green queen, black ace | daemon, rhaenyra and vaegon

xi. a feast for dragons, part ii

{tw: brief discussion of rape at the very beginning... also maybe don't read the middle in public!}

•••••••

SER OTTO HIGHTOWER SHOULD HAVE KNOWN the moment he stepped out of the feast hall, merely to escape witnessing the failures of his children for a moment, that Princess Saera would follow him.

At first, he had thought it might be Alicent, here to apologise for her sulking.

Instead, it was the woman that he wished had kept to her whorehouse in Lys.

"Otto," the woman said, her voice low, almost like a purr, "it's been a while."

The man in question merely scowled in response. Did this woman think she had the right to address him? She was nothing anymore, just another discarded daughter of the Old King. The Seven knew he had many.

"Do you have nothing to say to me?" The Princess demanded, sounding a strange cross between furious and amused.

The Hand of the King's lips lifted into a sneer. "I have nothing to say to a runaway whore."

"How about your wife?" The Princess challenged. "An unwilling wedding on my part it may have been, but one that was never reversed."

Otto breathed heavily though his nose, willing himself to not rise to her bait. "What are you doing here, Saera?"

The fifth daughter of King Jaehaerys I merely smiled. "Why, I'm here to meet my granddaughters of course. They are my first, after all."

Before he could restrain himself, Otto had wrapped his hand around the Princess' neck, walking her back into the hard stone wall.

To his fury, Princess Saera's smile remained in place.

"You left her. You left Ceryse in my care when she was barely a month old. To the world, she is my late wife's child, you have no claim to her nor are her children," he ground out furiously. "Out of my generosity, I even ignored the fact you had passed off your eldest bastard as a Farman and let her be Ceryse's maid. But that is as far as my generosity goes. If you say a word to Ceryse, the might of House Hightower will crush you and your bastards alike. You have six now, do you not?"

Saera moved her head closer to his. "Will you now? What do you think the King will do if I tell him the truth of us? That I brought my eldest with me from Essos to show my father, in the hopes of reconciliation. Only for House Hightower to imprison me, forcibly marry me to you, rape me and keep my second daughter from me until I had no choice but to flee again without her. Do you think Viserys will still be your obedient lapdog then? Do you think little Ceryse will be so willing to do whatever she can for her house?"

A door closed down the hallway, and so Otto slowly released Princess Saera's neck.

He shouldn't have grabbed her to begin with. A rare lapse of composure that he would ensure did not happen again.

Ser Otto Hightower took in a long breath.

"I wouldn't count on the King caring, just as your father wouldn't have," he spoke, moving several paces back. "He has a part-Valyrian bride again, after all, it doesn't really matter how she came about. You are nothing and no one in Westeros, not anymore."