Author's Note: Hey guys!
Sorry for the wait. But, to justify myself just a little, here's a fun fact: two chapters of this story were written in Texas. Several were written in Tennessee, another in Ohio. The bones of this one was written in Indiana.
I live in none of those states.
But I'm trying my best to write despite being on the road and onsite a lot with my construction job, and I hope you guys can forgive me and stick with it! I'll do my best to be quicker moving forward, promise.
Anyhow, thanks for all the support you guys consistently give! Heads up, we go way more risque in this chapter than I ever have before or likely ever will again. It's nothing explicit, but it is a step more than my normal innuendo. I won't make a habit of that as that's not the sort of stuff I'm here to write and there's a whole real-life morals aspect I won't go into, but it fits into these fictional characters and setting and the plot moving forward too much to just hint vaguely.
All that being said though, I think it came out pretty well haha. I'd love to hear your opinions on what it all might lead to!
Enough of my blabbing. As always, I hope you enjoy and review this update.
She took a deep, steadying breath, and found herself mildly amused at the action. Margaery was nervous, and she didn't get nervous. She prided herself on being a calm deliberator, not a panicky reactor. But she almost was panicking when it made absolutely no sense to be doing so but it also did because this was risky and intimidating but it also had a chance of being a lot of fun and it might lead to everything she had ever wanted and…
Damn, I'm a mess.
Apparently, seduction was hard.
And she hadn't even started it.
She'd dropped the 'sheer dress' idea, because even though it was Loras on duty, she still had to make her way from the Maidenvault to the king's bedchambers, and there was a chance of meeting people along the way despite it being the dark hours of early morning. Instead she wore a simple shift, still appealing but not nearly as showy, with a dark brown cloak overtop it. The cloak, scrounged up by Elinor-the only person besides Loras aware of Margaery's plan—was meant to conserve her modesty were she to be recognized.
But she also had no desire to be recognized in the first place, and the thick brown cloth did a marvelous job of that. And it had better succeed, all of it, or there will be seven hells to pay for my little caper.
There was a chance, albeit small, that this wouldn't work. While the brief, surprising and very heated contact of the day before—and pretty much all other indicators were she to be honest—said that yes, this would absolutely work, Margaery preferred to be prepared for any outcome. With that in mind, she couldn't well be seen leaving her chambers, walking halfway across the Red Keep, and entering the bedchambers of the king, all while wearing next to nothing.
Truth be told, she didn't want to be seen at all.
A smart maneuver is to keep all options open until the best one works out. This particular action is very much not a smart maneuver.
Were she to be seen, and were—Seven forbid—circumstances to arise that prevented her and Damon from marrying, she still had to keep her reputation intact. While most seemed to accept that she was a maid despite being married to Renly, being seen entering a man's chamber unescorted in the dark hours of the morning would call her virtue into much justified scrutiny. Many potential backup suitors—although Damon was the one and only goal currently—could be undone. This move was reckless, and Margaery was not reckless.
Which was probably a deciding factor in why she was doing it, in truth. Margaery was not like most of those her age, unable to control themselves and so weak of character and flesh as to consistently give in to that which they knew they shouldn't indulge. She was proud of that strength, although it had been sorely tested at times and didn't seem worth it every now and again. But, strong or no and proud of that or no, she wasn't completely immune to the draw of the forbidden.
And…well, he certainly isn't ugly. I'd be stupid to not admit that didn't play a large role in all of this.
She took one last look at herself in the looking glass, running a hand through her dark brown curls, then turned to face the door. With only a moment's hesitation, she pulled the cloak over her head and opened the door, stepping out into the corridor.
Loras was right on time, rounding the corner as her chamber door quietly closed behind her. His face was agitated, and he beckoned for her to hurry. "Come on now. It'll draw a crowd if the wrong person finds me away from my post."
It also runs the chance of the king being assaulted, but I don't expect that to be the first thing on your mind, brother.
She said nothing, hurrying to follow the white cloak of Loras' Kingsguard armor with her hood drawn and eyes down.
Margaery was in luck when it came to the King's choice in his current mistress. Bella, whom Margaery had never seen with her own eyes but whom Garlan could describe well, was short and slender with dark hair and darker eyes. Margaery was…short and slender with dark hair and darker eyes. Both she and the whore were fair of skin and had grown their hair past their shoulders. While the physical likeness was, per Garlan, only in build and coloring, it was enough. She had no intention of anyone seeing her face, and a passerby would only see brown hair and a build that seemed to match the reputed mistress of the king. While only a few of the castlefolk knew of Bella for certain—although more did than the king realized, she'd wager—there was enough rumor and familiarity to pass Margaery's clandestine journey as that of Bella being escorted by a Kingsguard to answer the king's summons. It wouldn't be the first time just such a thing had happened.
Her mind raced as she doggedly followed Loras, not daring to look up farther than the back of his legs. It pondered on the potential trouble she was about to cause herself, of how it could turn sour so easily, and spent no small portion of that pondering on the act itself and finding it made her even more nervous than she had already been.
She was so lost in thought that she didn't realize Loras had stopped and turned until she ran into his chest.
They were at the king's door.
Loras was distinctly uncomfortable. "Are you certain about this?"
Margaery felt a distinct fondness for her brother in that moment. He was stupid to be letting her do this of course, but she knew he would—Loras loved her dearly and would do almost anything she wished were she to ask the right way. He'd been no match for the determination she had since that brief moment the day before, a determination that had been strong already and reinforced when Loras told her he was on duty tonight, only a day after the thought had occurred to her.
A determination that was now completely gone, though she nodded and whispered in as firm a tone as she could. "Yes."
He stared at her a moment longer, then took his post by the king's door. "Okay then. Go on; he never locks it."
She nodded, took a fortifying breath, and opened the door.
He was on his feet before the door was completely shut, furs crashing to the stone floor a moment after his bare feet did. He snatched the dagger off of the small table, a detached part of his mind wondering where he had found one so nice for his war tent. The rest of his brain, the one that had kept him alive on campaign for months, was already guiding his feet. He leapt atop the bed—when he did get one so bloody big and soft at war?—and look a long lunge across the expanse, foot landing in the middle and serving as a launching point for his leap towards the intruder. He didn't know how this cloaked northerner had made his way into the prince's tent, nor did he know how they could be so dumb as to instantly turn their back on him upon entering. What sort of assassin didn't even glance at their quarry before turning to shut the door behind them?
What sort of tent had a door?
His mind finally connected his surroundings and brought his consciousness back from the past in the nick of time. His blade, driven by his lunge off of the bed, had been aimed for the intruder's spine, and would certainly have severed it were it to land. Instead only the king landed, mere inches from the intruder with the knife still partly at the ready.
The intruder whirled to find a man with a knife and wide emerald eyes a handbreadth away, and reacted as anyone might in that situation. They let out a short, startled yelp, falling back against the door as they turned to face him fully, only putting a foot more of space between the two of them.
Damon froze. The yelp was feminine, and his first fleeting thought was that this figure was Bella sneaking in to see him despite him not sending for her. The thought was dashed before it even gained a touch of purchase in his mind though; he knew Bella intimately, and he didn't have to clearly see the ill lit woman before him to know it wasn't her. The tone of the yelp, the stance, even the smell let him instinctually know this was not the woman he had grown so intimate with.
The second thought in his mind was that maybe he should have struck with his dagger, because you didn't have to be a male to be a killer and there wasn't a soul in Kings Landing supposed to be in this room at this hour but him. But this thought didn't find purchase, either.
One thought, powerful and overcoming, smacked through his brain with the force of a Clegane the second he saw the face before him, its hood haven fallen away when they spun at his landing and its features perfectly illuminated by the moonlight streaming in his window.
Margaery Tyrell is in my chambers.
He stared into brown eyes startled wide, brain blank.
When he could finally move again, he jumped back as if she had the grey plague, knees colliding with the back of the bed and sending him sprawling onto his back across it. The Prince turned the fall into a sort of rolling somersault, nearly impaling himself on the blade he still held as he went feet over forearm, somehow landing with his feet on the stone at the other side of his mattress, knife still held half defensively.
They stared at each other
Margaery Tyrell, face still a shock from the flurry of motion, still leaned against the door, mostly hid by darkness save for the aforementioned moonlight that landed squarely on her face. The door itself was outlined by a dim rectangle of light, doubtless from the sconces in his outer chambers. If he hadn't been so dumbstruck by her presence, Damon might have wondered how the Rose of Highgarden had gotten through two other rooms to reach this one without him awakening. He also might have wondered how he'd managed to do all his acrobatics without killing himself; aside from that rectangle and the oval of moonlight, everything was completely dark.
Margaery, of course, recovered first. "Well," she said as she pushed off of the door with her elbows, face alighting in a perfectly confident, ensnaring smirk as she did so, tone just as relaxed. "I'm glad you didn't kill me. That would have made tonight much less fun for the both of us."
The king had to try three times to get his voice to work. "What…what are you doing here?"
She giggled lightly, the quiet sound of her reaching into the pockets of whatever she was wearing reaching his ears. "I would think that to be obvious, my king." She took a few steps to the right, out of the moonlight, and then she came into much clearer focus as she lit a candle atop a small table, illuminating the chamber. She turned, firesteel in her hands, and took a few steps towards the identical table and candle on the other side. As she did so, she cast him a sideways glance, grin never leaving. "Or are all of the rumors just that, rumor?"
She turned to face him as the second candle flared and sent the room into even more clarity. Her dark eyes unashamedly looked him over, focusing particularly low on his anatomy for a moment before jumping back to his. "I must say, it appears they are not."
Damon looked down as well, only then remembering he hadn't pulled on a robe before nearly killing her. To his own surprise, he didn't try to cover himself although there was a rush of embarrassment. But not nearly as consuming as it probably should have been, and h returned his emerald gaze to hers.
He'd never, ever been able to coherently speak around Margaery Tyrell before. But suddenly, in the most unlikely of situations, his mind cleared and his tongue untied itself. This was his chambers, in a salacious situation that he had found himself in many times, and he wasn't nervous or afraid. He was abruptly calm, his body seemingly reacting to the familiarity of this situation and not to the unfamiliar woman in it.
Who knew the only thing I needed to do to be able to speak to Margaery Tyrell was get naked?
Margaery spoke again. "Still holding that knife I see."
Damon stood straighter, suddenly emboldened. He didn't lay the dagger aside. "I am." His voice was as calm and confident as her own, and her subtle shift in stance when it filled the chamber told him she hadn't really been expecting that but that part of her liked it. "A woman shows up uninvited into a king's bedchamber wearing a cloak that could have the Seven knows what in it, not long after said king's brother was assassinated…sounds concerning to me."
Margaery cocked her head to the side, eyes running up and down him again. "Uninvited, but not unwanted I see. And if it's the cloak that bothering you…"
Two twists of her shoulders and the cloak fell to the side. The dress underneath—if you could call it a dress—was in no way concealing of…anything.
It was Damon's turn to look the other over. Even as he did so, he spoke again, perfectly serious. "This is not a good idea."
Margaery shrugged, and suddenly the dress was gone too. "Isn't it?"
Damon swallowed, hard. "No, and you know it as well as I do."
Dark eyes stared into glowing emerald ones, smoldering with a light of their own. "No, it isn't, yet here I am. Shall I leave?"
The king knew his answer should be yes, but no one who knew him with any level of familiarity would expect him to say that, much less himself. "No."
She grinned again, taking one very small, very sensuous step towards him. "Then what shall I do, Your Grace?"
He waited a heartbeat of a moment, then tossed the dagger aside and started towards her. "Stop talking."
The King of the Iron Throne sat a black stallion at the gates of the Red Keep, looking at the lines of armored knights and footmen behind him.
There were three distinctive formations, lined up four abreast side by side. The right column was a conglomeration of green and blue and yellow, the colorful banners and armors of the men of the Reach intermixed with the green and gold of House Tyrell. The left column was all crimson and gold, the banners of House Lannister. The middle was dressed in colors matching the armor Damon himself wore, black and gold, the men of House Baratheon. They were the smallest of the contingents, something that had never occurred to Damon until today but now made him wonder absently at just where all of the men supposedly sworn to him were.
With uncle Stannis I suppose, thought the Seven know where he is.
He took a long breath in, finding himself nearly giddy. He was going back to the front, to finish what he had started with Robb Stark. To try and finish this whole, foolish business of war, even though a part of him he was terrified of didn't want it to ever end.
He was going back to where he belonged.
And he was taking all sorts with him.
Somewhere back there was a wagon of women, among them a septa, a lady and whore. Somewhere else was a wagon of convicts, among them a dwarf. Both wagons were heavily guarded, for entirely different reasons.
At least I'm not sneaking them out in the middle of the night like last time. Mother might be furious with me, but that is expected; at least I didn't have to lie to grandfather this time. One deception of him was enough to last me a lifetime.
His uncle Jaime was among the guard of the prison wagon. Damon and Jaime both knew his uncle had no business being on a war front these days—while he was improving, he was still clumsy and awkward with his left hand—but Damon didn't have the heart to leave him behind and Jaime was as suspicious of Cersei killing Tyrion on the trip as Damon was. His uncle would escort the northward wagons all the way to the Wall, while Damon tried to pick back up on the negotiations with Robb Stark that had been put on hold when Joffrey died.
A lot had changed in the short days since his twin had been killed, a fortnight and lifetime ago.
He was still growing used to the weight of the crown atop his head, placed there by Grandmaester Pycelle less than twenty-four hours ago. Damon had chosen a simple golden circlet, an inch tall in most places though it became three towards the front, with three emeralds, the largest in the center and two smaller ones to either side. He didn't want nor need anything flashier, and part of him was irritated that he had to wear one at all. But grandfather had insisted, and Damon had accepted.
He'd also accepted the 'gift' from his grandfather that technically should've been his anyway, though Damon didn't argue nor care that Tywin had repossessed it upon Joff's death.
The king reached down to pat the cherrywood and lionheads of the garish scabbard at his side. Then, almost reverently, he gripped the leather-bound handle and pulled the blade halfway out. A black Valyrian steel blade, rippled enchantingly with crimson ripples, looked back at him. Widow's Wail. A particularly Joffrey name, but it could have been called Shitsword for all Damon cared. It was magnificent.
He was in armor that fit his new form better, though it too was taking some getting used to. Black and gold like the old, but with a matching helm. It had no crest as he preferred, save for gold colored band of steel around the crown that matched the circlet he was currently wearing. Another gift from his grandfather, one put together with a quickness unfathomable to the king, but he couldn't deny he looked striking in it.
Damon found himself almost smiling. For the first time since he became king, Damon was enjoying it.
He returned the blade to its scabbard and he straightened in the saddle. His eyes glanced up to a certain, feminine figure he had last seen sneak out of his chambers mere hours earlier. Margaery stood with the rest of the goodbye party—his grandfather, the Small Council, his mother and brother, the like—but her eyes were glowing and already on him.
The small smile finally broke free, even as his mind wondered just what sort of trouble he had gotten himself into. There would be Seven Hells and then some to pay, he was sure, but right then, on the cusp of his return to the field and with memory of hours ago in his head, he couldn't find the capacity to care.
Damon let his gaze linger on the Rose of Highgarden for a long moment, then turned his horse to face the gate. He spoke to the man sitting a gray stallion to his right without looking at him. "Tyrek?"
His could hear the smile in his cousin's voice. "Your Grace?"
The King of the Iron Throne smiled wider. "Let's go to war," he said, and nudged the black stallion forward.
A/N: *tease*A dwarf, a one-handed man and a king sit down by a fire...