The salt water lapped at her body as she lounged, letting the harsh sun warm her bare skin and calm her anger. Viga had stumbled upon this cove while hunting for an unsullied spot to fish. It was far from the camps, and the shoreline was well enough obscured that she had no worry of being spotted by the many ships gliding in and out of the city's ports. She preferred her skin browned. She tended to adopt behaviors and fashions that distinguished her from the lily-white, simpering women of court. She worked for what she had: her battle skills, her knowledge, her gold. It would be completely against her nature to seem incompetent for even a moment. If anything, this was her weakness. The constant need for control had indeed proved detrimental on several occasions. Her bravado had gotten her into many skirmishes, the most notable incidents resulting in a severely broken and rebroken nose and a very close call involving a dagger slicing her cheek rather close to her eye.
As she stretched herself across the sand, she contemplated her various scars. She never wanted to be beautiful. As the bastard of a concubine, she had bleak prospects. Had she been higher born, she could have had a ship, been taught to fight, and beauty wouldn't have been her only armament. As it was, she could sell her body or her fish. As a child she had watched the sailors and knights fighting each other with their dulled practice axes and longswords, preparing for a battle that they hoped would come. She would watch the men in combat, envying them their graceful, powerful movements and their iron weapons. She wanted what they had.
When she came of age, she began selling herself. She no longer had time to watch them fight; she was too busy entertaining them in bed. She hated every moment of it, finding sex tiresome. But as a whore, she was able to amass enough silver to purchase a sword, and then a hand axe. She began visiting the practice grounds again, as she had done as a child. She copied the movements the sailors and knights made with her bastard sword and her rusty axe. Her paltry attempts to emulate them became a source of entertainment. She continued to hone her skill, despite their mirth, adjusting her stance, improving her accuracy and strength. During the day, she practiced. At night, she fucked. When her sword cut with equal ease to those she watched, and her axe hit the target more often than some who laughed, she attracted challengers. At first, she lost often and soundly. Then, when she got used to the dance of cutting, blocking, fighting, she lost less often. She began making bets with her challengers. Occasionally she'd lose, occasionally she'd win.
Once she began winning more often than she lost, she stopped selling herself. She signed on with a longship and when she wasn't rowing, she was practicing. The ship's captain noticed her skill, and he reassigned her to the raiding party. Unlike the other men, she hadn't had the chance to have armor made, and the ship didn't carry extra sets of the heavy mail and iron breastplates and guards. She faced their many raids with no protection other than the weapons she carried. If the men she killed could speak, they'd tell tales of the beautiful sea-witch whose eyes were cold, calculated, and unyielding as she killed. That she didn't blink or flinch was unnerving. She used this to her advantage, striking in the split-second during which her prey hesitated. That was when she was still beautiful.
Now, she thought, she was handsome in a damaged, damned way. She had always valued character, ability, above symmetry, but she found that few others did. When the raids were done and they came back to the Pyke, she returned to the practice fields. Her new scars, still fresh and pink, were hidden under the leather practice armor she wore. Viga remembered the day she realized she could leave the Iron Islands. After winning a particularly vicious bout with a well-known captain, a man she had never seen approached. He wondered if she had had an occasion to use the weapons she swung in battle. She confirmed that she had, and he smiled. She recalled the warmth it contained. She'd never admit it, but at that moment her heart was his. He informed her that he was a member of the Second Sons, that he had been sent to find recruits, that he found her sword-work breathtaking.
He asked to test her ability. She agreed, and he drew his sword. They parried and cut at each other, blades ringing in the cool briny air. Finally, she was disarmed, and as he slid his blunt practice sword across her throat, she noted that his moss-colored eyes were as fierce and calm as her own.
That night she discovered a need she didn't know could exist. His breath grazed her neck and his hands cupped her breasts, and she couldn't speak. His body trapped her against the wall of his cabin, his mouth found hers so that his tongue could meet her own. She mewled as one hand dipped into her breeches while the other pinched her nipple. He found no resistance as his fingers entered her sex and his thumb found a bundle of nerves she'd never noticed she had. He roughly removed his fingers from her sopping cunt and shoved them into her mouth. She tasted of musk and iron, and she found herself lapping at the fluid coating his hand. He laughed at her eagerness and withdrew his hand to unlace their breeches. His hands grabbed her ass and lifted her onto his hard cock, and he fucked her into oblivion. After, when they were melded in a twist of arms and legs and sweat on the floor, she realized that sex could feel good, and that when her muscles clenched and twitched around his cock and her head flew back so hard it hit the wall and her nails scraped his back as she clung to him because she couldn't possibly still be in this world because she had clearly exploded in a burst of all-consuming pleasure, she felt complete.
He had had a week in Pyke to find recruits, and each night he returned with more. Each night he returned to her, filling her in ways that she had been filled before but that felt new. Sliding her tongue up his cock and wrapping it around the head, taking it's length into her throat until she gagged, stroking his shaft as she sucked and licked, made her restless, wet. It made her want him and his orgasm. When he came, she swallowed his seed and cleaned his cock of semen. She tasted ocean and sweat.
When they began the voyage back to the Second Sons, they spent their days practicing and their nights entwined in each other. He parried her blows, and he wrapped her hair around his hand and pulled, basking in her moans. She feinted to his left, and she pushed herself against him, feeling his entire length within her. Their swords locked, and they came, staring into each others' hard, fierce eyes.
Their ship was intercepted by pirates when they were close to their destination. Viga fought for his and her life when he was cut down by a blade thrust deep into his shoulder. She killed the man belonging to the blade and she screamed in fury as he fell. When the battle was won and the pirates plundered, she tended to his wound, ignoring her own unsightly cut across her stomach. Slowly he mended, and slowly her fondness for him became consuming. While he healed, she rode him, taking control in a way that made him feral with desire. After they came, she wrapped her body around his, taking care to avoid his wound, and together they slept.
They disembarked in Pentos and quickly found the Second Sons' camp. She signed the book, and he took her into his tent. It became a game among the men to guess what was going on behind the tentflaps by the cadence and timbre of Viga's moans. Her reputation became that of a paramour rather than that of a warrior, but she didn't care. She had his love.
Until she didn't.
After a year without a contract, the Second Sons were tapped by Lys to fight for them in the Disputed Lands. She was elated. Now she could prove that she was more than bed-warmer. She could prove that she had worth. The battles were difficult and messy, but Viga persevered through lost companions, wounds, and exhaustion. When the fighting was done, Viga returned to their tent, but he was rarely there. When he was, he slept, or pretended to, his hardened back acting as an unspoken barrier to her touch. Their contract ended, they saw more of each other. He remained distant, uninterested. Angry.
Viga returned from the practice fields and found him betwixt the legs of a pale, soft Lysene courtesan. She ripped the woman from his bed, and when he rose to accost her, she boxed his ears then shoved her heel into his manhood. She gathered what belongings of hers she could carry and stomped off to the women's tent until she could procure one of her own.
When she cried, she was deep in the dunes, far from camp. She hid her weakness, her wounds.
Little had changed. After Uhlan implied her value was between her legs rather than in her sword, she ran for this clandestine oasis so that no one could see her tears of frustration, loneliness, fear. And here she was again, hiding, the same insecure, vengeful young woman she was ten years ago, but with no veil of beauty to soften her tempestuous moods.
A/N: It's been a while since I updated. I started this story over two years ago. I love the characters and weaving backstories to mesh with G. R. R. Martin's canon, but sometimes it's difficult to find inspiration. I'd prefer not to provide y'all with something half-assed just to publish a new chapter.
I decided to go into deeper detail this time, taking some of your suggestions to heart. I rewrote much of the preceding chapters, as well, to fit better within the story and backstory. I hope this insight into Viga's past isn't too... contrived, I guess? Please let me know what you think, as always. Thanks for reading