ARC II: THE AGE OF EXPANSION AND THE ANNIHILATION OF THE GREYJOYS
Chapter 23: The Marriage of the Rose and the Wolf
POV: Margaery Tyrell (297 A.C.)
The day's frantic bustle was perfectly visible on the faces of every soul who crossed the granite corridors, from the humblest servants to the highest-born lords of the South and the North. Curiously, I did not share a single trace of that anxiety. There was no room for nervousness in my chest. For a good part of my life, I had been meticulously shaped and prepared for this exact moment; today would be the great day when I would become the Queen of the North. Around me, a small army of maids adjusted the heavy, opulent folds of my wedding dress, while my mother, Alerie, and my grandmother, the Old Lady Olenna, guided every movement with sharp commands. Pride shone obvious in my mother's eyes—after all, her only daughter was about to ascend the throne of the most powerful, industrialized, and mystically advanced realm in the known world. In my grandmother's eyes, however, pride was accompanied by a cold glint of calculation and the pure satisfaction of one who saw a years-long strategy reach its ultimate coronation. For me, however, the Reach's pretensions were secondary. What truly mattered was the title of Queen and the real power that would come with it. If I carried this ruthless ambition, the blame lay entirely with Grandmother, who had planted those seeds in my mind since my childhood in Highgarden.
What the Old Lady failed to realize, however, was that this marriage would never unfold the way she imagined in her detailed plans. I had been in Winterfell with my family for a week to finalize the commercial and political agreements, a period I spent almost entirely in Arawyn's company. In our private conversations, the young monarch had been brutally honest about everything. I knew, therefore, that he harbored a deep disdain for the hypocritical and decadent politics of the South, which by itself shattered my grandmother's pretensions of using me to seduce him and manipulate northern wealth for the benefit of the Reach. It was southern folly and arrogance to believe that a man with that level of transcendental power could be manipulated by conventional bedchamber tricks. The man was capable of reading minds; how could someone endowed with such magical perception be fooled by sweet words and rehearsed smiles? Deep down, I found it amusing how both my grandmother and Prince Doran Martell expected me and Princess Rhaenys Targaryen to act as mere pawns of espionage. My grandmother had always made sure I developed a genuine appreciation for the culture and strength of the North to ease my adaptation. She had achieved that goal with honors, but if she thought my heart still belonged to the ambitions of Highgarden, she was dead wrong. To hell with the Reach; my commitment now was solely and exclusively to myself and the throne I was about to occupy.
The only cog that had initially caused me perplexity was the fact that Arawyn had not chosen Rhaenys as his official queen, given that he kept her under his protection and even took her to his private chambers frequently. But I soon understood the dynamics of that court. The Wolf King did not waste time with aristocratic hesitations; he had claimed my virginity on the very first day of my arrival at Winterfell, and Rhaenys had been present in the bed that same night. Far from being an affront, that had been a genuine relief.
Arawyn's monumental structure and runic vigor were of such intensity that I would hardly have the physical condition to keep up with him alone without the help of other women. Remembering those first days made me flash an involuntary smile amidst the dress adjustments.
"It seems your nights of rest have been quite pleasant, my dear," Olenna Tyrell commented, observing the change in my expression with her sharp, bird-of-prey eyes.
"You have no idea, Grandmother," I replied, maintaining an enigmatic tone.
"And from what I've been gathering among the maids, it wasn't just you who enjoyed warm moments in the royal chambers, was it?" The old lady narrowed her eyes, scenting the web of relationships in the castle. "You need to take extreme care, my rose. If you let your guard down for a single instant, another woman will take what is yours by right of birth."
I limited myself to letting out a restrained laugh. If my grandmother knew the real magnitude of what the king was structuring for his inner circle of women, she would suffer a collapse. The royal harem was already a reality established by Arawyn's will, and I would assume the leadership of that structure with the implicit consent of all parties involved.
The marriage under the rites of the Old Gods proved to be a ceremony of extreme practicality and speed, stripped of the drawn-out pomp and monotonous sermons of the Faith of the Seven. Before the ancient heart tree of the Godswood, whose carved face seemed to witness the union with a millennial solemnity, my father formally handed me over to the monarch. Arawyn accepted me as his lawful wife, firmly removing the blue and gold cloak with the Tyrell sigil to cover my shoulders with the heavy gray cloak adorned with the direwolf of House Stark.
The subsequent feast, however, broke any barrier of sobriety, turning into a monumental festivity of proportions the North had never witnessed. The people and the nobility celebrated the fact that their king finally had a queen consort by his side. In the Great Hall, the warriors of House Umber consumed barrels of dark ale and runic mead as if the world's supplies were about to run out. Great-Jon, the famous giant whose songs of bravery echoed even in southern halls, roared rustic laughter while challenging his son, Small-Jon—who possessed absolutely nothing small about him, being called that only in comparison to his father's colossal stature—to another round of drinks. Further along, at the high table, Lord Eddard Stark himself was visibly intoxicated, a rarity imposed by the celebrations. The Silent Wolf seemed not to notice that his two wives, Cersei and Ashara, kept his horn constantly filled with complicit smiles, clearly plotting some amorous trap for the Protector of the Neck when they returned to their chambers.
Sitting beside my husband at the elevated table, I observed his cold and imposing profile. Our formal interactions before the court were calculated, but I still kept in mind the answer he had given me days ago, when I asked why he had chosen precisely me, a rose of the South, instead of consolidating a union with Rhaenys or any other lineage. He had simply looked at me with those mesmerizing gray eyes with a mysterious green undertone and said that it was one of the greatest prerogatives of being able to see the timelines: he could choose his alliances based solely and exclusively on the future that proved most prosperous and stable for his realm.
When the night was already deep into the early hours and most of the lords were in a complete state of alcoholic torpor, a northern landed septon raised his mug and bellowed at the top of his lungs the demand for the traditional bedding ceremony. It was the appointed hour. I was escorted out of the hall by the women of the Stark family. Leading me through the corridors toward the royal chambers were Cersei Stark and Lyanna Stark. The lioness of the West looked at me askance, flashing a smile dripping with derision.
"Do you have any real experience with men, girl? Or will I have to teach the basics to the new queen?" Cersei asked, measuring me from head to toe.
I raised an eyebrow, facing her with the due loftiness that my new position demanded.
"Shouldn't my lady expect me to have remained pure, chaste, and untouched for my king's bed?"
Lyanna, who walked a bit further ahead with her hand resting on the back of her giant direwolf, let out an impatient sigh and stepped in before the argument could escalate.
"Stop baiting the girl, Cersei. Besides, everyone in the castle knows that the moans coming from the guest chambers during this past week were of such intensity that the servants could barely catch any sleep nearby," the wolf of Winterfell fired with her usual rawness, drawing a stifled, complicit laugh from the Lannister.
Upon reaching the massive oak doors of the imperial chambers, the two women paused. Cersei stepped forward to open the passage and bid farewell with a narrowed gaze.
"Well, our escort duty is done. Now I have my own wolf to tame. Arawyn tried to convince me that little Rickon would be my last child due to the demands of the lineage, but I refuse to accept the limits of his visions. I will continue testing Ned's limits tonight."
With that said, the Lannister walked away with firm steps, detailing aloud to Lyanna the minutiae of her intimate life and the erotic plans she had reserved for her husband, leaving her sister-in-law a few seconds away from simply mounting her direwolf and galloping far away from that indiscreet conversation.
I entered the room and found Arawyn waiting for me. He had also been led there by the men of my retinue, which in practice boiled down to my older brothers, since my father, Mace Tyrell, had fallen into a state of alcoholic unconsciousness long before the end of the feast—a maneuver I suspected had the direct and surgical interference of my grandmother to prevent him from making a fool of himself before the northerners. The king had already divested himself of his heavy runic tunic, exposing the monumental musculature of his torso, which looked sculpted in living marble and cut by the glowing lines of the inscriptions covering his skin. I walked toward him as he sat before the hearth, whose fire cast dancing shadows across the walls. Along the way, I untied the knots of my dress and let the heavy fabric fall to the floor, revealing the exotic design of the undergarment I wore—a black lace lingerie with bold lines. Days ago, I had even questioned the master of the tailors of Winterfell about the origin of that strange-sounding word, and he had informed me that the concept did not come from any known language of Westeros or the Free Cities, nor even from the Old Tongue of the First Men; it was another of the conceptual creations brought by Arawyn's visions, a tailoring secret that the southern weavers had tried to copy from afar and failed miserably due to a lack of technical precision.
I approached and sat directly on his lap, settling against the warmth of his body.
"Well, now we are officially bound as one before the gods and men, my dear wife," Arawyn declared, wrapping his immense arms around my waist.
"Not quite entirely yet, my lord. We still need to formally consummate the marriage before this bed," I replied, gazing into his gray eyes. "And I fear we'll have a narrative problem here."
"And what would the problem be?" He tilted his head, flashing a pragmatic half-smile.
"Well, traditions demand that this be the night of my first time with my husband, but my lord knows well that there is no virginity left in me to be claimed today. Unless, of course, your desire is to possess the hole of my ear."
My own teasing made me let out a laugh. Arawyn, however, kept an unperturbed countenance; he gripped my waist firmly and rotated my body on his lap, positioning me facing him before analyzing me from head to toe with analytical rawness.
"Do you like what you see, my king? Or does your wife's model no longer meet your dynastic expectations?" I inquired, challenging his gaze.
"It is an acceptable glimpse," he replied with his deep voice, a amused glint dancing in his pupils. "But I wonder if there is still time for the court to request the exchange of this bride for another, more docile lineage."
"Unfortunately for your reign, the contract has already been signed and sealed with blood. You will have to content yourself with me from now on."
"If that is the case, I will have to ensure that the investment makes every minute of this night worth it."
Without the slightest physical effort, as if my body weighed absolutely nothing to his runic structure, Arawyn lifted me with a single hand and carried me toward the monumental bed. He laid me on my back over the fur sheets and opened my legs with indestructible firmness. Using his teeth with a wild precision, he caught the laced fabric of the lower part of my lingerie and tore the piece in half with a single pull. I let out a brief, audible complaint—after all, that was my favorite set brought from the South—but my grievances were promptly silenced when his mouth and tongue found the center of my body. The intensity of his movements was overwhelming; his tongue exerted a firm pressure that seemed made of pure runic steel, while the suction of his lips acted so deeply that it gave the distinct impression he intended to extract my very soul through the flesh. The mystical and physical stimulation was too much for my resistance; my body tensed and I reached a violent, rapid orgasm, ripping loud moans from my throat even before he actually penetrated me.
Arawyn raised his face, displaying an expression of pure masculine satisfaction at witnessing my state, while I desperately tried to catch my breath and regain control over my legs, which trembled involuntarily on the mattress. I was absolutely certain that if I tried to get up from that bed at that exact instant, my strength would fail and I would collapse against the stone floor. My thoughts were abruptly interrupted when I felt the heavy impact of his erect member against my belly. Even having already witnessed that rustic, monumental structure during our secret encounters that week, the sight of the real size of his manhood never ceased to surprise me. It completely defied the anatomical illustrations and theoretical examples that the maids of Highgarden used to instruct young noblewomen on what to expect from a wedding bed in the South. The disparity was such that it brought a pertinent question to my mind: either my husband was a biological anomaly far above the global average due to the resonance of Stark magic, or the men of the southern lands possessed considerably smaller attributes than they liked to boast in their songs; it was most likely that reality was an exact combination of both factors.
The monarch leaned his colossal body over mine, silencing my lips with a deep, voracious kiss. The mixture of the taste of his mouth with my own fluids that he carried on his lips acted as a chemical catalyst on my senses, raising my arousal to dangerous levels. I felt the massive pressure of his head against my entrance and, in the next second, he filled me completely in a single firm movement. The sensation was one of absolute stretching; my vaginal walls were forced to the limit of their capacity to accommodate that unusual thickness. Arawyn did not begin the act with the courteous slowness that etiquette manuals recommended for wedding nights; he immediately imposed a rhythm characterized by brute force and relentless speed. I showed no opposition to that rawness, for that intensity was exactly what my body needed at that moment. His left hand moved up to cup my breast firmly, while the thick fingers of his right hand wrapped around my neck, exerting a calculated, controlled pressure—the gentlest a man with that colossal strength could manage. Air began to slowly leave my lungs as the compression subtly increased. The combination of the simulated asphyxiation with the continuous impact of his deep thrusts generated a sensory overload in my nervous system; a few minutes later, my body contracted again in another intense orgasm, but the Wolf King did not even show signs of fatigue, maintaining the destructive pace without reducing his speed for a single second.
Without withdrawing his member from inside me, Arawyn used his strength to turn me onto my stomach on the bed, restarting the barrage of thrusts from that new position. The sound of our bodies colliding echoed sharply through the chambers, joining my unchecked groans that filled the silence of the Winterfell night. He kept his torso raised over my back and buried his fingers in my brown hair, pulling me back firmly to raise the upper part of my body. While keeping me arched under his structure, his left hand slipped down the front, massaging my clitoris with fast, precise movements. The double friction raised the tension to its peak; the rhythm of his thrusts accelerated to the limit and, finally, I felt the monarch reach his own climax, pouring his seed deep into my womb. The gushes of his semen were of a monumental force and volume, making me wonder once again if that amount could be considered normal for the standards of an ordinary mortal.
During my first intimate encounter with him right after my arrival at the castle, I took the liberty of questioning him about that physiological particularity. Arawyn had explained to me with the coldness of a scientist that it was a direct mystical compensation of the inscriptions on his body. Since he had activated a permanent runic matrix in himself aimed at preventing the unwanted conception of his partners, the vital and runic energy that would originally be spent on fertilizing his seeds ended up being converted into a biological fuel, drastically amplifying the volume and potency of the ejaculation.
The king withdrew from inside me and released my exhausted body, letting me collapse without strength against the fur sheets. He rose from the bed with total readiness and walked to the nightstand, where a silver pitcher filled with northern wine rested, drinking the liquid directly from the neck with the posture of one who had barely exerted physical effort.
"Now that your body has had a few moments to catch its breath," he said, replacing the pitcher on the table and fixing his green eyes in my direction, "it is time to continue with the royal duties of this bed."
I watched him return toward the bed and realized immediately that the ceremony for my official coronation and the public greetings scheduled for the following morning would have to be irrevocably postponed; there was not the slightest biological chance of me being able to walk on my own two legs after the conclusion of this night. To my own amazement and internal irritation, I felt the muscles of my face curve into a genuine smile of anticipation as I processed that reality.
Arawyn noticed the course of my thoughts—which was an absolute certainty, given his latent mind-reading capability—and climbed back onto the mattress, positioning himself over me. At that moment, I found myself internally wishing for the presence of Princess Rhaenys or even Ros; where were the royal concubines when it was strictly necessary to share the burden of an insatiable monarch?
"Do not divert your attention, my queen," Arawyn whispered, his voice resonating right by my ear. "This night belongs exclusively to our union. But you do not need to worry; I will ensure the pace is reduced so that your southern structure can withstand the coming clashes."
His words proved to be a blatant lie. In the next second, the king gripped my legs firmly, passing his robust arms under my knees and joining his large hands at the base of my neck. The maneuver locked my body into a position of absolute immobility, exposing my entrance completely and eliminating any possibility of retreat or impact absorption. That penetration mechanic held absolutely no trace of slowness or moderation. I felt his member invade my interior with a devastating force, hitting extremely deep regions of my cervix that had not even been touched in the previous sessions.
I let out a sharp cry of surprise mixed with overwhelming pleasure at the internal impact.
"My lord lied deliberately to his wife, my husband," I managed to articulate between my teeth, while trying to assimilate the intensity of the pleasurable pain spreading through my belly.
Arawyn let out a rustic laugh, maintaining the fast, deep movements from that locking position.
"Your observations are technically correct, Margaery. However, I am the King of the North; by divine right and right of conquest, my spoken word becomes the only absolute and correct truth within these lands."
Faced with that demonstration of imperial authority and unshakeable physical vigor, I had no line of defense left. I was swept away by a continuous torrent of stimuli, forced to emit uninterrupted groans while my body experienced a succession of multiple and consecutive orgasms, which extended through the dark hours. The night in Winterfell shaped up to be long and exhausting, but, again, I had not the slightest intention of complaining about the destiny I had chosen for myself.