Chapter Text
The Shores of War
AFTER
The tide crashed against the cliffs, its roar warring with the cries of the injured and dying. Saelind drew her cloak closer around her, the salt air tasting bitter on her tongue. A gale was beginning to brew, chilling her bones further. Her violet gaze scanned the skies but it remained resolutely empty of friend or foe. Deep down, she knew her mother was not coming for her. Strategy dictated so. But as Rhaenyra set her children upon the board as pawns, it was only to see them soon swept aside by an opponent hand. First, Lucerys. Now Saelind. One claimed by death, the other by the enemy. And Saelind was not worth the risk. Or so the Black Council would argue. Especially with four Targaryen sons left living, standing between Saelind and the Iron Throne. No, her mother was not coming to rescue her last living daughter. Not after Saelind had so publicly renounced Rhaenyra as the rightful ruler, before consecrating her defection by binding herself to Ormund Hightower as his bride.
Saelind could not help but hope Rhaenyra would know such treachery was secured by swordpoint. That she was no willing wife. Yet those who sat around the Painted Table at Dragonstone would no doubt pour poison in her mother's ear. They would hark back to Saelind's immature resentment at not being named heir above Jacaerys even as she'd long outgrown such envy. Or how she had hesitated before reluctantly rallying to her mother's banners. But she'd simply had no desire for fire and blood. It was not an act of opposition against Rhaenyra's rightful claim. Even as Saelind had grit her teeth and gone to do her duty, none of that mattered now. She would be spat upon as a traitor regardless. Yet no dragons had been unleashed upon the Hightower forces, giving Saelind perhaps misplaced hope that Rhaenyra knew her daughter had not betrayed her after all.
For now, Saelind remained utterly at Ormund Hightower's questionable mercy. Her dragon, Foxfyre, had been lost to the winds, Saelind injured and alone, before being discovered and captured by the Green forces. With a blade to her throat, she had been forced to surrender her rightful title of princess, along with her freedom and family loyalty. Despite his distaste, for was she not known as a bastard and witch, with her tainted Targaryen blood, Ormund Hightower had surprisingly and swiftly taken her to wife. Now she was merely Lady Hightower, once again a pawn in another ambitious fool’s folly. Jaw clenching, Saelind stepped over yet another corpse, its eyes missing, no doubt serving as a gull’s supper. But its ragged tunic bore the Green colors, and thus earned no pity from her, only distaste. Yet there was also strange regret edging her ire at seeing another life lost and cast upon the shores of war. Were his parents watching the horizon for him? Did a lover lament his leaving? Would a child grow up without its father?
Exhaling sharply, Saelind continued on, guiltily ignoring the outstretched hands of the dying as they plucked at her skirts, feigning deafness to their pleas for water and mercy. May the Mother forgive her, she prayed, averting her face. But the living needed her more, even as they were the enemy, Saelind only stopping to staunch a wound here and to help set a bone there. To the surprise of many, Ormund had demanded she place her skills at the disposal of his army, an overt display of fealty. But Saelind knew it was so reports would reach Rhaenyra of her daughter being observed aiding Aegon’s cause, another incessant reminder that even Rhaenyra’s own blood disputed her claim to the crown. For the Hightowers, the sight of Saelind Velaryon apparently leaving her mother's men to rot, was above the worth of emeralds.
She was thus forced to work alongside Ormund's maesters and healers in her reluctant endeavours to stop the tide of death. But for Saelind, there was always only a limited supplies in the woven satchel perpetually slung across her shoulder, Saelind deliberately saving them for the neediest. Almost as deliberately as Ormund when he kept her short of what she so desperately needed, a pointed reminder he held the upper hand. Ormund as ever remained unmoved in the face of her pleas. Saelind felt he enjoyed the spectacle of seeing her beg him for what he would not bestow. To see her debase herself for the sake of men she would have slaughtered in her mother's name. It was an eternal exercise in humiliation.
As Saelind worked, she illogically searched each face for her brother’s, only to find a stranger’s each time. Yet there was no respite from her fears. Was Jacaerys still high in the heavens above or was he earthbound and beyond her reach? Still the sky and shore yielded no answers and neither did the tongues of men, Saelind too frightened to ask otherwise. Ormund had eyes and ears everywhere. The few times she had first tried to escape or help her mother's men, Ormund had simply punished another for her rebellion, either flogging those supposed to guard her or killing the injured enemy himself. He had not lain a finger upon her since her capture, yet still she recoiled from his merest glance.
Straightening up, Saelind suddenly caught sight of herself in the burnished copper surface of a shield embedded in the sand. Her usually neat dark braids, worn like a crown around her head, were now threatening to tumble down her back in disorder. At some point, someone had trodden on the hem of her gown and torn it. Blood splattered her cloak like a painter’s canvass. She stank of sweat and piss and shit. A far cry from the princess she had been raised to be. But war had come calling and she had been forced to answer, following its call down into the depths of the seven hells. All in the name of honor and duty. Fire and blood. But there was no glory to be found here, only guts and gore -
“My lady!” a young boy pleaded, suddenly grabbing her by the elbow, panic pitching his voice high. “Please! My grandfather!”
Startled, Saelind stared down at his unfamiliar freckled face, painfully reminded of Lucerys before recovering herself. “Where is he?” she demanded, yanking herself free from his painful grip.
“Over yonder!” the boy choked out, pointing to a large black rock nearby where several bodies lay scattered around it.
Saelind followed the boy, clutching her satchel closer to her, the sweat pouring down her brow. She impatiently dashed it out of her eyes with the back of her hand, irreverently remembering her septa’s admonishment from so long ago - only animals perspired and maidens merely glowed. Well, she must be rather radiant at this moment, Saelind thought darkly. The boy kneeled down beside an elderly man with a heavily bearded face and piercing blue eyes, Saelind following his example. One look at the old man's injury was enough to ascertain he was beyond all human help; that all she could do was ease his passing and she was not inclined to waste what little she had on such a pointless task. The wry look he bestowed upon her only served to confirm her suspicions he knew he had come to the end of his road. Yet Saelind could not walk away as warranted, something strangely stopping her all of a sudden. Mayhaps the Mother had led her to him for good reason, a gentle reminder to show mercy.
“What is your name?” Saelind asked abruptly, pulling out her much depleted vessel containing milk of the poppy, guiltily begrudging it.
“Bernard,” the man grunted as his grandson hovered anxiously above him. “Bernard of Fecksbane.” He eyed the bottle with some asperity. “Fuck that,” he winced, “tastes like whore’s piss. Wouldn’t have some Arbor gold in that bag of yours, would you?”
Hesitating, Saelind pulled out the half full bottle of blackberry wine. “This more suited to your taste, old man?” she drawled, feigning a levity she didn't feel before helping the boy to ease Bernard into a more upright position.
“Anythin’s better than piss, my lady.”
“Archer, I take it?” Saelind pressed, handing the bottle over to him, her gaze running over his bloodied brawny frame. No doubt he would possess the usual injuries that came with his occupation – tears in the shoulder, inflammation in the elbow, wounds to the wrist and hand. She had dealt with many a case of ‘string slap’ ever since her unfortunate capture. Up close, she observed scars from old lacerations and punctures, where he had no doubt cut a broadhead wrong in his time. The awkward way he was holding himself indicated his ribs were displaced, another consequence of his vocation.
“No, I was a humble seamstress,” Bernard said dryly, handing the bottle back to her. “Share it round, my lady,” he then said, gesturing to the wine. “Have some yourself if so inclined.”
“Do not mind if I do, bowman.”
Saelind glanced around in shock, nearly dropping the bottle. Her erstwhile husband stood there, towering over their small tableau, his bloodless face mocking. No doubt he was warring the urge to retch. She immediately noted the way he was clutching his shoulder and the tight curve of his jaw, as if restraining himself from crying out in pain. His tangled curls fell in wild disarray across his brow, left cheek gashed and bleeding freely. Holding her gaze, Ormund gestured for her to go forth, the movement impatient. Saelind slowly rose to her feet, glancing helplessly down at the dying archer but he jerked his chin, signalling for her to leave them. Stowing the bottle away in her satchel, she reluctantly did so.
Biting her lip, Saelind then accompanied Ormund, the pair of them stepping over the dead and the dying, enemy and ally alike. To her horror, Ormund suddenly slammed his heavy boot down onto the already crushed skull of a soldier bearing Rhaenyra’s sigil. Then he moved on, leaving a bloodied footprint she was forced to follow. Shaking, Saelind summoned a passing healer for one soul still able to be saved, a young squire as green as grass and who lay there weeping for his mother. No doubt this was his first taste of war. But this time he would live. But whether this was a mercy or not, Saelind did not want to contemplate.
As Saelind turned away from the sight of a pikesman with his guts spilling out, guilt stabbed her afresh. Truth be told, she no longer recognized herself now. She was not the princess who went to war with dragging feet. Or who wanted to hold the hands of the dying to lend them some last feeble comfort as they died for dragons who did not care. Once she would have torn up her own extravagant vesture for bandages in reckless sacrifice. But now under Ormund’s influence, she was forced to consider her own needs first before casting an assessing eye over the suffering, calculating if they were worth the effort of her limited time and tinctures.
“Is this how you greet your lord husband, then?” Ormund taunted, coming to a looming halt before Saelind. “With a sour visage and silent lips?”
Saelind tried to steady herself, to not rise to his perpetual jeers. He was no warm husband to greet with smiles and kisses but a warrior filled with holy purpose. He had taken her by force to be his bride even as he had not yet claimed her body for his own. But she was the trophy he bore, the pelt on his floor.