Work Text:
Orys
The first thing he notices is how incredibly fine her face is. He doesn’t remember Argilac’s face; hidden underneath a horned helmet, face muddy and bloody, descending upon Orys like a war-god of old. He supposes he should be thankful that he has never met the man in his prime - he would have smothered the whole vanguard and dragged them all into certain death.
Instead, Orys must face Argilac’s daughter, the one Aegon wanted him to marry in the first place. She is beautiful; not like Rhaenys and Visenya, but darker, more primal. Strong cheekbones and a jawline so sharp, he thinks he could cut himself were he to touch it. A straight nose and eyebrows arched into high points, framing eyes that are so large and blue, he feels like they see right to his very core. Dark tresses cover her breasts for which he’s glad - her womanhood is protected by her clasped hands as she kneels in front of him. Gagged and bound, she looks him straight into his eyes. It is not defiance. It is not even rage. It is the simple admission by which a superior looks an inferior into his eyes and expects them to look away. Aegon looks the same at him, as though they were not brothers. He hates himself that he does pan away from the girl. For a girl she is – a queen in her own right, after all, but some ten years his junior.
Though bound, she holds an immovable sort of respect, even from the men who delivered her, for the second she looks at the so-called honourable warriors, their faces fall, and there is naught but a whisper to be heard. This woman had been shaped to rule. That much is evident. Had her father accepted Aegon’s terms, and had Orys arrived to be King Consort, he would not have governed the lands the way his half-siblings imagined it. Argella Durrandon would have ruled.
He gives her his cloak, mercifully not the one he had on the day he slew her father. Orys unchains her, careful not to touch her any more than necessary, guides her into his tent, to the hot coals that warm it and pours her tea, a specialty blend from Dragonstone she sips daintily. Unlike his blood, coming from Old Valyria, the line of Durrandon is almost as old as the continent itself. His father, and his siblings, and everybody else bearing the Targaryen name often held delusions to be greater than the Gods, but rarely can a line say they descend from Gods. Argella Durrandon holds herself with a dignity and poise even Rhaenys wishes she would have. Royalty, raised to rule.
He speaks of her father, and the only thing giving away any sort of emotion is her hand cupping the mug in her hand so tight her knuckles turn as white as clouds. Is she furious? She must be. Those are her words after all.
“What will become of me now?” She asks him, silencing all story of her father and his valiancy.
Orys trembles slightly. „His Grace has propositioned that you marry me. He has granted me Storm’s End in perpetuity.“ The yellow beast on top of its cliff, a memorial to the Gods-defying ways of Durran. It is Aegon’s ego that is soothed, not Orys’. He has never wanted a castle, never wanted titles – he’s a bastard of Dragonstone, born of the First Night. What he has done for Aegon he has done out of love. Not ambition. His brother tends to be megalomanic, as all his Targaryen siblings do. Argella’s face shows emotion for the first time, in the way her jaw sets and her brows furrow, making them appear even more arched than they are.
“And shall I refuse, I will die. But Aegon wants me to placate the Stormlords into following him. He does not need me for that. It seems the fear of death has united them well in his cause.”
“Not all stormlords follow His Grace.”
“No, only Penrose, Trant and Gower.” She spits the names out like a curse, her lovely face marred by a fierce scowl. Orys thinks he could love her, if she’d let him.
“The Marcher Lords appear to be still very loyal to you. They demand Trant’s head in particular.”
“My mother hailed from House Dondarrion.” Argella pauses for a second, smooths a crease of his cloak. Though she is a tall woman, she is slender. Orys’ cloak looks comically large on her, but it covers her whole body. “If I were to accept Aegon’s terms, I would need to know them all, first.”
“If you were to accept?” The words astound him. She is in no position to argue, to do anything really.
Again, she looks him square into the eye, black meeting blue, and this time he cannot look away. There is a vicious smile on her lips that speaks of godly anger. “I can still choose death, bastard.”
Somehow, the insult stings worse when her full lips spit it out.
He gives her a bath, rest, and a meal before he enters the tent she occupies. As befitting her station: She is still a queen. Not yet bowed. Her entire presence fills the tent, even when her hair is wet and unkempt and the dress she is wearing is a robe of the medicinal women tending to the wounded. Her lips are a ghostly pale pink and Orys wonders if she will snarl again.
Argella is sitting on a chair, not bothering to get up and it riles him. Even Visenya, cold, hard Visenya, greets him with respect, at least nodding and standing. Argilac’s daughter extends her hand and looks at him expectantly. When he doesn’t react, she doesn’t retreat in turn. In fact, she cocks an eyebrow perfectly. “It is customary in the Stormlands to greet women of equal and higher birth with a kiss on her hand.”
“Am I of equal or lesser birth?” He spits out before he catches himself, cursing innerly at the show of weakness he’s given her.
“It appears it is not my judgment to make.” Her words pierce his very armor, a bitter smile playing on those full lips. She would look better if she were happy. “So. Aegon’s terms.“
“His Grace has granted me Storm’s End and dominion over the Stormlands as Lord Paramount.“ He pauses, scratches his beard. “By marrying me, you will give up House Durrandon, and marry into House Baratheon. I thought I might take your words and your standard, as to honour your fallen father. He was a great man.”
Her smile changes from bitter to vicious, again. “Yes, that he was. A man greater than you, or Aegon. If I die, whose words will you take?”
“I shall keep my own.”
“Then why even bother taking mine… Unless you don’t have any, of course.” Argella raises her chin, and through the lashes her eyes sparkle in the dark tent. She thinks herself superior, and Orys must agree. She’s awe-inducing. “It is of no matter. I only wish that if I truly must marry a bastard, it would be Brandon Snow. His line is old and noble.” She stands up, and even the rough-spun gown cannot diminish her beauty. He doubts Visenya would look so dignified in smallfolk’s clothes. “Tell Aegon I accept, if my future husband brings me the heads of Penrose, Trant and Gower. I wanted them mounted on spikes of Storm’s End as a reminder.“
“Of what?”
Orys remains seated as she strides forward, gripping the sides of his chair. She stares him down, their noses touching. He once kissed a washergirl like that. Now he’s afraid that this Storm Queen will kill him by the sheer force of her anger alone. “A reminder that while the name Durrandon might die, the sheer fury of gods still flows through my veins. It is still mine and those who wrong me will feel its burn.” She grips his chin, surprisingly strong and Orys is sure that beneath his beard she will form a bruise. “Do not mistake my acceptance, bastard. I am not doing this out of a love for my own life.” She tilts his chin up, so that his neck is hurting. “I am doing this out of vengeance.”
Argella kisses him, hard and painfully, before she steps away, laughing like a maniac. Orys fears he has brought down his own end by blindly following Aegon.
The only one of his siblings present is radiant Rhaenys, who never misses a chance for a feast. She brings mummers and singers, and it clashes horribly with the murderous atmosphere present in Storm’s End. Fittingly enough, a terrible storm is raging on, as if the Gods mourn another daughter lost to an unworthy man. She was glorious in the sept, his lady wife. Argella wore and still wears an all-black gown, her face emotionless, as though she attended a funeral rather than her own wedding. Thread-of-gold line the hems of heavy black-on-black brocade, richer than anything the Targaryen women possessed on Dragonstone. The stormlands are fertile, its isles bountiful of precious stone. She wore no cloak to be replaced, for there was only her father’s he could claim as the new colours of the House Baratheon. A crowned stag. There was no time to change that, and he is sure were Visenya and Aegon present they would fume. Argella wears a single circlet of gold in her hair, and frowns upon all men daring to ask her for a dance, except her Dondarrion kin. A heavy gold chain with a pendant of blackest turmaline sits on top of the swell of her breasts, and it takes a lot of will by any man to look away from her. Rhaenys might get the overt attention, for all her Valyrian beauty, but Argella is desired – and now bound to him. Orys himself cannot get the image of her bound and chained and kneeling in front of him out of his mind. A lesser man would be delighted in such a sight; a princess, a descendant of Gods, kneeling naked in front of him. Orys is no lesser man. He dances with Rhaenys and some Stormlander women, before he decides to retire with his wife on his arm, no man daring to interfere. He will not have her suffer hands a second time. She stands tall and proud next to him, a Storm Queen in all but name, and the last withering look she gives Rhaenys electrifies the Great Hall.
He has given her the Lord’s chambers. He will return to Aegonfort soon enough – other kingdoms need to be conquered, those conquered need to be ruled. Argella fills these rooms, too; her father’s tapestries hanging on the yellow stone not diminishing their size. It is fascinating for Orys how this castle can be so grand and big and lavish and rich. Dragonstone is so much poorer in comparison. The massive tower in which the lord’s chambers are located has no windows seaward. The guards close the doors, and Orys and Argella are left alone in the solar. The table there could itself host twenty people. Richly carved commodes and trunks hold further treasures. There are four more rooms adjoined to the former King’s solar - the office with its ebony desk and beautiful gold decorations, the bathing room and another, smaller sitting room with a few sofas and comfortable chairs. And the dreaded bedroom. Orys has seen its size, almost as big as his father’s solar on Dragonstone, with a bed that could accommodate three men of Orys’ size, let alone a slender woman like Argella. It is of ebony, too, with great bedposts and a large tapestry of gold and shiny black thread forming the famed crowned stag of the Durrandons.
Argella opens the door to the bedroom and leaves it open. On the small table left of the bed servants have left some wine and water and their former Queen’s preferred drink of warm, honeyed milk. She pours herself a cup of wine, though, before she sits down on the dressing table opposite of the room. That one was brought in from the Queen’s rooms she used to occupy as the former Crown Princess. Methodically she removes the circlet in her hair and the hairpins that kept her dark locks in place. It cascades down her back now, almost indistinguishable on the black brocade of her dress. She pushes her hair aside and removes the necklace as well and sets it down carefully. A few drops of oil on a handkerchief take off the red painted on her lips and cheeks. As young as she might be, without the make-up, she looks slightly older and wearier. Orys steps into the bedroom as well and watches her brush out her hair. Luscious and thick as it is, Orys imagines himself running his hands through it in a moment of weakness. She is of surpassing loveliness, his wife. He almost feels shabby, compared. Orys is tall and broad-shouldered, massive where Argella is delicate. His beard and long hair now feel unkempt and unrefined. Argella would deserve a man like his brother. But here they are now.
Argella stands up when she finishes and looks at him, immovable like Storm’s End. Her eyes match the tempest roaring outside. She turns around.
“Help me with the laces, mylord.”
Orys steps up and he unties the knot, trying to loosen the dress without touching. From the cloaking and everything, their wedding day seemed to match the fated day they first met - though now he is the one to undress her. When he finally manages to, the dress slips from her shoulder, revealing a white undershift and creamy arms. Everything else is hidden by a curtain of blackest hair. She shimmies out of the dress, leaves it carelessly on the floor. Such riches, he wants to say, but she steps out of her slippers and looks expectantly at him over her shoulder. It is not seducing. This is a task they are both asked to perform.
When he does not move, Argella shakes her head and turns around.
“This will not do”, she murmurs.
She is tall enough to reach to the top buttons of his outer clothing. Deft fingers make quick work, and she pushes it all from his shoulders. Then she proceeds to tuck his shirt out and pull it over his head, leaving Orys bare-chested. Argella’s blue, blue eyes take in the sight of him. Orys doesn’t know what she thinks - is she afraid? The thick cords of muscle, the scars from wars and former training days must surely be a frightening sight. But she only removes the small hairband that keeps his own dark, shoulder-length tosses out of his face.
“We can wait”, he says.
And for the first time he looks on to her face, Orys sees something else than impassivity and rage. The sad look in her eyes makes her eons older. “See, this is where you are wrong. I chose this – all of it.” Her fingers are cold when she cups his cheek. “Don’t dishonour this marriage by not doing your duty.“
Argella
She wishes it would be easier to hate this man. He is the killer of her father, the usurper, a bastard that has swung to high positions and she wishes truly it would be easier.
Her father died in battle - such is the fate of warriors, and she cannot fault Orys for being better at it. It would not be honourable. She feels ashamed by what happened during their wedding night, letting his sword hand stroke her tenderly. It was not as unpleasant as she imagined it would be with him, he had been kind and thoughtful as usual. She wonders what would take this man to truly hate. Surely, he must hate her, after Father refused her hand. Oh, how stupid we were. They’d have the might of dragons against Harren, and perhaps still her title as Queen of House Durrandon.
Orys has the blackest eyes, and one would think such eyes would show no emotion and no light, but he is so easy to read, like an open book. He was not made for court, Argella realizes slowly. A gentle man. One for family and warmth, not loud and large Storm’s End with its endless politicking. How will he fare as Aegon’s Hand? Argella doesn’t know.
He’s given her the Lord’s chamber and has decreed that she is to rule in his stead, true to Stormlander tradition and indeed, the morning before their wedding - the sun had only yet begun to rise - he woke her up and showed her the heads of Trant, Penrose and Gower, mounted on spikes. He will return to his king in two days’ time. Rhaenys has already departed.
The morning after they break their fast in the sitting room rather than the solar, the gigantic room feels too big for only the two of them. He looks strangely cozy, with his hair not yet kempt and bare-chested. It sends little shivers down her body, to her core. He is a handsome man. Thick cords of muscle ripple with every movement. There are scars over his body, some fresh, some old. She wonders if her father did one onto him. His eyes are strangely warm for their dark colour. The beard scratched on her skin, but it had been pleasant. She averts her eyes when he raises an eyebrow.
“I am sorry you’re stuck with me.”
Her husband has the habit to look people square in the eye and is not one to mince his words. It is a quality she admires in men, but he will wither at court once Aegon establishes it. Orys is no politician. A skilled warrior, a good governor, but no courtier. And she would rather die than follow him to Aegonfort. She barely handled Rhaenys, whose smile is mocking and her soft words more painful than the dragonfire she promised.
“I suppose you had as little choice as I did, following Aegon.”
“His Grace is my greatest friend. He would never force me into anything I was not willing to do.”
Blind loyalty angers Argella these days. If she has not been granted loyalty due to her sex, neither should Aegon on the basis of his dragons. What kind of king he will be only time will show. And even if, she is more scared of his queens than him. Argella draws a sharp breath and stuffs a piece of bread into her mouth, chewing hard on it until the taste turns sweet - to prevent her from saying something she regrets. If he notices that, he doesn’t say anything. When he finishes with breaking his fast, he stands up and pulls on the same doublet as yesterday. His chambers are her (and Mother’s) old ones. She can’t set foot in them again. She rings up a maid, and her favourite one answers, a timid creature - she is Argella’s favourite because she rarely talks, but has quick, deft fingers. The maid brushes her hair out and pulls it into a simple crown braid, before putting on a tiara - a small golden one, delicate with fine filigree and black diamonds set in. The dress she wears is another black one, lighter than her wedding dress but just as rich a cloth. Thread of gold has little leaves stitched on it. It used to be her mother’s, but when she passed away Argella had it resized. Her profile in the looking glass is almost too much.
The halls leading from the tower down to the courtyard are lined with scenes of her ancestors on tapestry, and the paintings of kings. She wonders if one day she will have to hang them down, to prevent the look of open defiance towards their new king. Argella knows some servants have taken down all that concerns her father - these are stored in trunks underneath her bed. His clothes fit Orys – everything personal has been left. Only his crowns and his swords have been taken to Aegon. It angers her, that the deep black obsidian jewels that once adorned the Storm King’s crown probably got fit into some trifle in the Queens’ jewelry; the gold molten for something as trivial as a necklace.
She has heard the shouts of the men around the castle, knows that something is up. There is a great shadow approaching the castle, and some assumed there was another storm coming. Argella suspects it is not a storm – such things never frightened her, for she is a descendent of the Goddess of Wind and the God of the Sea. She suspects it is a dragon. Perhaps Visenya, perhaps even the King. She knows it must’ve hurt Orys that his childhood friend was not present at the wedding. Just as she arrives at the courtyard, the greatest beast Argella has ever seen lands. The man on top of the black monstrosity seems comically small, only his silver head seen. As he dismounts the dragon, it flies up again and circles the tower where her chambers are. Orys follows suite, dressed too in all black. She is surprised to see what he is mourning.
They do not embrace like brothers, nor do they smile. Orys curtsies, and she supposes the way his Aegon’s eyes soften just a bit is enough to show that he is fond of Orys. It is not a bad position to be in, as the wife of the King’s most trusted confidante. It is still worse than ruling what by right belongs to her. She ignores the nagging voice inside her head, whispering how Aegon rules, by right of conquest. “Your Grace, let me introduce my wife – Lady Argella.”
Orys is taller and broader than his half-brother, but the King is no less striking than his beautiful sister had been; she is almost dumbfounded by the sheer beauty of his eyes. He shows little emotion, a blank smooth canvas if not for the arrogant cock of his eye. Argella knows this look, has seen it on many a lord in her days. She’s been a politician since the moment she was born. She can spot ambition even from a man sitting on a dragon. He looks at her defiantly, and for the first time in her life, Argella bows to someone who is not her parent. Rhaenys hadn’t expected it; she was content with gloating. It is embarrassing, hurts worse than being chained and stripped bare. For a brief moment, she had been a – the – queen, and now she is the last of her line. Her name dies out with her. When she rises again, Aegon smiles enigmatically at her and kisses her hand.
“My friend Orys told me it is customary to greet women of equal or higher birth with a kiss to the hand.”
She frowns at that, unable to hide her displeasure. “I do not wish to play games, Your Grace.”
“Neither do I, Argella of Storm’s End. You have the highest birth – you are royal, are you not? I merely became a king.”
She wonders if Storm’s End would have stood if she were born a man. Durran Godsgrief defied the wrath of the Gods themselves, and she does not even get the chance to prove herself against a mortal. Dragon or no, Argella is a descendant of those who rage outside her castle walls almost perpetually. There is an insult hidden, she knows, but she cannot read him. Not like she can read Orys, who is an open book. She looks over at her husband who shows no signs of being disrespected. But then again, she supposes a bastard son cannot be insulted on the perception of status. Not even a highborn one. Not even a dragonlord’s bastard.
“I wish to see famed Storm’s End. They say it was built by Brandon the Builder to withstand the fury of the Gods.”
They end their tour in the godswood, her mother’s place of solitude. Her mother had been a Dondarrion of Blackhaven, a proud woman whose line has defended the Stormlands against the Dornish for countless centuries. Before her forefathers chose their Andal wives’ faith, this had been their place of worship. In Storm End’s godswood, one barely feels the wind raging on. The weirwood tree in the center of the woods with its solemn face always read like her mother. It held none of her father’s haughtiness; but all of the Queen’s quiet contemplation. Aegon had asked questions about the castle, about its foundations and the stone, disappointed the magic it was built with disappeared thousands of years ago. Orys does not enter the godswood with them – it is a dark place, a primal place, a place for those born of her blood and from her womb, from now on. Of course, Aegon impedes, but he so often impedes. He reminds her somewhat of the statues that line one of the lesser halls, the ones she always found somewhat unnerving, their likeness frozen into marble.
“Do you believe in the Old Gods, Argella of Storm’s End?”
She pauses, looking at the heart tree, feeling its strange blood red eyes. “I believe in some divinity, though I am not sure whose name it carries.”
Aegon seems somewhat impressed with her answer, his eyebrows shooting up briefly. “That was very honest of you.” He remains silent, and then: “I did not refuse you because your father’s offer hadn’t been generous or because you are not desirable. I believed it to be more insulting to you than anything, to be a third wife, and insulting to mine even more.”
“I don’t care about your thoughts”, she replies, touching the tree between its sorrowful eyes. “We are where we are. To dwell on the past does me no good.”
He laughs at that, full of himself and his almost-godlikeness, Argella spreads her hand and stabs the tree into its eyes, coating her fingers in blood-like sap, wishing it were the King’s. Fury is all she has left, and he fuels it with his very breaths. “Of course you care about the past. The past is what makes a man a man.”
“Your past… What do you care about? Old Valyria?”
“I’m no mere man, Argella of Storm’s End, it is the future who makes me who I am.”
“So you want to recreate it.” Aegon hummus at that. Argella retrieves her sticky hand, watches how the sap turns dark with the waning daylight, the wind whipping the other wood’s crowns around, making the heart tree ruffle angrily. Before she knows any better, as if possessed by something old and arcane, something given to her through her divine ancestor she says: “I curse your future, Aegon of House Targaryen. Your future, your entire line – it shall go down in Fire & Blood.”
He slaps her at that, hard across the cheek, which causes her to bite the inside of it, and spit it right back into his face.
“Yours and mine are intertwined, you horrid shrew.”
She smiles, though it hurts her. “Aye, but you care about the future more than I. I curse you. My name is Argella of House Durrandon, daughter of Elenei, and with my divine blood I curse your house to doom. If you wish to recreate Valyria, then so shall it be.”