam away and sipping on it to warm your chilled bones. The lighthouse was cold inside, no warmth but the lamp, and despite wearing your warm layers, the cold still nipped you to your core.

There were no thoughts as you moved half asleep around your home, pulling the heavy waxed coat from your shoulders to place on the hook by the door.

Your boots came next, and then your socks, and finally you pulled away at your dress, untying your stays as it slid down your hips to the floor.

You trudged to your room, having extinguished the lamps and candles in the cottage, leaving the fireplace to burn through what was left of the night.

It was dark as you pulled back the sheets, mind in memory and eyes already shut, as you slid into bed in only your slip, pulling the sheets up to your neck as you lay on your side.

Then sleep came just as quickly as your eyes closed.

It was hot.

Too hot.

There was a warmth that radiated around you as you slowly rose to consciousness.

Then, came the weight.

A weight of something wrapped around you, behind you, heat seeping into your spine. You blinked sluggishly, confused as to what it was as you shifted, feeling whatever that warmth was shifting with you. Solid.

Arms.

Two arms.

One under your head, the other draped over your middle, hand splayed across your stomach as your back was pressed into the flush of someones chest.

Not someone.

Aemond.

You jerked, suddenly awake and out of the bed, looking down at the man who looked tiredly up at you, corner of his mouth lifting slightly as he fought away a smirk. Heat rose up your neck and into your cheeks in embarrassment.

You had been in bed.

With him.

Tucked into him.

Oh Gods.

Your mouth opened and shut as your brain misfired, unsure of what to do our say.

Do you apologise?

Gods, you had been so tired you hadn’t even realised.

You were suddenly mortified at the thought of what he must now think of you.

He must-

“-If you want to get into bed with me, all you must do is ask.” Came the low timbre of Aemond, who now smirked freely at you.

Your heart raced in your chest as you became flustered, a small squeak escaping your lips.

Aemond’s eye bore into your own as you stood there, bare feet on the cold flagstones below, chest heaving as you were at a loss of words. His eye then roamed lower, taking in your appearance as you felt the heat of his gaze blanket over you.

It was then, that you realised, you were in nothing but your thin shift.

“Gods. Fuck.” You swore, turning quickly to throw on an old dress, foregoing your skirts, stay and stockings.

You kept your back to him as you hastily did up the many buttons, suddenly cursing each and every one of them as your fingers struggled to do them up the more you become flustered, all the while you could still feel his heated gaze upon you from the bed.

You uttered an embarrassed apology, too ashamed to even raise your eyes to look at him, before you fled from the cottage, forgetting your coat, and not even doing up the laces of your boots as you shut the door behind you and raced towards the lighthouse.

You had never quite climbed the steps as fast as you had in that moment, desperate to get away from his salacious gaze, and your burning embarrassment.

What had you been thinking? Climbing into bed with him like that? He must think you desperate. Depraved. Unkempt.

Gods be good.

The embarrassment made tears prickle at your eyes.

Though the lamp in the lighthouse was fine, and there was no true reason for you to monitor it, the worst of the storm having moved away, you did not return back to your cottage. You stayed in the cold, no coat and shoes half tied, shivering in the stone walls of the lighthouse to avoid the mortification of that morning. And yet, despite trying to avoid him physically, there was no possible way, you had tried, to avoid thinking of him.

Thinking of his touch, how warm he had been behind you, how his large hand had completely spanned across your middle as he held you to him, how his fingers had twitched and pulled as you wriggled in first wake. How he smelt of the sea, and sweat, the stew you had cooked him, and the smell of your own sheets, but beneath it all, there was his natural scent, something earthy and musky and like sandalwood that surrounded your every waking moment.

If it wasn’t for his legs and his near death, you would think the man was a Siren.

You thought of how cold he had been when he washed ashore, how pale and almost blue he looked, and now he burnt hot, and although he was still pale, the flush of life coloured his cheeks and lips. His lilac eye devouring you every chance he had.

At first you had thought you were mistaken, that he was simply looking at you, but now you were sure of it. His eye, the seeing one, unclouded by injury and simmering a bright lilac, watched you almost always half-lidded and ablaze with something you now thought could perhaps be lust.

Gods.

You buried your head into your hands, deeply exhaling before standing up straighter, trying to erase the images and thoughts of him from your mind, but it was hopeless. He was all you could think of, all you could smell, or see behind your eyelids, and you yearned to reach out and touch him. Hold him. Caress him.

Your thighs instinctually squeezed together and you sighed, feeling a wetness that had settled between them.

Gods be good, you were in trouble.

You shivered again, rubbing your hands together as you looked out at the sea, mentally cursing yourself for not having more than two chairs on the island, but you had never needed more than that.

Your legs ached from not having sat in the hours that had passed, and you had turned to pacing the small landing back and forth to try and keep yourself warm.

A soft clunk came from the bottom of the lighthouse.

You mustn’t have shut the door properly.

You continued your pacing, back and forth, breathing into your icy palms as you tried to warm them, mind straying to a body of warmth that you knew, if you pressed your palms against him, would warm in an instant. Your hands coming beneath his tunic to splay against his stomach, working their way-

The sound of rustling came from behind.

You spun on your heel in fright, breath caught in your throat to find Aemond behind you. Now standing straight, the man towered over you, looking down his sharp nose at your shivering form. His hair was slightly wet, stuck down to his shoulders and dripping from its ends onto the floor of the lighthouse. The tunic he wore, stuck to his skin where spatters of rain wet the material.

In his hands, your coat.

“Gods be good.” You cursed at him, hand immediately shooting out to press against his forehead, having to rise slightly on your toes to reach, “Have you gone mad? You’ll catch cold and grow ill again.”

Snatching your coat from his hands, you threw it up and around his shoulders, pulling it together tightly at the front, watching as his brows furrowed at you.

His hands caught your wrists as you fussed over him, and you immediately could no longer meet his eye. The warmth of his hands seeped into your bones, and a barely contained sigh fell from your lips.

Aemond was so close, so close to you, you could feel his warmth, smell his-

“Go back to the cottage before you become feverish again.” You tried to pull your wrists away from his hands to push him back to the door, but the man did not budge, his grip only tightened.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” Came his low response, jaw tensed as he watched you.

You swallowed, looking anywhere but his eye, “No.” You lied terribly, hoping he couldn’t feel the way your pulse quickened at your wrist, “I have to tend to my duties.“

“-You’re a terrible liar.”

You bristled, heat rising in your cheeks again before you met his eye.

Exhaling shakily, you tried again to get him to release your wrists with no avail.

“Please let go of me, Sir.”

Aemond’s cheek twitched, before finally he let go, and you begrudged his warmth leaving you the second he did.

As his hands dropped to his sides, your eyes flitted to the exposed skin of his chest, if only for a moment, where his tunic was ripped down the middle. He moved, arms coming up again as he pulled your coat from his shoulders, stepping towards you suddenly.

You stiffened, feeling his warmth envelop you and the subtle scent of salt and sandalwood engulf you as he wrapped you in your coat, pulling it tightly against you at your front. Your arms were trapped beneath it as he kept his hold on you, the coat pulling tighter as he stepped closer.

“You’re cold.” He whispered, head ducking slightly as he looked at you, long strands of silver cascading over his shoulder.

Okay. You were sure of it.

Perhaps he was a Siren.

And now he was going to drag you to the sea and-

You watched in a confusion, or horror and delight as his head began to dip down towards your face, eye watching you intently as you held your breath.

Oh Gods, was this really happening? Was this man-

“Sīr gevie.” Came a deep purr from the back of his throat, and there it was again, that half lidded gaze.

You parted your lips instinctually, feeling his nose brush against yours, your eyes fluttering as you looked down to his lips which were parted a hairsbreadth away from you, “I don’t know what that means.” You whispered, feeling his breath fan across your lips warmly.

“Beautiful.” Came his response, less purring than the last, more of a whisper, more delicate, like the silk that spun his hair, ready to break.

His face loomed closer, the tip of his pink tongue coming to wet his lips, and all you could think of was how you wished to close the distance, to press against him, taste him, have him.

Your lungs ached from the breath you had been holding, and a sudden gust of wind knocked at the windows of the lighthouse. It seemed to have broken the spell, jerking you away from the man in front of you, who blinked longingly at you.

Swallowing thickly, trying to ignore the ache in your core, you uttered, “I need to prepare supper.” Before you dashed away from him and down the stairs, almost tripping over your half laced boots in the process.

As you wound down the stairs, you felt a pang of guilt leaving him up there.

Would he be fine to get down himself?

What if he grew ill? It was cold, and he had no coat, and you had just-No. If he had made his way up those stairs, then he could surely make his way down them.

You wasted no time preparing dinner, darting about the kitchen noisily as you began to prepare your meal, cutting the vegetables on the chopping board, and moving for some more dried meats to add with it, soaking it in some bone powdered broth you had made days earlier.

When the door of the cottage opened, and then clicked shut, you ignored the mans arrival, keeping your back to him, pretending that you were all too busy preparing the dinner to spare him a second glance, and not only that, you were far too engrossed of thinking what was coming next, and not at all how his lips might have felt on yours.

You heard him settle at the table by the fire, and without looking, cast your voice behind you, “I still have my fathers belongings,” You told him, voice shy, “Seemed a waste to be rid of them when he passed. You may fit them. I’ll let you look through the trunk after supper so that you may have some cleaner, warmer clothes.”

A hum, and then, “Thank you. You are a gracious host.”

You blushed at his compliment, thankful that your back was turned to him so that he would not see you shy once more. Once your meal was cooked, you brought it over to the table for the two of you, including a plate of some of your scones, as well as the jam from Celia to go with them after.

It was a mostly silent affair, a tension strung between the two of you, pulled taught as the minutes went by. That was until-

“You are not married.”

It wasn’t a question, more of a statement of fact.

You blinked, taking your eyes away from your meal as you looked up at him.

He was already watching you.

But there was nothing malicious about his statement, more so curious as to why.

Aemond continued, “You are a beautiful young woman, a shame that you are not out in society.”

You swallowed thickly, feeling vulnerable at the turn of conversation.

You knew it was unheard of a woman of your age to be unwed, and not only that, alone in a usual mans position. You knew that the townsfolk at shore talked about it, whispers behind your back at why that was.

There had been a cruel rumour once that you simply enjoyed the coming and goings of the many different sailors who came to and from the port. It didn’t help that Dalton was not quiet about his interest in pursuing you, at least, not as his wife anyway.

“I am content where I am.” You sighed, “I have no desire to be flaunted on a mans arm as merely decoration. I have a responsibility to those on shore and on sea, and I doubt any man in town would know more about the mechanisms of working such a lamp than I do. They would be more of a burden than a blessing.”

Aemond blinked before lifting another steaming spoonful of food to his lips, “And do you not grow lonely on this little island?”

Did you?

You didn’t think you did.

At least, not until he arrived on your shore.

“Not at all.” And unconvincing lie, or perhaps not a full one, “William comes to bring my reprieve, and I go to and from shore as I wish for the whims of societal company.”

The man swallowed his mouthful of food, head cocked as he looked at you, “William?”

“An old friend of my fathers.” You explained, watching as he relaxed at the explanation, “Brings food and goods to me when I cannot get them my own, which is more often than not. His wife and daughters join him here on occasion.”

Aemond hummed, “It is a shame you have no feelings of loneliness.”

“A shame?”

The corner of his lip twitched, “I thought you might have enjoyed my company.” Before you could respond, he spoke again, “Though, perhaps it is not a shame after all. There is no husband that I need worry about.”

Heat rose into your cheeks fast, and a flush of hurt crept up your throat.

Of course he would make a comment about you being unwed.

He was just like the others in town.

“You mock me.” You grit angrily, hands twitching on the table.

You watched as a flash of regret creeped over his face.

“I don’t.” His tongue darted out to lick at his lips again, the hungry look in his eye not at all for the food on his plate, “I would worry that my attempt to court you would be burdened by a disgruntled husband.”

Court you.

Court.

Your stomach turned tightly, and you found yourself pushing your chair behind you quickly as you stood, grabbing your empty plate as you moved to take it to the kitchen, unsure of what to say, mouth dry and mind reeling.

As soon as your back turned, you heard a deep chuckle behind you, making your cheeks flush with heat once more. You did not even bother to clean your plate, instead dumping it into the dry sink before you snatched your coat off of the coat hook and moved to open the door.

“You cannot avoid me forever.” Came his low purr, and would if you tried.

The door thumped behind you as you swept yourself outside.

By the time you finally returned to the cottage, the night had flown away from you, having spent the majority of it trying to cool the heat in your body that he had stoked, resting your cheeks against the cool class of the lighthouse, anything to soothe the molten blood that coursed through you.

The storm had mostly passed, and your home was quiet as you snuck back inside, darkness filling the majority of the space bar the fireplace as you pulled your coat from your shoulders, back facing the room.

When you turned to walk further inside a small gasp pulled into your lungs.

“You’re awake.” You blinked at Aemond owlishly, watching as he leant back on the small worn couch, his long limbs stretched out in front of him by the fire, with one arm resting against the back.

“I am.” You shifted on your feet, unsure of what to do or say.

Damn your anxious mind, reeling in circles at the thought of him, and his desires and if he desired you as much as you desired him. And what if-

You shook the thought away, “Well, you must be tired. You need to rest so that you may go home. The storm is passing, and I’d wager that you could return to shore now.” You wrung your hands together.

You didn’t want him to go, but you knew it was logical.

He would have to leave. He would have to go home. To his family. To his friends. To his land. And then, you would be left alone with the spiralling 'what if's' of his stay.

“You speak of fatigue as if you sleep more than I, and do less.” Came his pointed remark, “I am well aware of my need to recover, and my abilities.”

Speechless.

That was what you were.

The fire crackled loudly between you as you watched him shift, moving to lay himself down onto the couch which was comically too small for him. His long legs stretched over the arm, feet dangling almost to the floor whilst his head was tucked at an awful angle on the opposite arm.

He looked like a doll that had been carelessly tossed onto the couch by a child.

“You need rest.” He mused, eye roaming over your body shamelessly, “I shall sleep where I am.”

Your brows furrowed, “You can’t suggest that you wish to sleep there.” Your hand pointed to where he was uncomfortably lain, “You do not fit. You shall see no rest and I will have to nurse you to health once more.”

“All the more reason for me to stay here.” His eye slid shut, seeming to make a point of sleeping on your lumpy and aged lounge.

You guffawed at him and his brazen flirting, mouth hanging open as your hands moved to your hips, “Go back to bed.”

His brow lifted, but his eye stayed shut, “A command or request?”

You blinked, “A request, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Will you be joining me?” Came his purr, eye cracked open at you, the bright lilac having turned as stormy as the sea once had been.

“No.”

Another hum, something you had grown used to by now, his eye sliding shut, “Then I shall stay put.”

You stormed towards him, looking down at him, trying to not notice how soft his hair looked, or how the pale skin of his chest looked like a cozy place to-

“Really, Sir.” You sighed, exacerbated, “I must implore you to sleep in the bed tonight. You will only hurt your neck and back. I am far smaller than you, and-“

“-Sīr byka.”

The language was smooth, the r curling in the front of his teeth, all creamy, and soft like syrup and warm. It sent heat straight into your core.

“What does that mean?”

His eye opened again as he sat up, “Would you like to know?”

Gods, he was infuriating.

“Yes.” You grit out, “Or else I wouldn’t have asked.”

“I said you were little.”

Embarrassment curled in your chest, but not only that, something else that sent heat striking through you.

You tried to blink it away, “An obvious observation. And the bed would fit you perfectly well, if only-“

“-Nyke kessa mazverdagon ziry-“

“-Would you stop that?” You snipped, chest heaving as you blushed, watching as the tall man pulled his legs down and sat up, looking at you predatorily.

You were in trouble.

Every hair on your body stood up as he watched you beneath his lashes.

“Stop what?”

You wet your lips, “T-that.”

“What, byka ōños?”

“That!” You pointed, running a hand through your hair, “You- You make a mockery of me.”

His head tilted, “I do no such thing.”

“You do.” You countered, looking anywhere but him, “You speak in tongues that I do not understand. For all I know, you could be throwing insult at my person. I know that I am not as educated as you-”

“-Do you want to know what it means? You only need ask.”

“What does it mean?” You breathed, watching as he stood from the couch, sucking all the air from the room as his head slowly came up to your height, then finally looming over you down his nose.

“What does ‘what’ mean?”

“Fine." You huffed, "You shall stay on the couch, and I shall send word tomorrow-“

“-Little light.”

You lashes fluttered against your cheeks as you felt him step closer to you, your chest heaving as one of his hands reached out to caress a lock of your hair, tucking it behind your ear. You shivered as his fingertips grazed a path down your neck, his eye intent on you.

“W-what?”

“Byka ōños,” Aemond purred, “It means ‘little light’.” He took a step closer to you, his chest brushing against yours, warmth immediately seeping into your dress as you craned your head to look up at him, "Byka perzys.”

“And what does that mean?” Your voice was quiet, unsure, the air around you crackling with the tension that had been building for days.

“Little flame.” He translated, large palm moving behind your neck as he gripped the back of it softly, fingers tangling in your hair. Your breath hitched as he moved forward, his eye on your lips, yours on his.

“Byka jelevre.”

“What does t-“

Aemond’s lips crashed into yours hungrily, silencing your question. You squeaked, eyes widening before they slowly slid shut, hands coming to the front of his tunic as you fisted them tightly, rising on your tip toes to meet him. His kiss melted you, a fire being stoked in your gut steadily as the fingers in your hair tightened.

Then as sudden as it came, it stopped.

You were both panting, looking at one another as his tongue wet his lips.

“Fuck.” He growled, before crashing into you again, teeth nibbling at your bottom lip as you sighed into his embrace.

His other hand wrapped around your waist pulling you tightly against him as his tongue licked at your bottom lip. It was unfamiliar, uncertain, and your lips parted in a small gasp, immediately feeling his tongue lick tentatively at your mouth.

You were still, frozen as you thought of what to do as the hand on your waist moved to pull at your skirts hastily, dragging them up your legs.

And then, it was as though the fog was cleared, and your mind re-emerged. You pulled back with a gasp, hand gripping the wrist that was pulling at your skirts, your eyes searching his face with uncertainty.

And then, slowly, it dawned on him, realisation washing over his features.

“You’re untouched?” Came his quiet breath.

You swallowed, shutting your eyes to avoid his prying gaze, too afraid of his next reaction as you answered him.

“Yes.”

The warmth of his body left yours, and you almost subconsciously followed it, eyes reopening.

He looked at you with a new expression you could not quite understand.

Your chest ached to be held again, to feel his want and his hands pressed against your body. To feel his chest against yours, his lips on your own, his tongue teasing yours as you sighed into it. You wished to feel the calluses of his hands, and smell the salt and sandalwood that lingered around him.

You felt stupid for having told him, for having stopped him. You wished you hadn’t. You wished you had just let him have his way-

“-Apologies, Miss. I did not mean to overstep.”

Any thought that you had vanished, and you found yourself gasping for air like a fish out of water.

“I shall retire for the evening.” He took another step back, his eye not once leaving yours as he shifted his body towards your bedroom, “But if I do take your bed, I would like to earn my keep around your home as I recover.”

If this man did one more thing out of the ordinary, you thought your head may spin off your neck.

“Your keep?” You echoed, feeling the tingle in your lips from his kiss. '

Did he mean-

“-Work around the island. Cleaning, gardening. Anything that you need or want from me. I am yours.”

You felt that his last offer meant more, but you did not have the wherewithal to ask for elaboration, nor did you have the courage.

Gods, what was it about this man that turned you to syrup?

You nodded slowly, watching as relief washed over his features, “It is much appreciated, though I will be hard pressed to find things for you to do yet.” You shifted on your feet, hands wringing together once more, “I shall send word soon of your survival to shore. My pigeo-“

“-No.” Aemond said hastily, to which he recovered a moment afterwards, “No need until I am hale and healthy again. There is no point for false hopes, I may turn on the morrow.”

You shook your head, a small laugh falling from your lips, “I see no possibilities of you turning to meet the Stranger tomorrow. You-“

“-Please.” Came his voice once more, rough and quiet, and more strained than before, “Let me stay dead for a while longer.”

Thanks so much for reading along with me, if you wish to be added to the general tag list please let me know :) Likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated ! Enjoy <3

Tag List:

@blackswxnn @marihoneywk @targaryenrealnessdarling @namelesslosers @aemondsfavouritebastard @dahlias-and-marigolds @aemondsbabygirl @toodlesxcuddles @jemmaagentofshield @malfoytargaryen @bellaisasleep @aaprilshowers @assortedseaglass @elizarbell @xpersephonex @lijeno @likeanecho344 @coffeeobsessedtrencher @diannnnsss @lexwolfhale @notasockpuppetaccount @at-a-rax-ia @spinachtz@marysucks-blog @generalkenobitrash @zenka69 @shygardengalaxy-blog @kittendoll05

#aemond x reader #aemond targaryen fanfic #hotd #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen fic #aemond #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond x y/n #hotd fanfic #lighthouse!Aemond #asumofwords lighthouse #sailor!aemond #LighthouseKeeper!reader #sailor!Aemond x reader #Sailor!Aemond #LighthouseKeeper!Reader #Asumofwords Lighthouse #shipwreck!aemond

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houserautha · 3 months

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Ok, okay listen I have a mighty neeed to say this!

How would Feyd-Rautha feel about having a wife who’s sensual???❤️Hear me out, his spouse comes from a small planet called Eros (Greek word for passionate love) and it’s basically the opposite of Giedi Prime, the people are loving, gentle and highly romantic individuals. Even worse they are pacifists! At first Feyd is like eww wtf is that culture? Never heard of such a thing, but when it’s time to meet the bride he sees her and is bewitched…

She has long rapunzel hair cascading down her back, or in a braid. She’s gentle with the maids and teaches them how to put flowers in her hair.

Always had luxurious perfumes and oils. Runs Feyd these big bubble baths and soothes his wounds.

Has the best fruits and sweets shipped in from her planet. Loves telling stories to children, like one of those lovely kindergarten teachers and she thanks everyone for their help.

Loves to paint, and do artsy stuff that Feyd just doesn’t understand where is the war? The bloodshed! The chaos—oh she made me a painting of my battles! Oh that’s so😍

Kisses Feyd’s bruises and at first he’s like cut that out! But then he’s like “Where are my kisses?” “I demand your affection woman.” And she’s like you don’t have to beg. Black cat hubby vibes🐈‍⬛

Gives him good massages too. Will brutally kill and then surely die if she offers anyone else a massage.

Soft and siren like singing voice, plays the harp. Even the Baron is impressed and wants her to play for their events everytime.

“Pick up the blade and defend yourself wife! You never know when you’ll need to, especially if I’m not home to protect you.” His wife just shrugs “But darling, I don’t believe in violence.” Feyd take as deep breath and closes his eyes.

Speaks in a gentle tones “Hello Rabban how are—?” Feyd: “Don’t speak to him he’s a brute!” Rabban is touched that she cares but also jealous that Feyd always gets the most beautiful things offered to him. Even a caring bride.

Extremely calm and seductive. No voice or Bene Gesserit skills needed. Feyd storms in stressed, covered in blood from one his fights and she’s just lying there half naked in a robe reading a book. “Would you like to make love would that be better?” She asks stroking the sheets. “I—I would love to fuck you.” “Oh! Well those are two different things, if you’d like then” “Come here. Come here!” *climbs onto bed.*

Comforts Feyd when he has nightmares. Caresses him and hands him a mug. Feyd: “What is this? It smells horrid.” “It’s elderflower tea my love, it’ll calm you.”🥰 *sips tea* “I hate it. It’s disgusting.” *keeps sipping*

Wears a lot of silk, velvet and lace. Has a gorgeous body and luscious skin.

Feyd is shocked when his darlings don’t want to harm her because she spoils them with special treats, delicious wine, jewelry, and dresses. They forget he enters the room because they are giggling over their gifts. Feyd: “What is this?” “She gave us heart and kidney pie.” “And silver rings!”

Bonus points: She ALWAYS wears red lipstick which is a contrast to the black and white of the Harkonnen planet. Imagine whenever she steps in to see Feyd and her smile is wide and her lips look like bright blood.

Just a thought enjoy!❤️

Omg I LOVE all of this, thank you for sharing it!!

I definitely think it would be a learning curve for Feyd but deep down he just desperately wants someone to love him😂😭

I can see him getting frustrated with himself like “what are these feelings, what has she done to me” and when he asks her what kind of witch she is, she just throws back her head and laughs and tells him, “that’s love, dear”

#feyd rautha #dune #feyd rautha harkonnen #fanfic writing #he just wants to be loved

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no-light-left-on · 5 months

Text

thinking about just how sudden and cruel Jessamine's assassination was. Corvo and Emily suddenly ripped out of their regular lives.

Corvo has only just returned after months of being separated from his family. he only stepped off the ship, barely made it to the Tower, didn't even walk through the front door before he watched Jessamine be murdered. his luggage was probably still on the ship, all his dirty clothes, warm coats for Tyvia and light silks for Sekonos, his journal and maybe a spare weapon, the nice coat for when he is meeting up with the rulers of the different isles. the little gifts he most likely collected through his travels across the Empire, for Jessamine and for Emily and maybe some members of the Tower staff that he is fond of. did he bring back candy he loved as a child so that Emily could finally try them? where did his personal correspondence go?

what about Emily? she was taken and kept locked up in the Golden Cat, and we hear her mention her doll, but what other things were left behind? her favourite cup, the plants at her windowsill? her collection of drawings, and the notebooks she kept for her lessons, paints and music instruments that she was learning to play as every proper lady should? where are her favourite fairytale books now? her wardrobe, her favourite shoes, the little hair ornaments Jessamine would tuck into her hair for all the parties and balls?

and what of Jessamine? with no family to set away memorabilia, sort through her things, her diaries and notes and letters that were waiting for an answer? the private ones, that she kept hidden away so no one could read them but her? did she have a favourite tea blend that now sits abandoned in the Tower kitchens?

we do not see their rooms, once we return to the Tower to take out Burrows. it is almost like the royal family never existed, and I must wonder: what happened with what remained behind of their lives, after Jessamine died?

#dh #dishonored #li.txt #not tagging the characters fuck that #im still in the process of rereading wlbsal and just... yeah #they all had Lives back then. lives that were full and exciting and fulled with love #and there is no trace of a nursery or of corvo's bedchamber #I didnt think about it much while playing cause I was trying to focus but just #the fact that their existence was completely wiped out....#in those 6 months (or 7 or 8) Burrows managed to erase them from existence #and i cant stop thinking about what became of corvos belongings #they were still there on the ship #unpacked #he most likely brought gifts and collected things for himself too #what happened with all those things?#were they thrown out? burned? sold?#will he ever get to give emily all the little things he got for her?#(what will he do with the gifts he brought for jessamine)

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axelsagewrites · 1 year

Text

Being in a Secret Relationship with Aegon

Pairing: Aegon x Servant Reader

Warnings: mentions of sex but no smut

Word count: 804

Masterlist Here

It starts with you being one of his servants

He was used to them avoiding his gaze, but he liked how it didn’t faze you

It was a comfortable silence between you both as he worked

And of course, he thought you were hot but didn’t want to say and risk you switching duties

However, when he found out it was you placing a jug of water beside his bedside and herbal tea each morning to help with his hangovers, he began requesting you specifically

Aegon got so used to your presence that eventually you began to talk

One night he got drunk and confided in you about his trauma

The next day he thought you definitely wouldn’t come back but you did

This time with lemon cakes for him without saying a word

That’s when he fully began to trust you

Aegon started to send for you to change his already fresh sheets and would have you just sit and chat

Other times when you came to do actual tasks like mop his floor, he would insist you rest in a chair while he mopped instead

He tried to shower you with elaborate gifts, but you turned him down since the other servants would surely notice

Instead, he began to set up mini feasts for you in his room so you could taste the finest foods and wines

You began to bring him roses from the garden or bracelets braided from scraps of fabric or hand embroidered napkins

He would sneak out to the silk streets but not to drink but take you on semi dates

He would take you to taverns or inns so that for at least a few hours you could feel normal

His drinking also severely lessened after your relationship began as instead of drinking his problems away, he was now talking about them

Any problems you had he did his best to solve as soon as he could

Another servant giving you issues? Claimed she stole something and got her fired. Saw a knight acting creepy towards you? Insist he got transferred elsewhere. Your clothes were getting tattered? Orders you whatever you request to replace it

Sure, sometimes he could be extreme, but he insisted you deserved the best

He started waking up earlier in the mornings so you could share breakfast before the day began

Now he can’t sleep unless he can see you before bed

Whenever he can he squeezes in a quick hug or kiss

“Just one more kiss I promise, please”

“You can’t leave me without a hug”

Even when you’re five feet away he misses you since he can’t just walk up and kiss you when he liked

This meant your private time was savoured by Aegon

As time went on you began to take more risks

Shared conversations turned to cuddling in his bed and playing with his hair

One night you both accidentally fell asleep and didn’t realise till the next morning

“Shit! Aegon get up its morning fuck,”

“Hey it’s okay- “

“What if someone finds me- “

Hearing the door begin to unlatch and quickly flinging yourself under the bed just before Alicent gets in

She knows something is up by her sons lack of whoring but doesn’t want to ruin a good thing

Speaking of whoring yous actually didn’t get physical for quite some time to start but once you did it was fucking like bunnies

The sex was very different than any of his silk streets adventures however and it only deepened his trust in you

It also meant Aegon would insist you sleep over whenever you could so he could cuddle into you when it was done

He loves getting cuddles in whenever he can

He would tell you of the dates he would take you on if everything was different

He also seriously considers getting on the back of Sunfyre and flying away with you

One day while you and Aegon are cuddled asleep in bed Alicent walks in and sees but she decides its better this way seeing the positive change in Aegon

Little does she know you were now actually hatching a plan to run away together with Aegon

When his father dies, he quickly goes to you, and you catch the next ship leaving the dock with a bag you’ve both had packed for weeks

You both sail for Dragonstone where he tells Rhaenyra of their fathers’ deaths which Alicent had kept a secret until they could crown Aegon

Unfortunately for her Aegon decided to swear fidelity on one condition; she give you a title and official court position

She does

It takes less than a few hours for Aegon to make all the necessary preparation for you to be married on Dragonstone

I suppose the relationship didn’t stay secret for very long

Taglist: @clairacassidy

#aegon headcanons #prince aegon #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen imagine #aegon targaryen headcannons #house of the dragon headcannons #house of the dragon imagine #house of the dragon #hotd #hotd headcanon #hotd imagine #hotd x reader

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honeybeezgobzzzzz · 10 months

Text

☠️ Something Dread, Something Red: Chapter Three

Something Dread, Something Red: Stuck in a proposal to a Marine Commodore, you escape minutes before your wedding in one last ditch effort to avoid getting married to a tyrant. Barely making it to the port of your town, you stumble across a ship just starting to leave and beg for passage off the island. You fail to notice that the people you beg for help, are pirates.

Warnings: Domestic Violence.

To Note: “Red Haired” Shanks x FemReader

Word Count: ~2.8k

Previous | Masterlist | Next

5 Years Prior

The lilac dress you wear flows around your carefully crafted body in effortless waves. It is made from a chiffon fabric you begged your mother for nearly six months to have. Your usual attire consists of heavy satin and lace, and for your eighteenth birthday, you just want to feel happy and light for once. It takes much convincing, but eventually, your mother caves. She needs you to be happy and is willing to give you this one thing. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t gone all out on your chiffon lavender dress.

The color matches your hair perfectly, the stitching is made from the best silver thread Berry can buy, and the ribbon wrapping your waist comes from a silk farm known to be the best in all the Blues. You think it is too much for just a simple birthday, but your mother does what she wants. Events like this give you time to yourself because she is far too busy to monitor your every move.

So you are currently sneaking off to the library to get some reading time in. Your mother always berates you for your habit of keeping your nose in a book, telling you that ladies don’t read, they play music and host tea parties and other social events. While you have been trained in such things, you don’t find the same pleasure in them as you do with reading. There is something about hosting tea parties and socials with the older noble population whom you are not friends with. You don’t have any friends because your mother doesn’t allow you any.

“So controlling,” you mutter to yourself, pushing the door to the great Bonn family library. There is every kind of book you could want in this library; your father is a collector of sorts. With his connections in the merchant guild, he often makes trade deals involving rare books and encyclopedias. Venturing to the nearest aisle, you run your fingers over leather-bound book spines. “What should I read this time? It is my birthday, so maybe something special…”

You further wander, heading in the direction of the books your mother disapproves of you reading. It is mostly books on sea navigation, sailing, and shipbuilding. All information your mother deems irrelevant in your education. Reaching a section that holds a multitude of maps your father is fond of reviewing to find more ports to add to the Bonn empire, you pick up a few scrolls and curiously look at them.

One of the maps is of the Gecko Islands; Syrup Village is circled, and the familiar scrawls of your father’s handwriting dot the area around it. From the brief glances you have gotten of documents and the conversations you’ve overheard, Syrup Village is where all the ships in the Bonn Chestnut Trade Company come from. The ships are well-built and last through the weather of every Blue they cross. Abandoning the maps, you pick up a random book and open it. You are greeted with words and depictions of the construction of a lace factory. You close that book, making a face, and return it to its place on the shelf.

“Rather not,” you comment, moving on in hopes of a more interesting book to read. A few more minutes of wandering and you find a book that certainly piques your interest. It is a book on the politics of the marines, and more specifically, pirates. Your eyebrows rise in interest, and you pluck it from the shelf.

You’ve never really been informed about pirates; your mother calls them scum, and your father claims they are bad for business and nothing but conniving scoundrels. So you grow up knowing next to nothing about pirates. Walking towards the sitting area within the library, you open the book to a random page which holds a long list of pirates the marines are keeping track of at the time of the print. The main name that stands out, and that is at the top of the list, is Gol D. Roger. But the little symbol next to his name is clearly a mark of death.

“He certainly appears to be important,” you murmur to yourself, looking further down the list of names. You don’t recognize any of them, not that you are well-informed, but still, your mother gets the paper every morning and tuts over the news. You occasionally pick up the same names repeated over and over throughout the years. Pausing in step, you turn the page and just catch the words ‘Warlords’ and ‘Emperors,’ when footsteps have you on high alert. You snap the book shut and hold it behind you as your father appears, a parchment in hand. He pauses in step upon seeing you.

“Linaria, your mother is looking for you,” he speaks before eyeing the hands you hold behind your back. The book now seems like it is made of lead. “Can I presume that the book you are hiding is not one your mother would approve of?”

“It’s just a book,” you argue, arms dropping to your sides. “How exactly is that dangerous to me?”

“Your mother’s decision is your mother’s decision, Linaria,” your father says, not questioning his wife’s authority when it comes to your upbringing. “Hand it over, your mother is expecting you in the tea room.” With a grudging sigh, you do as he asks and head for the exit. Your mother is waiting for you in the tea room? Last you knew, there weren’t any events on this day that involved the tea room. Perhaps she has added an extra item to the agenda. At least you could have your favorite tea since it is your birthday.

Walking swiftly towards the tea parlor, you breeze by several maids and butlers who curtsey and bow to you as you pass. Before entering the tea parlor, you pause to collect yourself. Then, taking a deep breath and straightening your posture, you enter the room. Your mother is sitting on one of the couches, teacup in hand.

“Father said you were looking for me, Mother?” you softly speak, for ladies never raise their voices. She doesn’t turn her head to look at you.

“We have a guest, Linaria.” A guest? Your eyes follow your mother’s gaze to see a marine sitting on the couch opposite her. What is a marine doing at the manor? And one so high-ranking! “Greet our guest,” your mother hisses to you. You clear your throat and turn to the marine.

“Forgive me for not doing so earlier, I am Linaria. Welcome to the manor,” you greet like the perfect daughter your mother wants you to be.

“Thomas Collins, my fair lady, Commodore of the Marines on Kuri Island.” The man, Thomas, answers. “May I offer you a happy birthday? Your mother has sung praises of you and is very excited about this cornerstone in your life.” Your mother is telling praises of you? A shocking thought as she has been nothing but critical of you as of late, but this isn’t a time you can question her motives. Thomas rises from his seat and strides over to you, his figure towering over your small frame.

“Oh, thank you, I am very excited to see where my life takes me,” you tell him, your fingers coming together in front of you and winding together in a nervous habit.

“It would be rude of me to drop by without a gift for such a lovely young woman, and I took it upon myself to prepare something I thought would be fitting for a woman as beautiful as you.” Thomas continues, reaching into his coat and pulling out a slim box.

“Oh, sir, you didn’t need to prepare such a thing,” you say, almost stuttering over your words in surprise. You can feel your mother’s eyes glaring daggers into you for even thinking of refusing such a thing. Nonetheless, you take the slim box from his gloved fingers.

“You are to be the next Lady of the Bonn Chestnut Trade Company; I think you are deserving of your first piece of jewelry.” You open the box to reveal a delicate bracelet with flowers and gems that sparkle. It really is a lovely piece if the flowers hadn’t been roses. You force your face into one of happiness and thank him.

“It is absolutely beautiful; thank you for picking such a wondrous piece,” you reply in faux happiness, fluttering your eyelashes and plastering a smile you’ve perfected over the years. He looks pleased, very pleased by your reaction, and gestures toward the bracelet.

“May I?” he presses, and you, of course, relent, allowing the strange Commodore to carefully wrap the beautiful bracelet around your wrist. Not much is said after that, as Thomas indicates that he has to return to duty and bids his farewell. You don’t dare speak until you are sure that he is long gone.

“Mother, who was that, and why was he here?” you question, turning to your mother still sipping tea. She sighs and lowers the tea to the table in front of her before rising from her seat. Striding over to you, her cold eyes scan you.

“That was Commodore Thomas Collins; he is in charge of the marine base on Kuri Island and the surrounding archipelago.” She informs you, mouth pressed in a tight line. “And you are to be his bride.”

“Bride,” you repeat incredulously, thinking for a moment that you have misheard her. “Mother, what are you speaking of? I do not remember him proposing to me!”

“Of course not, you silly girl, it is an arranged marriage to ensure the success and power of our family and business.” Your jaw nearly drops open.

“You can’t just make decisions about my life like that,” you exclaim, your voice raised and eyes flashing in anger. “I’m not going to marry a man I don’t know and certainly not because you tell me to!”

Your head whips to the side, and you take a stumbling step backward before you even know what happens. Raising a hand to your stinging cheek, you let out a gasp at the sharp pain radiating across your face. You look at your mother, eyes filled with hurt and anger. She points her finger at you.

“You are to do exactly as I tell you, Linaria.” Your mother growls to you, seizing your chin and forcing you to look into her cold eyes. “And that means you will marry.”

Present Day

Sitting on one of the stacked crates, you stare at the little bracelet hanging from your wrist while feeling sick just looking at it. Your other hand reaches for the delicate chain, and you harshly pull on what feels like a shackle until it snaps. Then you throw it as hard as you can over the side of the ship you escaped Kuri Island on. Your wrist hurts from the metal digging into your skin, but at the same time, you feel like a huge weight has been lifted from your shoulders.

The ship gently rocks as it sails, but you find the sway almost comforting while you hold yourself and look out across the water. This is the farthest you’ve ever been from your home, and the salt air is an entirely new experience. Turning your head away from the pristine waters, you find several of the men staring at you. Right, you begged your way onto this ship; you might as well compensate them for the trouble. So you reach back and undo the clasp to your necklace and hold it out.

“Compensation,” you speak, offering the glimmering jewelry piece to them. “It’s worth a lot of Berry, that I know.”

“We don’t want your jewelry, madam,” the red-haired captain, the one who’d effortlessly tossed you over his shoulder and carried you away, speaks. You are pretty sure the others have been calling him Shanks. “But we would like to know what had you fleeing from your own wedding.”

“It was arranged,” you answer, chewing on your lip and twisting your hands together. “I didn’t get a say in it; Mother organized the whole thing to ensure the family business would remain successful and in power.”

“You must be a Bonn then,” Shanks comments, thinking over who has the most power on Kuri Island. The Bonn’s. “Who did she want you to marry?”

“The Commodore.” Several of the pirates let out whistles and shake their heads.

“Don’t blame ya’ for runnin’,” one even comments. “That is one crooked marine.” You rub your tired eyes and sigh.

“I do not wish for you to get wrapped up in my personal business. You can drop me off at the next island. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

“You are hardly a burden,” Shanks corrects you, eyes scanning your figure more thoroughly now that you aren’t trembling violently from fear. It is clear that you’ve been running for a while when you approach him, but now he can see little nicks and cuts on your skin and smell the metallic tang of blood clinging to your body. “I think you’ve had a long day; you could do for some rest.”

“It’s not even half-past ten.” His eyebrow rises at you, and he nods his chin.

“And you might look the picture of perfection, but even I can tell that you are exhausted. We shall talk more of this tonight; in the meantime, you should get some rest and get out of that dress. It’s very…” Shanks struggles to come up with a word to describe someone as beautiful as you, yet so out of place.

“Ostentatious?” you offer lightly. “You should have seen me with the train. My mother tried to drown me in lace.” Your light jab at your own outfit brings out a couple of chuckles, and the men are glad to see the brief smile upon your face. It is much preferred to your distress.

Shanks has directed you to his own room, for it is the best furnished for a lady such as yourself, and you can have privacy there. After changing out of your dress, you can get some much-needed sleep, and then finally the full picture of the woman he’d helped can be rendered. So as you clutch your arms to your chest and look around the cabin in curiosity, Shanks digs through a chest of spare clothing to find something your size.

You know he is the captain, but he doesn’t stand up to the stereotype you had pictured in your head about what a captain is supposed to be like. The space is sparsely furnished but homely. Maps, artworks, and a few weapons you have never seen before dot the walls, and the quilt thrown over the hanging bed in the corner looks handmade and well-used. For some reason, the sight of a threadbare and well-used homemade quilt comforts you.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much but spare tunics and pants,” Shanks speaks, taking the clothes from his trunk and turning around. He pauses in place, staring at the dirt-riddled and crusty wound on your shoulder. He’d been so shocked by your appearance and beauty he’d overlooked something so critical. “We need to take care of that.”

“Take care of what?” you question, half turning in place with a quizzical look on your face. Shanks sets the clothes on a nearby table and nods to your shoulder.

“You have quite the nasty wound on your shoulder, madam,” Shanks speaks while inspecting torn skin littered with dirt, rocks, and grass. “You must have been running on adrenaline to not be feeling this.”

“I was in a hurry,” you meekly speak, trying not to shiver as soft and gentle fingers prod broken skin.

“I can imagine,” he replies, brows scrunching together. “I don’t think you need stitches; it’s not too deep. But you are going to need it cleaned before it gets infected.”

“Very well,” you sigh. “Thank you for informing me. I will take care of that.” Shanks can’t help but snort at your words.

“And how do you plan on tending to it yourself?” The scathing look you shoot over your shoulder makes Shanks’ smile widen, for he doubts you even realize you are giving him such a look.

“I am already intruding as it were,” you snip out, crossing your arms.

“And you are my guest,” Shanks enunciates. “As long as you are on my ship, you shall be treated as such. Now please, take a seat; this won’t take long.”

You really don’t want to, for you already feel like you are intruding enough just by asking for passage off Kuri Island… but his gentle eyes are insistent. But not in a bad way. So your protest dies down on your tongue, and you do as he so gently asks.

Date Published: 11/19/23

Last Edit: 7/29/24

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#one piece shanks #one piece #opla #opla shanks #shanks x y/n #shanks x reader #red haired shanks #shanks x you

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ltwilliammowett · 10 months

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The East India Company ships

The East and West India Company ships were not ship types in the usual sense. They were generic terms for a series of merchant ship types that travelled between Europe and the overseas colonies in the East and West. Common features of these ships were three masts, several cannons and a high bulwark to make it more difficult for attackers to board them. Their valuable cargo made the ships attractive targets, so they often travelled in convoys, accompanied by medium-armed merchant ships or frigates for protection. But let's go into more detail.

The East Indiaman 'Earl of Abergavenny', off Southsea, by Thomas Luny 1801

The ships of the East India Company were the ships of the English East India Company, a public limited company (shipowners at the early time of the East India Company contributed their ships to the company and received a certain share in the company in return. They received a proportionate share of the company's overall profits and received a dividend even if their own ship was lost, since the 18th century the company build their own ones as well.) which traded with Asia from 1600 to 1834. The company had a monopoly on trade with the East Indies, China and other regions, and its ships carried goods such as spices, tea, silk, cotton, porcelain and opium. The company also played an important role in the colonisation and administration of India and other territories.

East India Company ships at Deptford, by English School, c. 1660

The ships of the East India Company were known as East Indiamen or as Indiamen and were among the largest and most modern of their time. They were designed to withstand long voyages, carry heavy cargoes and defend themselves against pirates and enemy ships. They were also equipped with cannons and muskets and had a crew of sailors, soldiers, officers and passengers. Because of the need to carry heavy cannons, the hull of the East Indiamen - like most warships of the time - was much wider at the waterline than on the upper deck, so the guns on the upper deck were closer to the centreline to increase stability. This is known as a tumblehome. The ships usually had two complete decks for accommodation within the hull and a raised aft deck. The aft deck and the deck below were lit by galleries with square windows at the stern. To support the weight of the galleries, the hull lines were full towards the stern. As mentioned above, the ships were armed and painted to look like a warship and an attacker could not be sure if the embrasures were real or just painted, and some Indiamen carried a substantial armament.

Two views of an East Indiaman of the time of King William III, by Issac Sailmaker, 1685

The Royal Navy acquired several East Indiamen during the Napoleonic Wars and made them fourth rate ships (e.g. HMS Weymouth and HMS Madras), perpetuating the confusion of military ships with merchant vessels as prizes. In some cases, the East Indiamen successfully fended off attacks by the French. One of the most famous incidents occurred in 1804 when a fleet of East India ships and other merchant vessels under Commodore Nathaniel Dance successfully fought off a squadron commanded by Admiral Linois at the Battle of Pulo Aura in the Indian Ocean. And during this time, some of the ships were even travelling under the protection of a Letter of Marque, which allowed them to make their own prizes.

The East Indiaman 'Prince of Wales' disembarking troops off Gravesend, 1845, by John Lynn, 1845 or later - She was built by Green's of Blackwall in 1842 to a design known as that of the "Blackwall Frigates" - Indiamen with the single-decked appearance of frigates.

The ships of the India Companies were not only involved in trade, but also in exploration, diplomacy, warfare and scientific research. They visited many harbours and islands, built factories and forts, fought in battles and wars, negotiated treaties and alliances and collected samples and data. With the advent of the smaller and faster Blackwall Frigates in 1834 came the end of the great Indiamen as these small frigates sailed much faster.

#naval history #east and west india company #ships #1600-1834 #blackwall frigate #age of sail #merchant vessels

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monstersandmaw · 1 year

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Laces for a Lady - 18th century poly shifter romance (Part one, sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Well folks, here it is. You said you were interested, so I hope it meets expectations! Here's part one for you, of a multi part story. If you want to kno wmore about it, you can find some more info here, as well as a little 'mood board'.

Content: sfw, the daughter of a country gentleman from Sussex relocates to a sleepy fishing village in Cornwall in order to become the paid companion of a young widow, and meets some of the locals on her arrival. Wordcount: 3972

Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark - Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk. Laces for a lady; letters for a spy, Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by! ~ from ‘A Smugglers’ Song’, Rudyard Kipling (1906)

In the cool, lavender light of a late spring dawn, a gaff-rigged cutter drew into the sheltering arms of a small bay at high tide, and quietly dropped anchor. As if the soft splash had awoken him, a cockerel spluttered to life in a farmyard somewhere inland, but most of the villagers were already up and awake and steering their small, secret fleet of boats out from the golden crescent of sand beneath the cliffs to meet the waiting ship fresh from Roscoff.

Beneath the waves, where churning kelp moored itself in unyielding handfuls to the ancient granite of the sea floor, a long, serpentine shadow snaked between the stalks, and the currents of the coastline subtly shifted. Any revenue men trying to sail along the coast from Fowey to catch the smugglers would have found the wind and tide set dead against them, and in the subtle wake that wafted from the mottled, eel-like tail as it passed unseen, the waters of the secluded inlet calmed beneath the keels of the scurrying fishing boats. The drag of the oars through the waves lessened, and muscles already tired from heaving and hefting goods up the cliff moved a fraction easier for the unexpected boon.

Between them over the next hour, the gathered men and women shifted their haul of half anker barrels and dozens of crates and boxes of goods ashore. The small kegs of rich, French cognac would fetch a pretty price all across Cornwall, and along with the liquor came smaller luxuries like lace and silk, and bundles of tobacco and spiced tea, all meticulously wrapped in oil cloth to keep the sea and the salt and the water out.

And when the speedy, slender ship was riding noticeably higher in the water, the locals simply melted away into the countryside like so many mice from a late summer granary before the excise men even knew the ship from Guernsey had visited the cove at all.

Fifteen miles away, as the sun breached the horizon and cast its first rays of warmth along bellies of fleecy clouds and the flanks of blossoming hedgerows below, a stagecoach lurched and rumbled westwards along potholed roads, and a young woman stared out of the grimy window as the horses carried her into a new chapter of her life.

After leapfrogging some two hundred miles or so along the staging stations that dotted the South Coast, with nothing but a small trunk of her belongings and a thrice-read, dog-eared novel for company, Eleanor Bywater was more than ready to see the back of that infernal stagecoach. Had it not been for the small but inconveniently bulky travelling case sitting at her feet, she might have hired a horse and ridden from the last staging inn at Plymouth to reach the secluded fishing village of Polgarrack, but given that the trunk held all her worldly belongings, she had not been quite desperate enough to escape the discomfort of hard seats and poor suspension to abandon it.

Bouncing along in the nearly-empty stagecoach, she studiously tried to ignore the older woman sitting opposite her. She’d stared intently at Nel since they'd left Plymouth behind that morning, and her scrutiny had begun to make that last twenty mile stretch feel much, much longer.

Finally, after jouncing over a pothole deep enough to start prospecting for copper ore at the bottom, Nel gasped and then raised her eyes to meet the woman’s openly curious stare. She found sympathy for her own discomfort, and a small degree of kindly amusement too.

“Where are you headed, miss?” the stranger asked after Nel raised the hint of an eyebrow at her as the silence stretched.

“Polgarrack.”

At that, the woman’s grey eyes narrowed in confusion. “Now what takes a young miss like you to an old fishing village like Polgarrack?”

She looked to be in her fifties, though a life beside the harsh sea had weathered her features somewhat, and her wiry grey hair was covered by a simple linen cap. Her dress was dark and plain, though there was a hint of tired lace around the neck and cuffs. Her hands had the tough, reddened look of someone who scrubbed pots and salted fish, while Nel’s own hands were smooth and soft, if a little ink stained from sending a letter to her friend before leaving the inn that morning.

Nel laughed quietly and shrugged. “There’s no mystery to it,” she said. “I am to be employed as a companion to the widowed Lady Penrose at Heath Top House. I am expected there this afternoon.”

Given that only ladies of relatively high social standing themselves tended to become a ‘lady’s companion’, the older woman made a hasty re-evaluation of her fellow traveller, and her already ruddy cheeks flushed a darker shade as she cleared her throat and looked away.

“Begging your pardon, miss,” she said. “We don’t get many new faces in Polgarrack, is all. I didn’t mean to pry or cause offence with my questions.”

“No harm in a little curiosity,” Nel said, trying to put the stranger at ease to avoid any further awkwardness between them on the remainder of their journey. “I take it you’re from Polgarrack yourself then?”

“Oh, born and raised, miss,” she chortled. She eyed the forest green redingote Nel wore, with its rather masculine high collar, wide lapels and small, gold pocket watch dangling on a chain, and the contrasting sage green skirts beneath, and no doubt made one or two judgements of her own about the young lady. “And yourself? You don’t sound as though you’re from these parts at all, if I may be so bold.”

Nel smiled. “I’ve come from Sussex.”

The woman’s watery, grey-blue eyes widened almost comically and she gasped. “’at's a bloody long way, miss! And all on your own?” She shook her head but remembered herself and mumbled, “Begging your pardon.”

“You’re right,” Nel sighed, letting her gaze slide to the window to watch the countryside roll past in a blur of salt-bleached grass and vibrant yellow gorse flowers. “It is a bloody long way.” And her spine and backside felt every lump and bump and lurch of the stagecoaches from Sussex to Cornwall. With a warmer smile, she turned back to the woman. “My name is Eleanor, but most people call me Nel.”

“Agatha,” she replied with a grandmotherly smile of her own for the young woman. “But everyone calls me Aggie. My husband, Martin, is the village carter and smith, and we’ve got four boys, all of them either fishermen or miners. They all married too, so I’ve got nine grandchildren, if you can believe it!”

Nel offered Aggie her congratulations and another little smile, and then ventured to ask, “Will you tell me a bit about the place? I should like to know more about it, since it is to be my home for the foreseeable future.”

Aggie brightened even more and shuffled her plain, dark skirts, giving a wince and a grunt as the coach lurched over a pothole and the driver cursed audibly above them. Settled, if not entirely comfortable, she began.

“Well, see now. Folks has been fishing these waters for time out of mind. Pilchards is our mainstay, o’course, but the folks over St. Austell way mine clay, and obviously there’s copper and tin mines all over in the north of Cornwall. Mining here is as old as fishing, but it’s starting to dry up here and there now, o’course.”

She barely paused to draw breath before barrelling on, and Nel sat and listened while the older woman talked.

“Now, your Lady Penrose married into the Penrose family — see, she’s from Bath herself originally, though I can’t rightly remember what her family name was, but…” Nel let Agatha's potted history of the fishing and mining community wash over her, paying just enough attention to make polite sounds at the right pauses, but the discomfort of the journey and a decided lack of sleep was beginning to wear her attention span down to a single, fraying thread.

After two hours in the swaying, rolling coach, she felt woozy and weak-stomached, but with Aggie’s near-constant chatter, she at least had a better understanding of the politics of the little village than she’d ever have gained in six months on her own. She’d also learned why Aggie had been in Plymouth, since most folks never had any reason to travel further than the bounds of their own parish. Agatha’s sister’s husband had apparently been killed in the American Revolutionary War some ten years earlier, and since the widow’s health wasn’t the best these days, Aggie made the trip along the coast when she could to see her and take care of her.

Nel’s ticket took her as far as Whitcross, a desolate intersection of paler roads on a clifftop overlooking the tightly-nestled fishing port below, and away across the heather and tufted grass of the heath, she could just see an old manor house in the distance, flanked by tall copper beeches and ash trees. It looked slightly further away than she had anticipated, and she glanced apprehensively down at the travelling trunk at her feet.

Still, she was aching for fresh air and to be free of the sickening motion of the carriage, so she took the driver’s hand and allowed him to guide her safely down onto the hard-packed surface of the road before he lifted her case down for her as well.

From inside, Aggie peered out and scowled disapprovingly. “Now just you wait a moment,” she barked at the driver, who cocked an eyebrow but did pause. “Did they not send someone for you, dearie?” she asked Nel, still leaning out of the doorway and peering about like a disgruntled badger, and using the endearment freely. Apparently, two hours of talking non-stop at Nel had removed any pretence of formality or sense of social distance. Nel might as well have been adopted into Aggie Carter’s family as a niece by that point, and she couldn’t help but smile at the warmth it conjured in her chest.

“I… I never thought that far through,” she admitted, with her hand atop her bonnet as the wind gusted up from the sea below, soaring delightedly over the edge of the cliff and racing on inland as if to continue the momentum of the great rolling breakers that foamed and thundered against the shore. The coachman glanced at his pocket watch and groused something about a schedule that was almost immediately lost to the next inward gust.

“No, no, dearie,” the old woman scoffed. “No, you must come into the village. It’s far too far to go all by yourself, and with that case as well. Here, let me —”

“I can manage the case, I assure you,” Nel said with a gentle smile as Aggie half-toppled, half-leaned out of the coach to pick up the case. “How far is it to the house?”

“Two miles up that hill yonder,” Agatha said, pointing with one gnarled and arthritic finger towards the house on the rise to the north. “Come to the Lantern, and we’ll have one of the lads take you up once you’ve caught your breath.” The Lantern, as Nel now knew thanks to Aggie’s detailed prattling, was the inn at the centre of the village, right on the water near the harbour.

She had been about to protest, but with a sigh, she simply nodded. The constant journeying and jolting had worn her down more than she cared to admit, and while she wasn’t the kind of wallflower she’d met any number of times in London during the Season, a life led mostly indoors with few opportunities for physical activity had not prepared her for a two mile walk in heavy, too-fine clothes, carrying an unwieldy case in gusty conditions. Her family had been invited a number of times to Goodwood House to walk the large park there, and she had frequently ridden a rather spirited mare through the parkland of Lavington Hall with her dear friend William, so she was not entirely unused to the great outdoors, but she did have to admit that her experiences had been rather more curated and sanitised than the wild expanse of heathland visible on all sides of the stagecoach from Whitcross.

“You’re kind, Agatha,” she said, and let the woman heft her case into the otherwise empty coach.

The thing about a tiny village was that an outsider stood out a mile, and a young lady in her mid twenties and dressed in impractical, rich green clothes, stood out like a beacon in a dark night. Everyone turned to watch her as she disembarked from the coach. At home, she had barely garnered a look from anyone. Being the centre of everyone’s curiosity there was novel and, in a word, horrifying.

She almost blurted aloud that one would think she was a revenue man come inspecting for smuggled goods, but she bit it back just in time. Cornwall’s so-called ‘free trade’ and smuggling rackets were absolutely none of her concern as an outsider, infamous though they may be, and it would do her no good to start sticking her nose where it did not belong.

The Lantern was a half-timbered, two-storey building that faced the walled harbour. Its painted sign was peeling and sun-bleached, and it squawked something dreadful as it swung back and forth in the squalling wind. Mullioned windows glinted and shimmered, though the small, diamond panes were caked with a haze of salt spray, and alongside the inn, a hand-cart rumbled down from a narrow side alley towards the harbour beyond, where fishing boats bobbed on their mooring lines at the lapping high tide.

Agatha pushed open the black-painted door but came to an abrupt halt as someone appeared to be leaving the inn at the exact same moment, and nearly barrelled into her and Nel.

“Oh, excuse me,” came a young man’s hoarse tenor, and he stepped aside within the inn’s small porch to allow the two women to enter before he left.

Nel noted briefly that he wore well-made but plain clothes, and carried a hefty looking cane in his left hand, upon which he leaned while he waited for them to pass. He was pale and thin, his undyed linen shirt hanging loosely off his shoulders, and his light brown hair was tied back at the nape of his neck into a horsetail. The moment he met her eye, he inhaled in surprise and almost immediately looked away, his large, dark brown eyes turning shy and uncertain. “M’lady,” he mumbled without looking up.

She didn’t have time to correct him and tell him she had no such title, because the moment she had stepped inside, he was off out into the day beyond, limping markedly on his right leg as he went.

Nel turned back to find Agatha waiting for her, watching. “That there was young Edmund Nancarrow,” she supplied as Nel caught up with her. “Local lad. Lots of Nancarrows in this area,” she chuckled. “Can’t move for tripping over a Nancarrow. He was a shy, skittish thing even before he went off to war in the Colonies and came back with a bad leg,” she added. “But he’s a sweetheart if ever I saw one. Tailor’s ’prentice he is now.”

At that, Nel just nodded. Something in her ached when she realised she probably wouldn’t have much to do with the folk from the village once she was ensconced up at Heath Top House, and she half wised she could. They already sounded far more interesting than the Lady Winnifred Penrose, with whom Nel had only exchanged a short flurry of letters before becoming formally engaged as her ‘companion’.

Still, an unmarried woman of Nel’s age and social standing was considered almost past her prime, and given that the few marriage proposals she had received had faded into the mists of her very early adulthood, she had had to find another respectable way to support herself. Hence, Heath Top House.

Aggie bustled her into the main room of the pub, and their arrival caused a flurry of activity that drew the eyes of a good few patrons.

Seated at the wooden bar inside, hunched over a pewter tankard, sat a tall, bulky man in his late-thirties or early forties, with long, thick, dark grey hair shot through with a shimmer of silver white. He had it tied back off his face in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck and as he turned to regard Nel’s arrival, she met unusually deep green eyes surrounded by a web of crows’ feet lines in a tanned, weathered face. His scowl was dark and full of suspicion, but even the storm clouds in his expression couldn’t mask the fact that he was handsome, in a rugged, rough-hewn kind of way.

When she saw where Nel’s attention had snagged, Aggie let out a little gasp and snatched her by the upper arm to steer her towards an empty table in a bay window, about as far from the wooden bar where the man still sat and glared at them as it was possible to be.

“And that’s Locryn Trevethan,” Aggie hissed as she saw Nel settled into a seat. “Can’t say as I’ve seen him in here more than a handful of times this year though. He’s usually out on the water. Lives alone in an old stone cottage round the bay from here, up at Pilchard Sands. You’d probably best be giving him a wide berth, miss. Not that he should give you any trouble, mind,” she amended carefully, “But he’s not for the likes of you to go mingling with.”

Nel smiled at the protective tone in the older woman’s voice, and nodded once.

With her warning given, Aggie raised her voice and called over to the old man behind the bar. “’ere, Tom! This young lady needs a ride up to Heath Top. You think you can arrange that for her?”

The stoop-shouldered, white-haired man nodded and knuckled his forehead at Nel across the space. “Not the finest, but we got a cart.”

“If you have a horse, I could ride,” she said, trying to be helpful.

“Ain’t got a saddle for a lady,” he said regretfully.

Memories of galloping through the leafy trees of Lavington Hall’s parkland with William flashed across her mind and she suppressed a smile. She certainly hadn’t ridden the grey mare side-saddle while keeping up with her childhood friend, and although it had been a year or so since she’d sat astride a horse instead of side-saddle, she thought she could manage well enough. “I know how to ride a man’s saddle,” she said, “But I do have a travel case I’d need to send someone back for.”

“I could get one of the lads to bring that up for you after,” said Tom, “But it’s almost as much effort to hitch up a cart as it is to tack up a horse for riding, ma’am.”

“Whatever is the least trouble for you will do fine,” she said, and the stoic, weather-beaten old man’s red cheeks darkened and he ducked his head.

While Tom left to sort out transportation to the house, Aggie flapped about getting some refreshments for Nel, leaving her to wait at the table alone.

In the wake of the hubbub and pother Agatha left behind her, Nel took a long, deep breath looked around to find Locryn Trevethan still staring across the room at her. Taken aback by his directness and the intensity of his glare, she tried to smile, but his expression remained thunderous beneath strong, dark brows, and she quickly looked away, embarrassed.

In a face turned to leather by the sun and sea-wind, wide cheekbones and a heavy brow framed his piercingly green eyes. Never mind that marked crow’s feet around his eyes that made him look like he would rather have been laughing; the contrast between the dark, hostile glower and the soft laughter lines unnerved her and made her feel off-balance, as though her stranger’s presence in their local pub had unknowingly raised the ire of a usually gentle man.

He had a short, neatly-trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard around full lips that were currently turned down at the corners and which bore a silver-pink scar across the middle. Despite the warm day, he wore a fisherman’s dense, woollen sweater, and when she risked another look back at him, she found him still frowning openly across the bar at her.

Nel didn’t relax until Aggie returned, at which point the man snapped abruptly out of his trance, slammed a coin down on the bar, and strode from the pub on long legs that were thick as tree trucks at the thigh. The door bounced back off the plasterwork in his wake and his boots rang on the flagstones outside.

“Not one to welcome strangers, I take it,” Nel muttered, and downed half of the cheap, watered-down wine that Agatha had set on the table for her.

“Oh don’t you pay him no mind, miss,” Aggie scoffed, settling herself down into the seat opposite her like a brooding hen and glaring at the pub door. “He don’t seem to like no one in Polgarrack save for sweet Ned Nancarrow, strangely enough. Then again, I ain’t met no one who’s taken a disliking to sweet Ned. Now, Tom will have the horse and cart ready for you in just a moment, but you just take your time and recover after your journey.”

Nel, who had felt ten times better the moment she’d taken her first proper lungful of sea air on stepping out of the swaying stagecoach, looked across the table into the older woman’s face and found a mother’s kindness and compassion in her wrinkled face, and something twisted in her gut. “You’re very kind,” she whispered, unable to muster anything more. “Thank you.”

She chuckled. “You know, and don’t you take this amiss, but you remind me of my niece a little, though she’s a little younger than you.”

Nel’s eyebrows twitched in wry amusement, and Agatha blushed at the impropriety of her words. Nel didn’t get the chance to reassure her because Tom shuffled back in and told her the cart was ready for her.

She laid a coin on the table for the wine and stood, following the innkeep out into the yard and clambering up with her case into the back of the cart. It was hardly a very dignified mode of transport for someone of her station, and when Tom said as much while they rumbled out of the inn’s yard, Nel just laughed and said she didn’t mind.

“Anything is better than that awful rolling stagecoach,” she beamed, and swung her legs back and forth like a child off the back of the cart bed while Tom clucked his tongue at the horse to hurry up.

As they trundled up the narrow, cobbled street from the harbour, they passed Edmund Nancarrow standing outside a tailor’s shop, talking with the beast of a man from the bar. Both men looked up and watched her pass like she was some kind of rare spectacle.

In a way, she supposed she was.

Still, she smiled at them despite her nerves, and Edmund knuckled a non-existent cap at her with a shy smile, while Locryn just glared.

She sighed and wondered what this next chapter in her life would bring.

___

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themotherofblood · 2 years

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Dark!Daemyra x daughter!eeader but it’s their actual biological daughter (meaning rhaenyras the mom).

Remember in episode 4 when everyone thought that rhaenyra had her virtue taken by daemon? What if they actually had a kid?

Gosh I kinda made this a little too angsty so bare with me. I’m just really bad at writing to the point, I wanted to add some context to the smut hehe. So I hereby present

Dark!Daemyra x Daughter!reader

tw: incest, infantilism, cheating…(kinda?) murder, talks of more incest babies and kinda non con-ish? jason lannister (🤢) smut! oral, missionary kinda courrpution vibes. Threesome

7.8k words

A mistake, a grave mistake.

Not you, the one that had brightened Rhaenyra’s world with your little laugh, the one that had her hair and her uncle’s charisma - but the deed done to conceive you had been the most terrible of errors.

By right, you were Rhaenyra’s first-born child and heir; however, given the time of conception and the beautiful (pale, too pale) features you had been born with, it was obvious that you were not the offspring of Laenor Velaryon, but of her brutish uncle Daemon Targaryen. What remained were the rumours of Rhaenyra and Daemon coupling at a notorious brothel on the Street of Silk. Bastardy or the Iron Throne, that remained the question of your birthright to many. Your conception was a greater source of whispers and slander than that of your brown-haired ‘Strong’ brothers.

You weren’t raised in the Red Keep; with the brunt of the court upon your muña’s shoulders, she’d hoped to keep you shielded away from the cruel gossip that surrounded you even at the mere age of five. You hadn’t even set eyes upon her for years, making do with the letters that detailed how much she missed you and a chest full of trinkets and dolls to share with the young daughters of the vassal lords sworn to Dragonstone.

Daemon Targaryen, on the other hand was truly banished after word of his murdering his first wife Rhea Royce reached his brother’s - your grandsire’s - ears. While there was no formal accusation nor trial, Viserys was simply at his wit's end with the reckless goings-on of his younger brother. He had left Westeros even before your mother had realised that the moon tea she had consumed had not worked.

Daemon found his family elsewhere. After slaying a sea lord who was promised the hand of Laena Velaryon, he married her and then fled to Pentos with her and her dragon. The word of a Targaryen bastard being born from the Crown Princess was most certainly to spread like a plague, far enough to reach your kepa’s ears. He wanted to come back the second he heard of you, but his brother denied his request. When you were shipped off to Dragonstone, he wished to fetch you - but this time, his wife refused him, not wishing to raise the love child he had with his niece.

He had begun to send letters of Valyrian poetry, old texts of Valyrian romance and many other trinkets. You had written to him the day you claimed your dragon, which happened in a hilarious accident as you had trailed through the Dragonmont to make friends with a silver dragon, a she-dragon named Silverwing. Though the letter you had written had gone without reply, you had waited for a year and then accepted the dark truth. He had other daughters and another family. By request of the King, you were raised by Septas and the handmaidens at Dragonstone.

At present, you waited by the Painted Table. While one might not have been eager at the sound of people returning from a funeral, you indeed were. Mother had spent four moons at Dragonstone, leaving the Red Keep behind for good until the time arrived for her ascension. These four months had been bliss; you were introduced to your brothers. When you had first departed, Lucerys was still a babe suckling at Rhaenyra’s breast. Now, she returned with another little babe. -Your good-father returned as well, the one knight that could have flung your body high to the skies and caught you right in time. He had engulfed you in an embrace the moment he saw you.

Then came the letter of Laena Velaryon’s passing, and the world shifted under your good-father’s feet. With respect to Laena’s memory and the illegitimacy of your station, the Queen Alicent had advised Rhaenyra to not have you come along with the family. You were accustomed to such treatment; it mattered not. Yet the news of your kepa’s return churned your belly. You had never laid eyes on the man, having seen a mere few portraits hung in the grand galleries at Dragonstone. He looked much like you when he was a babe, and yet the older he grew you imagined him to be the embodiment of the courteous knights you read of in your books.

You had worn your nicest dress, and your preparations had begun with digging through all the letters he had ever sent you, having the chefs prepare his favourite foods and procuring a fat sheep for Caraxes. The household staff all lined themselves up by the halls. It had been years since their Rogue Prince returned home. While many admired the man, others feared him. Regardless of his reputation, there had been respect for his name upon every rock on the island.

Rhaenyra had walked in first with your brothers, her face softening at seeing you looking eagerly at the grand doors. She hugged you, rubbing the side of your arms as she stood behind you. Your sisters… You weren’t sure if they would have taken it well if you called them such. They were introduced first as a knight called out their titles. They bowed first, reminding you that you were a Princess and they only ladies. Then, everything went silent - you heard the thudding of boots before your vision was clouded by the image of shoulder-length silver hair.

Daemon Targaryen stood atop the steps, hands held together in front of him. He commanded the room with just his purple eyes. Your eyes. You were so entranced by his presence you almost forgot to ask about your good-father. He approached you, a princely smile upon his lips, and you failed to keep your lady-like composure.

The first thing that came from his mouth was your name. Your name had never sounded so wondrous as it did at that very moment. He greeted you, and your voice abandoned you as you opened your mouth to return his niceties. You must have looked like a fool, mouth parted as no words came forth. Your mother’s voice snapped you from whatever had possessed you.

“The honour is mine, my Prince,” you said, bowing your head. You wanted nothing more than to call him kepa - but there was so much unsaid. It didn’t seem appropriate to you at the moment.

Another two fortnights passed, and you were still grappling with the thought that both the people that created you now sat with you as you broke fast. Your brothers again ran wild in your chambers and now, you had two little sisters - twins.

One night, your mother came to your room, looking far happier than she usually was as she sat at the edge of your bed. You put your book away on your lap, awaiting whatever it is she wanted to tell you.

“Your kepa and I are to be wed!”

You had helped dress her for the very day. Your legitimacy was now sealed with fire and blood as your parents swore their vows to the Fourteen Flames. You had hand-lit every yellow and red candle along with your siblings, being perhaps the happiest you had been in all your life. Maester Gerardys had perhaps shared your joy, having raised you in these very halls and witnessing your disappointment whenever there had been no letter from Rhaenyra nor Daemon.

Their marriage was beautiful. Both looked far deeper in love than any poet could ever profess in words. There was longing, a sense of time lost between them. Perhaps, in a way - as they looked at you after sealing their union with a kiss - you were their love made flesh and bone, their blood running through your veins. Two ears, ten fingers and toes, and eyes that flared with the same longing Rhaenyra and Daemon had so long had for one another.

Both made concerted efforts between the sheets to reclaim the years lost, and they made efforts with you, offering you the attention you deserved from them. Daemon smiled ear-to-ear as he saw you loving up against his grandmother’s former mount, an elegant creature that matched your demeanour.

Daemon had once said “the gods give, as they take away.” Those words had come to royally interrupt the quaint life he lived with his family at Dragonstone. Word was to indefinitely spread about him marrying his niece, and soon did it grace the ears of his brother - and his cunt of a Hand. A white raven, the symbol of urgency, bore the demand that the entire household of the Blacks were to present themselves at Viserys’s court. There was no indication of whether the King approved or not, but naught was to be done other than abide by his brother’s demands. Thus, the older children mounted their dragons along with Daemon and Rhaenyra and set the course for their journey to the Red Keep.

Your memories had been rather faint of these halls. You remembered walking them and all your heart felt was its cold aura. It wasn’t home. Their welcome hadn’t been warm to be sure - a wheelhouse had received you at the Dragonpit alongside your parents, Baela, Rhaena and Jacaerys. Your Septa had squeezed you into a tight corset, one that you had never worn before, your hair braided far too tight for your liking. It was how the ladies dressed at court, they had told you.

The Targaryen guards had led your family straight to the Throne Room. Crowds of people assembled on both sides and the gallery crawled with young ladies, some your age, some younger. You had slotted yourself behind your kepa’s larger frame, finding an odd urge to hide as every eye in the room seemed to have been fixated on you and every whisper called your name. You hoped you were a lady enough to satiate whatever expectations these strangers had thrust upon your shaking hands.

Viserys was furious, as furious as he could be given his condition. He wasn’t the man you remember, his full cheeks and the head of hair that you had inherited and a hand gone. He pulled himself by using his sword Blackfyre as a cane, accusing his brother - your sweet kepa - of terrible obscenities. You wanted to defend him, you truly did. You wanted to scream, lecture the court on the man Daemon Targaryen really was. Of how much he loved his family, so much so that he had abandoned you the day his late wife begged him so.

There was much said and done, most of which made the corners of your eyes water with furious tears as you reached for your mother’s hands. Everything Viserys and Otto Hightower questioned about their union directly mirrored your existence.

It was a sham. You weren’t a sham.

It was a manipulation. You weren’t a lie.

It was a crime, that much was true; you were a bastard, after all. You were Rhaenyra’s first-born, yet stood to inherit nothing. You were the shield that politically protected your brothers. This marriage put everything into question. Who were you anymore?

What you were was a perfect example and a trap for Otto Hightower to lay in the King’s lap, offering you as an auspicious match with House Lannister. Of course, the words were never to be said, but this marriage was a blessing from the gods for the likes of you. You were ambushed by the Small Council on the second day of your return to the Red Keep.

The second the name of Jason Lannister spilt through your grand-sire’s lips, Rhaenyra was outraged. Never had you witnessed her this crazed over something, her eyes dark and voice low. She matched the intimidating aura of your father, perhaps giving you a glimpse of the similarities between them.

“She is to be my heir!” Rhaenyra argued, her voice booming through the chambers. “I will not have you sell her like you tried with me, father!”

The debate had grown heated. Jason was a proud man, from what you had heard, and your mother fought on your behalf for a different right altogether. For once (in your own stupidity) you saw purpose, a purpose you viewed as your grand-sire’s affection; a sense of duty you had never felt before. After so long spending your days wandering in the world of your own head, for once you felt a woman. A false sense of naive hope. When Rhaenyra urged that they in the least listen to what you had to say, your words echoing through the chambers were the last thing she expected.

“I will do my duty if that is what the King wishes,” you nervously mumbled. “The throne would not agree with me, mother.”

That had been five years ago. You were a proud lion now, or so said the letters that you sent home every other moon. You had been a dutiful wife to Jason Lannister, to be sure. Your bastardy had been allayed by the magnificent dragon you claimed, and your womb that would finally bring the glory of possessing dragon eggs to the Lannister name. He had been a good husband to you, showering you with gold and fineries beyond your needs, a perfectly dolled-up Targaryen wife dressed in the crimsons and gold of the Lannister heritage. You wanted to enjoy it, you truly did. You had craved such attention from a young age, but something in your mind nagged that it wasn’t genuine.

You spent much of your time hidden in the library, which Lord Jason had at first said would have made your little head spin.

You had claimed victory over it in a mere year, and so you had asked for more books; if he was to spoil you so, perhaps he could provide you with something of more use. And yet, your chests continued to be filled with more jewellery, the finest dresses and boots. You would scold yourself for not finding joy in this. There were children starving in the country and you complained of fine dresses being too much.

The love-making between you was respectable, quick. It was far easier than the complicated mess your Septa had chastely told you about. You would spread your legs for him and just lay there. However, once the first year of your union passed and you still hadn’t borne a child, things grew ugly.

Jason had been dismissive at first, petting your head and claiming your youth as the impediment of your lack of conception. Then, it was the Maesters hounding you with ways to be with child. from putting your legs high in the air after being pumped full of your lord husband’s seed to avoiding wines at feasts. They recommended positions to be placed in; then, they requested that you refrain from dragon riding. Your favourite foods were targeted soon after, the spices in them after that; and soon, your meals were left with just salt in them.

That bled to the third year of your marriage. The gossip that had been abandoned because of your wedding was now set ablaze yet again. You suffered it all with a stiff lip.

The latest requirement had been for you to remain abed for most of the day, a consequence for going against your husband’s wishes and riding Silverwing after eight moons without. There was just something in her eyes that begged you to ride her, perhaps to save you from your own misery. When you returned, you had been grateful that you rode her.

The flattery that your lord husband had doted upon you with before bedding you had long faded with frustration. Couplings had always been a chore, but now it was painful as you laid there wishing for it to end. He would enter your chambers, undoing his doublet and you just knew. You would push down your small-clothes and spread your legs for him before returning to slumber alone. You had counted every petal embroidered onto your canopy as Jason grunted in your ear. You would run your fingers down his back, his hair, hoping to make him peak sooner.

One night, you simply couldn’t bring yourself to lay with him from how exhausted you had been, barely being able to eat the boiled food and enduring yet another feast that ran from dusk to dawn. You refused him politely, hoping that he would lounge with you or leave you to your endeavours alone. Instead, he lectured you on your duty, his breath stinking of strong wine as he forcefully yanked you towards your bed. You had protested, fought against his hold, but it had no effect on him. He had easily torn through your shift as he had turned you to your belly. All you remembered were the stern words of your inability to provide him with heirs when the whores down at brothels of Lannisport had already birthed bastards for him, your head shoved into the pillow to muffle your protests, and then the dread as you felt his seed from within you spill onto your sheets.

He took you in such a manner twice more, growing further irate with the judgments of his family. He was your husband - he had the right. That was, until your sheets were stained in red once more. The handmaidens and the maesters all huffed in defeat yet again, and you were sure your husband had been at a brothel for his business down at Lannisport.

So you ran.

Silverwing roared as she perched herself upon Casterly Rock, scaring the knights in their golden helms away. She flew you swiftly through the skies, heading towards the one place you felt the safest, the one place you should have returned to years before.

“Dārilaros, Silverwing ēza sepār māzigon naejot se Dragonmont,” a Dragonkeeper hastily informed Rhaenyra.

Rhaenyra’s eyes shot to Daemon who was seated next to her by the Painted Table as they went over season books for the fourth moon. They wasted no time in hurrying past Aegon’s Garden to see you, their daughter, dismounting Silverwing in a red gown. They rejoiced, finally setting eyes upon their blood after five years. The second you laid eyes upon your mother, you rushed to engulf her. Daemon wrapped his arms around both his wife and you, placing a kiss atop your head.

You had returned to your bedchamber in the Sea Dragon Tower, claiming that you were overdue a visit and your duties had freed you for long enough to fly home. Neither Daemon nor Rhaenyra were daft; you had arrived devoid of any riding clothes, dressed in a heavy gown and jewellery. With no clothes nor belongings, it was obvious that something had happened, but they allowed you your space.

You were overjoyed at being able to let your hair down and wear your old gowns. You had slept that night, sprawled across your bed like a happy child, fed and tucked in.

As the days passed, you were introduced to your new siblings - not half-siblings, but ones who shared the same parentage, the same blood as you. You learned of the toddler named Aegon and a babe of one and eight moons named Viserys, and the healthy girl your mother had named Visenya. You found much joy in meeting them. They reminded you of your childhood, though you were perhaps a little envious that they would grow up in much better circumstances than you did.

Rhaenyra had found you one afternoon, humming a Valyrian lullaby to Visenya, the words of which you had forgotten years before but you had hummed to yourself at nights to remind yourself of the memory of home. You were the blood of the dragon; you were the daughter of dragons. That glint of sorrow in your eyes had told Rhaenyra all that she needed to know.

“It is a matter of heirs,” she had told Daemon as he helped her onto their marital bed. “I fear what they might have imposed on her, Daemon.”

Rhaenyra knew first-hand of Jason Lannister’s pride.

“She doesn’t look herself anymore,” Daemon agreed. While Rhaenyra dreamt of a beneficial way of helping you, Daemon had already dreamt of a far more violent one, for years beforehand.

A prideful man with a runaway bride has never been a great song. Jason had set sail himself to retrieve his wayward wife from Dragonstone, winged beast to lead back into your golden cage. His ship was filled with more trinkets and fineries to sway you and your parents to hand you back to him, a place he believed you belonged.

He presented himself at Rhaenyra’s court as she sat the throne at Dragonstone. Without an inkling of enthusiasm or warmth, she accepted her son-in-law’s presence with Daemon standing next to her, also unimpressed by the blonde fool.

“I have come to convey my sweet wife home. Casterly Rock is much too cold without her fire,” he cajoled, his voice echoing through the Chamber of the Painted Table.

Rhaenyra had sent for you the second she had greeted your husband in the chambers. You arrived but moments later, your cheeks filled with colour from devouring your lunch of roast goose. Your feet abruptly halted the moment you saw the hair yellowish-blonde hair, knowing it could mean only one thing. Rhaenyra’s eyes caught yours first, and then your husband turned to find you in what he would deem a distasteful gown.

You hiked your skirts and bolted down the other corridor, paying no mind to the rain pouring heavily outside and running through Aegon’s Garden. Silverwing had already perched herself atop the Dragonmont as she had felt your distress. Her roar echoed with the thundering in the clouds above. Daemon chased after you, his quick feet catching up to yours with ease.The household guard blocked your path from exiting through the gates of Dragonstone.

“No, no! Please!” you wailed as Daemon caught onto your hands. “I cannot go back! Please, don’t send me back!”

Daemon’s eyes flared in concern over your distraught face. He opened his mouth to reassure you, but you only screamed louder over the heavy pattering of rain.

“I will throw myself off the Windwrym Tower if you send me with him! Please, please, do not make me go back,” you cried. Your kepa pulled you closer, shushing your pained sobs as you begged harder.

Daemon had managed to reassure you that no one would force you back to Casterly Rock unless you wished it so. He had been horrified at how miserable you must be to threaten your own life in order to remain at Dragonstone, and his blood boiled to learn the truth of the matter. Rhaenyra had the servants prepare a room for your lord husband in an entirely different tower. You felt secure in knowing that Jason wouldn’t be allowed in the Sea Dragon Tower since it housed your chambers as well as your parents' chambers a floor above.

This is where you were brought after your handmaidens had helped you out of your soaking wet gown, huddled by the hearth crackling with a freshly stoked fire, a blanket of soft furs and a cup of warm tea in your hands. While you chose to sit on the floor, Daemon sat on his armchair, hoping to make you speak. Your wet hair clung to the sides of your face, a face that was once filled with so much light. Now, it hid something from him, and he couldn’t bear it.

“If you won’t tell me what happened, I cannot protect you,” he urged, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. “What has happened, zaldrītsosi?”

You shook your head once more, making Daemon groan in frustration. You played with the rim of the tea cup, circling your finger around it, over and over again. You felt your father’s frustrations, gods know you had endured it yourself for years. In truth you were embarrassed of your inability to be a good wife, perhaps the harshness your lord husband had showed you- you deserved it.

The chamber door opened once more with Rhaenyra finally making her way to you, while Daemon felt clueless about what caused your outburst. Rhaenyra had her suspicions, she shuffled her skirts to lower herself next to you, she didn’t ask a thing but just wrapped her arms around your shoulders. Letting you know that you were taken care of, that you were home. Whatever tactic was this, it worked as the first words of your confession echoed through the chambers.

“I cannot go back,” you said, “He deserves to find another wife.”

You had tried to be the loveable wife your mother had been to both her husbands. She bore three sons for the first and three more children for your kepa, within the matter of five years when you couldn’t even conceive one.

“He is lucky to have a wife like you,” Rhaenyra pressed a kiss to your temple.

You shook your head again “I’m not so…perfect like you.”

Rhaenyra frowned, never once had she wanted you to feel this inferior but your insecurities had been radiating through your skin. Daemon remained silent, letting his wife coax your reasoning out of you, perhaps you would do it quicker so he could fetch Dark Sister and resolve the matter.

“Lord Jason is my husband, he has a right to be sure,” you whispered, nuzzling further into Muña's embrace. “The way he held me down, for refusing to lay with him…” your voice trailed “I n-never want to feel that, ever again.”

Daemon saw red, even more so for the reason that you had not a clue of what had happened to you. A crime he had dismembered many during his days as the commander of the gold cloaks, his wife’s eyes shot to him. Silently begging him to not act on his anger just yet, he agreed - you needed them more. Your cries were silent, calmer than the onslaught before, Daemon let your head as you whimpered in your mother’s arms.

Somewhere along the evening you had succumbed to your exhaustion, Daemon had carried you into their bed and tucked you in. The silence left Rhaenyra and Daemon with a grave decision, they would have to petition Viserys to have your marriage annulled, however to lay the history of what you had suffered bare in court. The plea had to come from you, Rhaenyra had shuffled under the furs that night, her warm fingers trying to soothe the frown you sported even in you sleep. Daemon hummed that familiar lullaby as you stirred, feeling their bodies mould to yours - only this time you remembered the words.

Come morning, Rhaenyra had sent for Jason Lannister early in the morning; she had left her lady in waiting - Elinda Massey - to watch after you as you slept sprawled across their bed. In very distasteful words, Rhaenyra shunned your husband, Daemon stood beside her with his hand eagerly gripped around the pompel of Dark Sister. He paced back and forth, internally begging his wife to let him have the Lannister cunt’s head.

When you awoke, Elinda had helped you prepare yourself for the day. Your shoulders felt lighter, like a burden lifted from your shoulders. A content smile had finally adorned your face as you lounged in your parents chambers (far too elated). Rhaenyra returned from court with Daemon at her heel, trying to walk away the burning rage within her before she greeted you. She had sat you down, telling you of how Jason had returned to Casterly Rock and that the Blacks were to petition the royal court once more to have your marriage annulled. You threw your arms around Rhaenyra, profusely thanking her as she petted your hair.

Rhaenyra’s eyes lingered over your face for a little longer, the fullness of your cheeks, the purple of your eyes; gave her glimpses of herself and Daemon. There was something that overcame her, a subject Daemon and Rhaenyra had spoken at length about - first after their wedding night and second was last night. Her thumbs stroked your cheeks before her rosy lips found yours, it wasn’t a chaste kiss and yet the feeling that churned in you belly. You had yearned to feel it through the five torturous years of your marriage, when she pulled away you were stunned. Eyes glossed and mind in shambles.

“You are the glorious thing that came from us, sweet girl,” she whispered “you are to remain with us now, forever.”

She had pulled you up to stand in between your kepa and her, he was silently observing your reactions. You felt entrapped, not in the malicious way you had been caged in your marital bed, but the tenderness they had for you anchored you down, engulfing you in warmth. Daemon turned to hold your face in his hands, his roughed digits stroking at your heated blush stained cheeks.

“Let us take you the way you were meant to, let us show you riñītsos,” he requested. What were you to do? Pull away from the affection you were being dotted with after beggin for it for years. You nodded, mumbling a meek yes.

Rhaenyra turned you towards her again, both kepa and her working with haste to strip your body off your gown, leaving trails of sweet kisses upon your pale skin. The back of your neck to the pulsing at your wrists, they showed you reasons to live; showed reasons of why you were the most precious thing in the Known world. The smell from Rhaenyra’s flowered soaps mixed with Daemon’s woody ones, encasing you between their larger frames. You perked breasts spilt free first, your mother’s warm mouth immediately trapped the pebble between her lips. Suckling to harden them, and leave bruises of passion apon your milky skin. Daemon joined her efforts, his lips claiming your neck as he held you hand.

You couldn’t breathe, one would find lust, passion or even contentment within the feel of their lips but a deeper pit bubbles in your stomach. When you blinked your eyes open, they welled in tears and your breath hitched. Fighting to take in a bigger gasp of air, the years went on and you truly felt as beastly as they saw Silverwing. One incapable being found desirable, that your husband would resort to pumping bastards into tavern whores. You face scrunched, scolding yourself to enjoy this and yet you didn’t want them to see you bare; perhaps they would hate you too.

Rhaenyra’s eyes softened the moment she saw your discomfort and kissed your cheek. Hoping you would confess your feelings without coaxing.

“I won’t be to your liking,” you hung your head low, more tears streamed down your face.

“Nonsen - you are the most beautiful girl in the Known world,” Rhaenyra reassured, lifting your face to look at her. Perhaps it was something in her eyes that made you want to believe her flattery.

“How can you know?” You sniffed, wiping the tears with your wrists.

“We made you, who else would know better?” Daemon said, his voice softer than usual as looked down at you.

Mother had been incapable of bedding Daemon since birthing Visenya two moons ago, she was still healing. They believed that it was your husband’s incapacity to impregnate you; all your life at Dragonstone your moonblood’s course had been near perfect. It was to their benefit, your womb deserved to carry pure Valyrian babes anyhow. A witted mind may even see this as an advantage, with you as Rhaenyra’s heir. The silver of your hair, the smile that matched Daemon’s and little Valyrian babes of your own. Your mother’s claim would remain untouchable.

Daemon had led you to their bed, perhaps now your own. Rhaenyra had stripped herself to just her corset and chemise, while she intended on assisting her husband she would be a fool to not find pleasure in Daemon bedding you. Your father had been displeased as you crawled into bed and spread your legs open for him. While he admired the gesture of you presenting yourself to him, he tutted at how bereft of pleasures you were.

“Fucking is a pleasure you see, for the man and woman,” he had sultry eyes set upon you as he devices of ways to have you screaming for him.

Your legs already remained parted for him as you held your inner thighs, you were expecting his cock to penetrate you and yet he was fully clothed. It was horror that filled you next as Daemon kneeled by the edge of the bed, his fingers gently stroked the sides for your mound before he flattened his tongue on your slit.

“K-kepa what are you d-,” a whine tore through your lips as you felt his lips suckling at your sensitive flesh. Daemon feasted on your cunny, like a delicacy with exotic flavours plated just for him. You muña had skittles herself next you, bracketing a leg to hold your thigh open as she paid much needed attention to your nipples. Her fingers toyed with one as her mouth nibbled on the other.

The throes of coupling were all you’d known awhile you dutifully suffered in the sheets, this - this - was tenacious; never ending as it hurtled you further into its depravity. The sounds of your squelching cunt and Daemon humming against your folds as Rhaenyra whispered the sweetest of endearments in your ears, their little girl…made just for them to ruin.

Daemon locked his palm against your, tangling your fingers between in him a silent call of, he was here for you, he would take care of you. Rhaenyra caressed your flushed face, the tickle of delicate fingertips distracted you from your insecurities. Your cunny felt the stretch of your Kepa's fingers, his thick digit knuckle deep within you. You hadn’t realised your body could even feel this way, so weightless that all you felt was the throbbing around your puffy bud. The textures on his tongue fondling with the tender flesh, how soft his actions were along with your mother’s ministrations of keeping the rest of your bare body ablaze.

You found your voice, as your breathy mewls turned to a shameless moans because of Daemon’s finger gracing a foreign spot within you; pumping in and out repeatedly. Your hips hiked off the bed, grinding into your kepa’s mouth. He gently held your hip down, you arched you back, unable to decipher the waves of tingles that ran up your thighs.

“Please, please!” you begged, unsure of it as you pleaded for, all you body seemed to yell at you was to find the ending.

A sudden, furious bliss burst through your core; you hadn’t felt anything like it before. You screamed their name, praying to the Gods to save you. You felt his tongue still laying soft licks on your bed as your thighs clenched around his head. You fell flat back against the beds, heavy breathing as you tried to gather your bearings.

“Wh- what…?” You couldn’t finish the question clouding your mind, your words lost on your lips.

“That sweet girl…was your peak,” Rhaenyra gingerly placed a kiss upon your temple. Her fingers mindlessly trailed up and down the valley of her breasts.

My peak…my peak you had incoherently whispered under your breath. “Will you bed me now?” You looked at your father expectantly.

“Would you like me too… would you like kepa to pump you full of his seed?” He whispered against your folded thighs as he pressed wet kisses across your pale flesh.

Your head eagerly nodded, wanting to feel more of what the art of pleasures had to offer. You wanted this ecstasy that Daemon spoke off. You wanted to drown yourself in it, having someone touch you so brutally broke a part of your aura - tragically - but your kepa and muña sewed your pieces back together. A cascading light that hurtled towards misery now floated high above the clouds, happy as you should have been.

“Say it riñītsos,” Rhaenyra whispered against your lips.

“Please bed me, kepa,” you asked, eyes flaring purple as did theirs. You shuffled against his hold on your thighs, the skin w clawing at your insides.

Daemon looked at Rhaenyra and chuckled, shaking his head at your niceties. “Such a polite thing, our daughter.” Rhaenyra indulged in stripping her husband for you, peeling his doubly away from him before freeing him from his breeches. Your kepa’s member was far more monstrous than your lord husband’s, it spurred a fear under your chest; the memories of bedding and the last night you had shared Jason’s bed were fresh within your mind. Daemon caught onto the apprehension that flared in the purple of your eyes. He pressed a kiss to your knee. “M’ going to be gentle…unless you ask me not to be,”

You hadn’t understood what he meant but your heart eased, preparing yourself to feel the bitter stretch of his bulbous tip at your entrance. Braced in position you waited for the burn to flare through your nethers but it never came. Merely the pressure of the hard line pushing you open, a little uncomfortable at best but the pain you had expected was nowhere to be found. You blinked your eyes upon, pulling yourself to grace upon where yours and Daemon’s body connected. You hissed at the fullness but appeared shocked, you looked to him; his eyes softened at the state of your discovery. Coupling was never meant to be a chore.

Rhaenyra circled her fingers upon your yearning pearl, you greedily raised your head pleading for her to kiss you and so she did. Her rounded mouth moulded against yours, a kiss that once rose bile to your throat - the tongues being far too much - your kittenish hum invited her in willingly. You could taste your shared breath, commanding you with the grape scent of her lips. Daemon had begun rocking himself, determined strokes rutting into your - his sweet cunny - his baby’s warm walls as he could barely contain himself from watching your mother dote upon you with honeyed vulgarity.

Daemon grunted, wanting to feel the touch of your lips as he tucked his hands behind the small of your back. You held your kepa’s face in your hands, lifting yourself just enough to taste the spiced wine that linger on his lips; his tongue raspily greeted yours. You mewled into his mouth, legs wrapping around his rear as your Rhaenyra and Daemon took turns whispering sweet obscenities in your ear. They made this cunny for them to use… kepa would breed you swollen of his Valyrian babes, pure babes. There perfect little dragon

Naught was of importance as you begged kepa to piston within you harder, you body smothered between the ones of your blood (warm, far too warm). Trickles of tears that fell from the corners of your eyes disappear in your hairline, Daemon wiped them - grunting louder - with his adoration directed straight st you. Rhaenyra had pulled him closer for a kiss, tasting you upon his lip as his hammering never once faltered. You wanted to peak again, you wanted to fly again.

“K-kepa, I- so good,” your words muddled at the tip of your tongue, but the way your cunt fluttered around his cock. There was just one reason to be sure. He looked to Rhaenyra, a short nod of his followed with your muña fingers working in tighter - quicker - circles around your throbbing nub.

“Oh - that’s it, pretty girl, come for kepa…wet his cock,” Rhaenyra cooed at you, your back arched off the bed. A longing whine tore through your lip, pleading Daemon to go harder. He obliged, haunching his body over as his shoulders laid flush against your chest. His heavy stones slapping against your rear. You wanted it, your insides clawed at you to peak.

“Our sweet little dragon, come - come now.”

Daemon’s order hadn’t gone unheard, in true fashion of a father’s daughter you peaked for him, your pleasures gushing through you core as your scream lodged itself at the back of your throat. Leaving only whimpers and squeaks behind as your finger nails dug into Daemon’s shoulder.

Days had passed since, once you had tasted the world of pleasures, the next four day you had spent either bouncing on your kepa’s cock; begging him to fill your cunt or muña fingers pulling peak after peak from your body.

The moment of truth arrived sooner that you had expected, you had flown to court once more. Viserys had been gravely ill, as a mourning grandchild your heart ached for what had become of the once proud king. As a wronged wife, you feared if Otto Hightower would have your best intentions in sight. Whil by marriage it would have been appropriate for you to wear an alarmingly bright red gown and jewellery of gold. You had come dressed in the darker crimsons of your house as you stood in between your kepa and muña.

Jason Lannister presented an elaborate case, claiming you as his - how your place was at Casterly Rock and not behind your mother’s skirts. He even made attempts to approach you, but the deathly glare Daemon had set upon your husband made Jason’s cowardice known. The Blacks and Greens had separated them on each end, and by the passing day it had become rather evident that if you returned with Jason, your support of your mother would be squandered under their golden foot.

Otto Hightower then called the Blacks forwards as he sat upon the Targaryen throne as if it were his own. Rhaenyra stepped forward to petition on your behalf but was dismissed by her old bitter companion Alicent Hightower - the Queen.

“Your daughter is far above her age to petition for herself, Princess Rhaenyra, unless she is daft…?” Alicent retorted.

Your eyes darted between your mother and father as they looked to your covering frame, they wanted to protest but what other choice had they given you. With cautious mannerisms you stepped forward, cultivating your sentences of beggary in your head to not stumble upon them. Your fingers fiddled with one another as you stood at the front of the throne room; with the entire court gathered to see your humiliation. Much of everything had sounded muffled to you, they would send you back, he would take you back. You should have flung yourself the first chance you had.

The night before, Rhaenyra had visited her father’s chambers. Maternal tears coating her face as she begged her father for you life. Daemon had told her of your threat to end your existence. What she thought were pleadings fallen to deaf ears, she had hoped to use her inheritance to save you from this curse or have Daemon flee with you to Essos. To remain there until Rhaenyra would take the throne.

Perhaps a call from the heavens answered your pleas (Rhaenyra’s efforts in truth) the grand door to the Throne Room opened, your grand-sire limping his way through a startled court. An old dragon lashing out to protect his blood once more, you moved away. Mouth agape just as the rest, Viserys had come to sit on his throne after four years of sabbatical.

To shield your honour, as your father - Daemon approached his brother to present your case in private. Telling him of the cruelties you had suffered and Jason’s inability to provide you heirs. To which Viserys coughed out his disdain on the Lannister’s lack of providing his granddaughter with heirs.

“Her heir? Tis my family that would be shamed because she is barren. Yet I choose to take my sweet wife back to my noble seat.” Jason scoffed, looking at Rhaenyra like she was delusional.

Rhaenyra passed a knowing look to Daemon before letting go of your hand. She looked right at the vast lords gathered at the court “My first born, my daughter is to be my heir. Your future Queen and a second wife to my prince consort.”

Horrid gasps echoed through the Throne Room, Alicent looked disgusted along with her father. You looked at your mother in shock, unable to grapple the titles she had just placed in your lap.

“Your grace! This is an abomination!” Otto Hightower protested, hoping for the King to see reason.

“She cannot be Queen…” Jason muttered, just as shocked as you.

“And w- why is that?” Viserys coughed.

“Well she is…” his blond brows furrowed tightly, his glare fixated upon you for embarrassing him. Your father raised a challenging brow to him, say it…say it Daemon prayed as he once again clutched the pommel of Dark Sister, he looked to his wife and begged like a toddler to let him end this. Rhaenyra looked at Daemon through his periphery and agreed, subtly nodding at him.

“She is a bastard,” he shrugged, looking appalled, finding this entire situation ridiculous.

Viserys groaned, huffing as he unsheathed his dagger; angered and ready to place his judgement. “I will have your tongue for that!”

Thwack!

You hadn’t realised when your kepa had moved from behind you to trail behind your husband - headless husband - your mother yanked back to look away from the decapitated corpse as knights all around charged at Daemon. He merely wiped his sword away at his cape, before returning to stand next to you.

“You’re a widow now,” he smugly whispered in your ear.

#daemon targaryen x reader x rhaenyra targaryen #daemon targaryen x reader #daemon targaryen x rhaenyra targaryen #Rhaenyra Targaryen x reader #daemon #young rhaenyra #queen rhaenyra #princess rhaenyra #rhaenyra targaryen x female!reader #daemon au #ruie writes

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zeciex · 7 months

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A Vow of Blood - 68

Warnings: This fic includes noncon, dubcon, manipulation, violence and inc3st. Tags will be added as the fic goes on. This is a dark!fic. 18+ only. Read at your own discretion. Please read the warnings before continuing.

Summary: “You will be trapped by the obligations of love and duty, unable to escape the web of expectations others have woven around you,“ the witch said….

Chapter 68: The Tempest of a Woman

AO3 - Masterlist

The early hours of dawn approached swiftly, jolting Daenera awake from her restless slumber. She was led, still groggy, to the dresser and seated in front of the mirror. Outside the windows, the sky was still cloaked in darkness, on the cusp of brightening as the sun edged closer to the horizon.

Daenera’s reflection stared back at her, almost unrecognizable. Her complexion was ghostly pale, underscored by dark circles that bore testimony to a night of fitful sleep. Her lips were dry, mirroring the parched feeling in her throat as she swallowed, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. Her stomach turned uncomfortably, roiling as though they were on a ship caught in a storm with the swells breaking over the bow.

Edelin, with a soft smile, placed a warm cup of tea before Daenera, a small gesture of kindness in the midst of her ordeal. However, her attempt at comfort was short-lived as she was briskly directed away to prepare Daenera’s attire for the day. Meanwhile, Mertha set about undoing the carefully braided hair, removing the delicate silk woven amidst the locks in an attempt to lessen the unruliness Daenera knew would come due to the crude way her hair had been washed. Her touch was rough, nails scraping uncomfortably against Daenera’s scalp as her fingers struggled through the tangled hair.

Daenera commented with a profound dryness, “Using my one soaps and oils would have been preferable – my hair wouldn’t be so… obstinate,” as she picked up the tea and gently blew across its surface before taking a soothing sip. The mint flavor was a small relief to her parched mouth.

Mertha let out a derisive scoff, and muttered something along the lines of ‘a bastards hair’ as she picked up the hairbrush to work through Daenera’s tresses, only to encounter further resistance. The brush snagged a third of the way down, exacerbating Mertha’s already deep scowl. She gritted her teeth in frustration and started to brush from the ends, laboriously working her way upwards.

At one particularly forceful and spiteful yank, Daenera couldn’t suppress a hiss of pain, glaring at Mertha through the mirror’s reflection.

The process of arranging Daenera’s hair was lengthy and arduous. In the midst of it, Edelin returned with a plate of food – buttered bread, two sausages, chunks of cheese and a cut out apple. Daenera ate in silence as Mertha meticulously styled the front portion of her hair into two braids, letting the remainder cascade down her back, securing it in an intricate yet graceful style that echoed the Queen’s own fashion.

Daenera was then adorned with a pair of golden earrings and a simple golden necklace, neither of which were hers.

Before she could finish her meal, she was ushered towards a small dias surrounded by three mirrors arranged in a semi-circle. Outside, the sky was awash with a deep, crimson hue, reminiscent of a bleeding wound. The nightgown was replaced with an undergown, followed by a corset and then another underlayer that added fullness to the dress.

Laid out for her was a gown of delicate green fabric, a subtle shade tinged with an undertone of earthy brown. It was simple, designed not to overshadow, yet it made a statement in its own right simply by the coloring.

“I refuse to wear that,” Daenera declared spitefully, feeling the strain in her neck muscles from the previous night’s harsh treatment. The muscles were taut and aching, but she maintained a posture of defiance, head held high.

“It is not for you to choose what to wear,” Mertha retorted, her tone devoid of sympathy. “The Queen has selected this dress specifically for you, do not insult her by refusing.”

Daenera noticed a fleeting expression of incredulousness flicker across Edelin’s face, her brows furrowing as she made a face. Her eyes met Daenera’s and she quickly lost the expression, eyes darting away.

“I am in mourning for my King and grandsire, as well as my oldest friend,” Daenera stated firmly, turning towards Mertha, towering above the old hag as she remained on the dias. “Inform the Queen if you must, but I shall don a black gown. Otherwise, you can tell her they will need to drag me out of this room, kicking and screaming.”

Mertha met her gaze evenly. “You will wear what the Queen has chosen for you, and nothing else. Should you defy this, be warned that I have orders to report your insolence, which will result in your men being punished. Wear the dress.”

Aemond walked through the halls of Maegor’s Holdfast with a silence that matched the early morning’s stillness. Before he entered her chambers, he spared a brief, dismissive glance at the weary guard stationed outside – a silent sentinel tasked with ensuring the princess remained confined within her chambers. He slipped inside, closing the heavy doors behind him before turning around to face the room.

His gaze immediately met Daenera’s through the reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were sharp with fury, her lips pressed together in evident displeasure. She stood poised upon a dias, the center of the servants' meticulous attentions as they busied themselves with the final adjustments to her appearance.

The chamber itself was bathed in the gentle glow of candlelight that belided the tension in the room. Beyond the windows, the sky was a tapestry of dark blue, the edges tinged with the first hints of dawn’s approach. Strokes of deep purples and vibrant blues painted the horizon, heralding the sun’s imminent ascent.

In contrast to the soft beauty of the morning, Daenera’s expression was a foreboding promise of the tempest yet to be unleashed.

The servants fluttered around her, their hands expertly putting the finishing touches on her skirts. The gown, though understated in its shade of green, was crafted with exquisite detail.

The room, charged with an undercurrent of anticipation, was held in a delicate balance of silence, a quietude he found himself reluctant to break. Instead, he lingered in the doorway, taking in the quiet before the storm. His eye remained on her reflection, watching her with curiosity. Her eyes narrowed at him, her jaw clenching as she seemed to bite back her words.

With a measured tone, Aemond commanded, “Leave us.”

Lady Mertha, her expression a blend of obedience and caution, hummed a response. She cast a lingering, reproachful glance at Daenera as she headed towards the doors, ushering the young serving girl along with her.

Aemond’s gaze never wavered from Daenera, as she bent down as if to adjust her shoes, gathering her skirts in her hand to get to them. The moment the door clicked shut, sealing their privacy, she straightened up, spun around, and hurled an object directly at his head. Aemond instinctively dodged, the shoe narrowly missing as it whizzed past his head, the air humming with its passage, his hair tickling against his face caught in the whirl of the object.

Daenera’s voice was laced with venom, her second shoe thrown with equal force but this time finding its mark against his chest. He caught it deftly, a slight flinch betraying the impact. “You one-eyed, long-faced, big-chinned son of a whore!”

“Would you just calm down,” Aemond retorted, brandishing the captured shoe with an accusatory point as Daenera’s eyes blazed with anger, her cheeks flushed red with fury. She stepped off the dias and moved swiftly towards the table adorned with a decorative bowl of fruit.

“Calm down?! Calm down?!” Daenera echoed incredulously, her arm tensing in preparation to launch another projectile. “You craven, half-blind, cock-sucking twat!”

“Don’t–” Aemond cautioned, wielding the shoe in a threatening fashion. His attempt at deterrence, however, fell on deaf ears as Daenera hurled an orange towards him with enough force to make her grunt.

Aemond evaded the incoming assault, parrying the fruit with a calculated swipe of the shoe. Undeterred, Daenera sent another orange hurling through the air, quickly followed by a banana that skimmed past his head and striking against the wall behind him. A cluster of grapes was her next weapon, striking him squarely on the chest. The impact caused several grapes to detach from their vine, scattering across the floor in a haphazard spray.

“How dare you tell me to calm down! Calm down?! Calm down?! I have a right to be furious!” Daenera exclaimed, her voice shrill and raw with rage as she seized another orange, launching it with precision. Her barrage continued, a pomegranate next, which, though missing Aemond, collided with the shelves behind him, causing a resonant crash. Fruits scattered, and an ornate metal place fell with a clatter, contributing to the room’s growing tumult.

Aemond advanced on Daenera, determined to put space between her and the fruit bowl. His pulse quickened, a blend of vexation and a begrudging sense of amusement stirring within him. He couldn’t help but ponder if his mother had foreseen Daenera’s creative employment of fruit as armaments, perhaps those too would have been removed, just as her poisons had been.

“You’re usurping my mother!” Daenera hissed, brandishing an apple in one hand and a peach in the other as if they were mighty weapons of war. She retreated from the fruit bowl as he approached, reaching for her only to catch empty air as she twisted her body to elude his grasp.

“No! No! You’re usurping my mother, you treacherous-one-eyed-cunt! You’re stealing her crown–Stay away from me,” she snapped at him, avoiding another attempt at catching her.

“Enough with the fruit, put it down,” Aemond insisted sternly, deliberately placing the shoe on the table to free his hand. He advanced towards her, undeterred as Daenera retreaded backwards, wielding the apple as though it were a stone meant for slinging.

When she launched the apple towards him, Aemond’s quick reflexes, sharpened by endless training, allowed him to pluck it from the air effortlessly. The peach, on the other hand, met its mark on his forehead with a soft impact before tumbling to the ground. Annoyance flickered across his face as he regarded her with a look of sheer exasperation.

Daenera’s chest heaved with quick, shallow breaths, her intense gaze never breaking from Aemond’s, her lower lip quivering ever so slightly. Anger burned in her eyes, yet beneath that fierce exterior lay a hint of something more fragile – a flicker of tears yet to fall, exposing a vulnerability Aemond hadn’t anticipated.

Daenera’s eyebrows drew closer together, a tumult of emotions playing across her face before she found her voice. “Do you have any idea of the indignity I’ve endured?”

Aemond, placing the apple gently on a table nearby, regarded her with both exasperation and frustration. He struggled to understand her perspective, questioning internally what she deemed reasonable under these circumstances. Her confinement had been a necessary measure.

“My freedom robbed–”

“You must understand why you were confined,” Aemond cut in.

“You need me as a hostage,” Daenera said, her eyes darkening with resentment as her hands balled into fists at her sides. “But my men… killed, the others imprisoned in the dungeons! And Joyce… Joyce was murdered. She was still breathing when they forced me into my chambers and imprisoned me!”

Aemond responded with a sardonic edge, “A confinement from which you managed to escape.”

“You must understand why I had to escape,” Daenera bit back, throwing his own words at his face. He felt an uncomfortable twist in his chest, knowing how close he was to losing her, to have her slip away through the secret passageways and disappear like smoke through his fingers.

“You should have remained there until I had a chance to see you–”

“And what then?” Daenera interrupted with biting sarcasm, her expression twisting into a derisive sneer. “Would you have held me in your arms as I cried? Would you have lent an ear to my pleas for freedom? Or perhaps you’d have permitted me to send word to my mother?”

She shook her head, “Escape was my only recourse.”

The grim reality of their predicament hung heavily between them. Aemond, for all his might, had no intention of deviating from the path laid before them. There was no instance where he would have facilitated her escape or allowed her to alert her mother. Though he might have been a source of comfort in another life, the truth was Daenera was more inclined to express her sorrow and rage through the hurling of objects, as evidenced by their earlier exchange and the fruit that lay strewn throughout the room. What comfort he could offer in the aftermath of this storm was minimal.

And in truth, he cared little about Joyce and even less about her men, so what solace could he really offer?

“What alternative did I have other than to grasp at the chance for freedom?” Daenera challenged, her voice tinged with desperation and defiance.

“Did you genuinely believe that the Lord Confessor would assist you?” Aemond questioned sharply, his skepticism slicing through the air. “Did you expect him to forsake his loyalties and commit treason for what? Because of the blood you share?”

“Don’t fucking mock me!” Daenera exclaimed, her fury manifesting in a forceful shove against his chest. “Do you have any idea what he put me through? He had the power to summon the guards and have me dragged out of his chambers and imprisoned. But no, instead he deceived me, lured me into a room like an animal lured into a trap. He gave me hope only to take it away.”

Daenera’s voice faltered, a visible struggle against the tide of emotions threatening to overwhelm her. Her lips trembled, the rawness in her eyes speaking volumes of her inner turmoil, tears brimming the edge of her vision.

Aemond felt an unexpected twinge of compassion for her as he witnessed her distress. The sight of her tears, barely held at bay, stirred the instinct to draw her close, to offer solace in the warmth of his embrace. Yet, he resisted, remaining motionless, his hands aching with the restraint of not reaching out to comfort her.

“He ordered his men to search me – they put their filthy hands everywhere,” Daenera’s voice broke, resonating with outrage and shame. “They stripped me down to my undergarments…”

Aemond could hear the strain in her words, the difficulty she had even in voicing such an act of humiliation. The raw vulnerability in her voice and the violated expression in her eyes resonated deeply within Aemond. His fist clenched involuntarily, the muscles in his arms tensing as a wave of anger washed over him. He felt a knot forming in his throat, fighting to keep his composure as he processed her words. The realization that he had entrusted Larys with care–a decision made in haste while his attention was diverted to locating Aegon–now gnawing at him with regret. At that critical juncture, his priority had been to secure Aegon, to ensure he didn’t fall into the wrong hands. He couldn’t be in two places at once, a fact he bitterly acknowledged.

“He left me there in nothing but my underdress with only a cloak for modesty–it was humiliating,” Daenera’s voice broke.

Aemond felt a restless surge of fury, a raw itch in his fingertips born of the urge to lash out at Larys for the indignity forced upon Daenera. Yet, reality tethered his impulses. Larys Strong was one of their most crucial allies making any thoughts of retribution against him not just impractical but was perilously close to folly. Even with this knowledge, it did little to dampen the storm of anger raging within Aemond. He still longed to wrap his fingers around his throat and squeeze until his windpipe caved in.

Daenera’s accusation sliced through the air, her question laced with a bitter edge. “Is this what awaits me, even in marriage to you? Will I endure such treatment as your wife?”

Aemond asserted with unwavering certainty, his resolve as steadfast as the steel of his blade, “No one shall treat you this way. As my wife I won’t let anyone humiliate or degrade you.”

He extended a hand towards her, a gesture meant to bridge the gulf of apprehension between them. However, she swiftly rejected his advance, her swift motion to deflect his touch underscored by a storm of emotions reflected in her eyes–tears brimming on the brink, yet her gaze hardened with a deep-seated pain and wariness.

“Such promises are beyond your power,” she retorted, her voice wavering with bitterness and a poignant sense of resignation. It was evident she had little faith in his ability to shield her from further indignities.

This skepticism wounded him, gnawing at him like a festering sore. His pride was stung, pained by her apparent lack of faith in his protection and the diminished regard in which she seemed to hold him.

Aemond decided to reinforce his promise, his tone imbued with a steadfast assurance, “As my wife, you will be accorded all the respect and privileges that come with that position.”

“I am a hostage, Aemond. Any pretense of respect or freedom extended to me is as ephemeral as morning mist, easily dispelled at your mother’s whim. I’d be nothing but a pawn, a means to bend my mother to your family’s will. A title changes nothing; I will still be a hostage.” Daenera responded, her words steeped in scorn and accusation. They bore into him, revealing not just her indignation but also the underlying current of fear that permeated her defiance.

“You are my wife!” Aemond declared, his tone imbued with unwavering conviction as he bridged the gap between them, his determination rendering her attempts at maintaining distance futile. His hand gently slid up her neck, fingers tenderly cradling her face, the soft brush of his thumb beneath her jaw coaxing her gaze to meet his. “In my eyes, you are already my wife, our souls bound by vows made in blood.”

Daenera’s reply was a sharp, icy arrow to his chest, “It’s easy to mistake such claim with only one eye to see the truth of it.”

“Then it is fortunate that our union will be witnessed under the gaze of many, not just my own,” Aemond countered, his voice carrying a steely undertone. The contact of his skin against hers seemed to ignite a fire, his heart thrumming within him, vulnerable to her words. The openness she demanded of him was a battle against the fortitude he had cultivated over years. And he detested how weak she made him feel. “The realm shall be our witness.”

Daenera’s eyes, sharp and relentless, penetrated Aemond’s defenses as though she aimed to lay him bare and rip open his chest, to leave him exposed and pathetically vulnerable. It was as if a blade, cold and precise, hovered at the cusp of his heart, poised to pierce through the delicate fabric of his composure. Her intense scrutiny sought to remove the fortress of armor he had meticulously constructed for himself over years–armor donned to repel precisely this kind of emotional assault and vulnerability.

“This is your doing,” she asserted, her voice cutting through the air, a statement of fact rather than a question, acknowledging a truth she had discerned. “And you make no attempt to conceal it.”

“Why should I deny it? It’s the truth, I proposed this union – I set it in motion, I asked for it,” Aemond confessed, feeling the rabbit beat of her pulse against his fingertips, the warmth of her skin a stark contrast to the cool resolve of his own intentions. His eye briefly lingered on her lips, a silent testament to his desire. “My wish is for you to stand by my side as my wife–”

“To serve as nothing more than to warm your bed,” Daenera accused, her words slicing through the tension, igniting a spark of irritation within him.

Aemond struggled to comprehend Daenera’s perception of their forthcoming union as a form of punishment. From his perspective, he was offering her security and a semblance of comfort. As his wife, she would be spared the same level of imprisonment as the rest of the captives. She’d enjoy a modicum of freedom within the castle’s walls, though under vigilant supervision–a condition decidedly more favorable than her prior isolation.

By entering into a marriage union with him, she would reclaim a sense of status and privilege, accompanied by certain liberties, albeit within the boundaries dictated by her particular circumstance. She would gain some autonomy over her own life, a marked step up from her current state. This new role would afford her the opportunities to exert some influence over her own comfort, which should be considered a significant improvement.

The marriage was meant to offer her a measure of protection and comfort, contrary to her apprehension of it being another form of confinement.

“I am offering you protection–”

“You’re pursuing your own ambitions!” Daenera retorted vehemently. “This revolves around what you want – your desires. You’re forcing me into a gilded cage. Yet, even gilded, a cage remains just that. I remain a hostage, regardless of the status you bestow upon me.”

“You seek a choice?” Aemond’s voice dripped with scorn, his words edge with a mocking bitterness. “Remain a prisoner, confined as a hostage, or elevate your circumstances by consenting to be my wife.”

The retort form Daenera was suffused with deep-seated resignation, her demeanor shadowed by a crestfallen air. Her gaze towards him wove an intricate blend of feelings – a mingling of indignation with sadness, a streak of apprehension, and a deep-seated sense of treachery. Each emotion seemed to pierce Aemond’s heart with its own unique sharpness.

“It isn’t a choice. You’ve already decided for me,” she stated, her voice a low murmur.

In that moment, Aemond’s grip loosened, his hand retreating to his side as their gazes locked in a silent confrontation. An oppressive silence enveloped them, thich and foreboding, creeping in like a beast, ready to feed on the void left by unspoken words. Daenera took a step back, her expression momentarily revealing the struggle to regain her composure, to piece back together the facade that concealed her emotions. Aemond, however, stood immovable, his stance as resolute as ever.

He supposed she was right then, it was about his own desires – both seeking to protect her and possess her. Was it truly so reprehensible to desire her as his wife? Why couldn’t she see that his actions were motivated as much by concern for her well-being as by his own interests? Was it wrong for him to want to declare her as his own in every conceivable way? His mind framed his actions as protective measures, yet beneath the surface, a more raw, instinctive part of him acknowledged a different motive. This drive was not purely about protecting her; it was equally about satisfying his own desires, and what he believed was owed to him. They had been bound in matrimony months ago, the physical evidence of which lingered as scars on their palms – a permanent reminder of the vows they made. Despite Daenera’s defiance, he considered her his wife, a status he believed he had every right to proclaim to the world.

It was protection and possession, neither absent of the other.

“They intend to crown Aegon as King.” Her words hung heavily in the quiet.

Aemond’s reply was terse, an acknowledgement of the fact, “Yes.”

Turning her back to him, Daenera’s gown created a soft rustle as she moved to retrieve the shoe that had barely missed striking Aemond in the head. Moving around the furniture, Aemond picked up her other shoe from atop the table, anticipating her search for it. As he closed the distance between them, her eyes scanned the floor for it, but her search halted when he offered her the shoe, her gaze then ascending to meet his.

“You’re making a mistake in crowning Aegon,” she stated, accepting the shue. She lightly grasped his bicep for support while slipping her foot into the shoe, prompting him to instinctively stiffen his arm, lending her stability by placing his hand on her elbow.

“Aegon is the firstborn son of our father and the legitimate successor to the throne,” Aemond declared, his voice devoid of emotion, “It is his natural birthright.”

With her shoe securely on, Daenera let her skirt fall back into place, her fingers grazing the fabric as she found her balance. “That might have held true if Viserys hadn’t declared my mother his heir. You, alongside the council, are well aware of this, which explains why I’m made a hostage, why Rhaenys is imprisoned, and why the King’s death remains a secret. You’re denying my mother her rightful claim. The rush to crown Aegon, concealing these events from the public and my mother, only confirms this.”

“We’re not discussing this,” Aemond stated sharply, annoyance flickering in his chest. “The coronation will proceed as planned. There’s nothing you can do or say to change it.”

A look of dissatisfaction crossed Daenera’s face as her lips pursed slightly, but with a slight nod she conceded.

The beast that resided within his chest, laying beside the beating of his heart, seemed to stir as Aemond watched her intently. It filled him with a sense of restlessness – prickled at his fingertips with a need to touch her, to draw her close and drink in that poison of hers. Daenera seemed to sense this, her eyes darkening as she took on a new guise, one of calm calculation, her eyebrows forming a gentle, thoughtful curve. She drew closer to him, placed a hand on his chest, just above his heart.

“It should be you,” she murmured, her voice carrying a softness that belied the poisonous nature of her words. “You possess the qualities that make a good king. It should be you they crown, not Aegon.”

Aemond stood transfixed as though turned to stone under the weight of her words. When Daenera’s hand brushed upwards, her touch was unexpectedly soft, her thumb grazing his cheek with a tenderness that belied the power of her presence. His gaze locked on to hers, the beast within him tearing at his insides with vicious claws, as her voice whispered the very sentiments he longed to hear.

As he closed his eye, Aemond struggled with the storm of feelings she conjured within him, torn between the seductive sway of her words and the turmoil they unleashed in his heart. The most troubling aspect for Aemond was that he found himself drawn in two opposing directions: one by the call of his own ambition, aided by the deceptive sweetness of Daenera’s words, and the other by duty.

He was acutely aware of the cruel nature of her words – and of her. Her allure was like a cunningly laid trap, one that he recognized as being just that, a trap – yet he still felt the pull towards.

Aemond wrestled with the discomforting sense of vulnerability that Daenera’s touch sparked within him, despising the power she wielded over his emotions and how easily she attempted to use them against him. In his repulsion, he found his resolve. He opened his eye, a steeliness taking root. “Do fool yourself into thinking your contrived displays of affections will have any effect on me. I refuse to be misled by such gestures.”

His fingers wrapped around her wrist to peel her hand from his face. “I will not forsake my brother’s claim to the throne, nor will I betray him.”

The crown rightfully belonged to Aegon, and Aemond had no intention of taking it from him, regardless of his own ambitions. Despite Aemond’s reservations about Aegon’s competence as a ruler, the throne was undeniably his by birthright. They might have had their differences, countless arguments, and moments when Aemond wished things were different, but the fact remained: Aegon was his brother, his blood. This was not a bond Aemond could simply cast aside. It was his responsibility to stand by his brother, to fight for his claim to the throne–even if it meant opposing her.

“I will be the King’s brother,” Aemond said, releasing her wrist as she withdrew her hand. “It is my duty to stand by his side.”

Daenera averted her eyes, seemingly unable to bear his gaze, her lips quivering slightly in frustration. “I suppose that will be the closest you’ll ever come to wearing the crown and sitting the throne. Brother to the king.”

Aemond felt the sting of Daenera’s words as though they were physical blows, each syllable cutting into him sharply and without mercy. He stood motionless, fixing her with a glare, feeling the chill of silence seep into his very bones. His fingers twitched restlessly at his side, betraying his agitation as it burned within his chest. Their eyes met again, each holding the other’s gaze in a silent refusal of surrender.

The abrupt sound of a knock at the door shattered the tense silence between them, a deep voice somewhat muffled by the barrier of the wood, announcing, “The litter has been prepared and is ready to depart soon.”

Without saying anything, Aemond made his way towards the door. As he passed her, he caught a fleeting glimpse of Daenera’s eyes closing in what seemed like resignation–perhaps even regret. With each step he took, the weighty sense of finally enveloped him, the air thick with unspoken tensions,echoing in the charged stillness.

“Wait,” her voice unexpectedly called out, tinged with a plea. “Just… wait.”

Pausing just short of the door, Aemond hesitated. He began to turn but before he could face her, he felt the gentle pressure of her forehead against his back, resting right between his shoulder blades. Her fingers lightly grasped the edge of his doublet, as though seeking support – as though seeking something tangible. In that delicate, unexpected touch, he couldn’t help but wonder if she could feel the rapid beat of his heart.

“I am…” Daenera’s voice wavered, laden with an exhaustion that seemed to seep into her very words. “I am afraid, Aemond.”

Aemond drew air into his lungs, his fingertips prickling with the urge to hold her.

“I don’t want to lose anyone else,” she confessed, her voice fragile, a mere whisper that nonetheless conveyed the depths of her fear. “I don’t want to be trapped… to be a hostage…”

Aemond felt his heart constrict in response to her words. He swallowed thickly, feeling as though he was swallowing a blade, each word cutting him up from the inside. The stark truth loomed over them–no utterance of his could promise her that no more lives would be lost. The grim reality was that lives would be lost, that was the way of war. There was no reassurance he could offer that wouldn’t be a lie. She would be a hostage even as his wife – all he could offer her was comfort and protection.

“I… I wanted to say ‘yes’...” Daenera whispered with vulnerability that seemed to fill the space between them. “I wanted to become your wife but I couldn’t…”

Aemond’s gaze sought to the heavens, silently pleading for a strength that seemed beyond his grasp. Her confession–that she had considered accepting his proposal–wretched at him. Each beat of his heart echoed with the pain and bittersweet torment of what could have been. This confession–this acknowledgement– was both a comfort and a torment in equal measure.

Aemond yearned to gaze upon her, to see the truth of her words in her eyes, to witness the formation of them upon her lips, yet he feared that even the slightest movement might shatter the fragile truce they found themselves in. Perhaps, there was a strange sort of solace to be found in the distance–a solace in the absence of directly facing one another.

“I love my family, I couldn’t go against them–just as you can’t go against yours,” she continued, her voice wavering in a way that made him wonder if she were crying, “And because I feared this…”

“You are my wife,” Aemond stated, a declaration meant as much for his own conviction as it was a reminder to her.

“I am but a bird trapped within a gilded cage,” she countered, her words painting a vivid picture of her perceived imprisonment.

“You can still say yes,” Aemond entreated, his tone laced with a desperation he despised in himself. “You can still make it a choice of your own making.”

“I would, if we didn’t end up right where we stand,” she responded, her words a bittersweet twist in his already aching heart. “I wanted to marry you, I would have… I did…”

At that moment, Aemond’s solitary eye opened, his gaze locking onto the stark, unfeeling juncture where the stone ceiling coldly met the wall, as she finally acknowledged their union. It was as though he could again sense the biting edge of the dragonglass against his flesh, its cruel caress etching a lasting memory into his being. His fingers instinctively tightened, the fingertips brushing against the faint scar that mirrored the mark upon her own hand–a silent testament to the vows they had made to each other.

Driven by a blend of dread and yearning, he found the courage to pose the question that had been haunting him. “Do you regret it?”

Her grip on his doublet tightened imperceptibly as she struggled with her response. Her silence stretched, the air heavy with anticipation and with each passing moment, with each heartbeat, he felt an eternity pass.

“No… I–no…” She stammered. “Yet, a part of me wishes I had never sought you out. It would be simpler then, to be enemies. It would be easier to hate you…”

Aemond gnawed on the tender inside of his cheek, drawing blood that mingled with the bitterness of his thoughts. He couldn’t counter her sentiment; in the silent prayers he whispered to the gods, he begged for liberation from the intoxicating poison of her influence.

Within him, a realization dawned–this moment was the nearest he would ever come to hearing the confession he so deeply carved. In this sliver of understanding, there was a semblance of solace. He could weave an illusion where she wielded no dagger against his vulnerabilities, where her power to unravel him stitch by stitch lay dormant. It allowed him to believe, if only for the span of a heartbeat, that her influence wasn’t the poison coursing through his veins, to which he had become unwittingly dependent on.

Yet, beneath this fragile veneer of acceptance, there pulsed a raw desire, a yearning that bled into the fabric of his being–a hunger to have her desires mirror his own, tangled and twisted in the same intricate dance of longing and despair.

“But I did come to you, and… I cut my palm, I said the vows…” she whispered, just barely loud enough for him to hear. “Please, Aemond, don’t do this.”

His response was a murmur laden with an inevitable resignation, “It is my duty.”

Her acceptance was tinged with a profound melancholy, yet within it, a glimmer of understanding. “I know…”

“Say it again.”

“What?”

“That we wed that night,” Aemond urged, craving the affirmation. “That it was real.”

With a tender solemnity, she affirmed, “It was real. Iksan bound naejot ao hae iksā naejot nyke. Hae ābrazȳrys se valzȳrys.”

I am bound to you, as you are to me. As wife and husband.

Aemond struggles a lot with what is proaction and what is possession. He doesn't want to trap her, but at the same time, he can't let her go. He loves her--and he can't get himself to say it, because saying it puts him even more at a disadvantage, and he already despise feeling weak and vulnerable. But he also longs to hear her say it, to acknowledge that there's something, that they did marry--and she did. Duty is such a hard thing to struggle with, and it's something we will see him deal with for a good while. Daenera is also struggling with being a hostage with little to no say over her own life, and for a moment, she attempts to play the game, to manipulate Aemond, but they both know it, and it leads nowhere. But she had to try, just as she had to try and escape. There's a shared understanding between them, they understand the other person and why they're doing what they're doing; Aemond and his duty to his family, of keeping her hostage, of the marriage--and Daenera digging in her heels, tearing at her confines and shackles as a hostage, her attempts at escaping and her general disdain for the proceedings. They understand that it's something the other has to do, and I think it's in that understanding that they're able to find some common ground. It's with that understanding that they can seek solace from one another, just for a moment--a moment where they're together and not opponents.

#a vow of blood #aemond targaryen #house of the dragon #aemond fanfiction #hotd aemond #aemond x reader #hotd fanfic #aemond one eye #aemond x oc #aemond targaryen x oc

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