Taming The Storm Queen

This is a damsel-in-distress bondage story set in the world of Game of Thrones: in fact, it's based directly on a canon event during Aegon's Conquest, expanded and slightly massaged to appeal more to DiD fans like me. It's pretty gentle, but don't read if you're offended by bondage and mild humiliation.

With the Storm King dead, slain by the bastard Orys Baratheon during the terrible battle known as the Last Storm, his daughter by rights ascended to the throne as his only true-born heir. If any in Storm's End doubted her claim, they did not choose to say so.

Argella Durrandon had little time for grieving, and little interest in it either. She was truly her father's daughter, quick of temper and stubborn of heart; she had heard tell of the burning of Harrenhal, but cared not. Let the Targaryen whore bring her dragon, she said, and I shall pluck out its eyes. The stormlanders pulled up the drawbridge, manned the battlements with the few soldiers remaining to them, and waited.

As strong-willed as she undoubtedly was, Argella was a mere woman, and no warrior. If Queen Rhaenys had flown Meraxes over the castle's monumental curtain wall, it is most unlikely that its eyes would have been in peril; the outcome would have been bloody, but predictable. Aegon would have been presented with a second smoking ruin to rule over, and his sister-wife's compliments. In the event, however, Storm's End did not fall in this way.

In the evening of the same day, as Argella retired to her chambers, whispers began to circulate. The queen was brave, it was conceded, and the castle impregnable under normal circumstances; yet fine words and thick walls were equally ineffective against dragonfire, as Harren the Black had discovered to his cost. Hunkered down in the largest and strongest castle in the realm, Harren had roasted alive along with his sons and lords bannermen. What, asked the whisperer persuasively, would it profit the house of Durrandon to have its ancient seat reduced to molten rock, and its people to ash?

And so a plan was hatched.

The next morning, the bastard Orys Baratheon sat in his tent, supping wine and giving due consideration to his breakfast, when he was disturbed by a commotion. Stepping out into the watery sunlight to demand an explanation, he was shocked by a sight that neither he, nor any of the men present, would ever forget. They had received a visitor from Storm's End.

Argella Durrandon had been stripped completely naked, and there were goosebumps on her fine pale skin. She had also been chained like a common criminal: her wrists were fettered closely together behind her back, her ankles were fettered so restrictively that she could not walk at all, only hop when prodded with a spear (she had been secured over the back of a horse like a piece of baggage for the journey from the castle to Orys's camp), and her captors had further wrapped lengths of chain tightly around her legs, arms and chest, with another attached to a collar around her throat. These clanked and rattled as she struggled desperately yet futilely to free herself. Other than this, however, she was largely silent, for the Storm Queen had finally been gagged with a length of white cloth knotted tightly between her teeth - and, Orys judged by the bulge of her pretty cheek, a further mass of cloth inside her mouth.

At first, nobody knew what to say... except perhaps Argella, but her gag prevented her from making conversation. It was a confusing and faintly awkward situation, for all present respected the queen's courage and could feel the shame and humiliation of her condition. A chained, gagged prisoner, helpless and naked in front of hundreds of common soldiers, she had overnight been reduced in status from a haughty queen to a lowly captive. A matter of hours after her brave defiance, vowing to keep Orys from her ancestral home at all costs, she was simply his property: a gift handed over at no inconvenience to the bastard whatsoever.

The fact that it was Orys, too, added to the lady's chagrin, for there was history between them. Orys had once sought her hand in marriage; this had been taken as an insult, for Argella's father had originally offered her to Aegon, not his lowborn bastard companion, and angrily refused. But now, it appeared, Orys could take her whenever convenient, in whatever manner he chose. She had refused him and insulted him and now she was at his mercy.

Orys, for his part, was excessively moved. He had never previously met the lady, only agreeing to take her hand to assist his friend's political ambitions. But here she was, at her lowest ebb, betrayed and humiliated, and he was overwhelmed with admiration. She was, he realised, quite as beautiful as she was proud, with inky dark hair, bright green eyes, and a fine pert bosom that she was presently unable to hide from his gaze; and he found that he wanted to possess her very much indeed. Oddly, however, he did not wish to take her against her will.

"Take possession of the castle, and identify those responsible for this pleasing gift; tonight I wish to sleep in the largest bedroom. In the meantime, my dear lady," said Orys, taking the leash and applying the gentlest of pressure, "please accompany me to my tent." The blushing Storm Queen had no choice but to submit, hopping obediently behind her new owner as the soldiers laughed at what they saw as Orys's ironic politeness... but they had misjudged their lord.

Within the privacy of the tent, Orys tenderly covered Argella with his cloak, and began to unlock her chains, leaving only her hands bound in deference to her fierce reputation. Slipping the gag out of her mouth (and smiling at the scarcely conceivable quantity of fabric that it had been holding in), he lifted a goblet of good Arbor red to the lady's parched lips and invited her to sup deeply. He could tell that she had suffered a great deal, and was in dire need of a drink.

"Lady Durrandon," he said, "it grieves me to see you reduced to this condition, but I assure you that no further indignities will befall you while you are under my protection. And if you will give me your word that you will not attempt to escape or harm anyone in this camp, I shall also unchain your wrists."

Argella smiled thinly. "And what, my lord, if I do not choose to give my word?"

"Then you shall remain bound. A necessary precaution, but one that I would find personally embarrassing."

"And to be clear, my lord, would my legs and body be bound, under this arrangement, or only my wrists? And would a gag be part of your 'necessary precaution', lest I talk you to death?"

"Your restraints, my lady, will be adjusted according to your behaviour and disposition. If you do as you are told, you will be allowed a degree of freedom. If you shout and yell, I will gag you tight myself and enjoy the peace and quiet. And now, can I tempt you with a trifle of honeyed ham?"

Argella, they say, accepted the offer of the ham but declined the unchaining of her wrists, and remained fettered for the duration of the meal; indeed, one servant swore that when he went in to collect the dirty plates most of the chains had found their way back on to her body. Whether this was because she refused to give her word not to escape or for some other reason is unclear.

What we do know is that the two young people found one another far more agreeable company than would be expected, given that Argella had rudely refused Orys's hand in marriage, while Orys had slain Argella's father in single combat. A less promising beginning to a friendship could scarce be imagined... yet barely a week later it was announced that they planned to wed, and that Orys would take the sigil and words of House Durrandon as well as its lands and titles. Some say that beneath her wedding gown Argella was secretly wearing a pair of golden ankle fetters, while her thick veil concealed a white silk gag, but this is surely the invention of gossiping scandalmongers.

Argella had been defeated, but her sons in time would rule from Storm's End just as her father had. A better fate than Harren the Black, to be sure, even if they would rule as lords rather than kings... for the time being, at any rate. So the traitors who tore off Argella's gown, chained her hands and feet, stuffed her mouth and sent her off on a horse to a humiliating captivity may have done her a favour, even if Orys ended up hanging the lot of them for laying hands on his wife.

No one could deny that the marriage had begun peculiarly, and gossips loved to speculate on the methods Orys used to win over his wife - and vice versa. Perhaps they were always destined to wed and had only to lay eyes on one another to fall in love. But it was often said in later years that a lady who wanted to catch a Baratheon's eye would do well to invest in a quantity of strong chains.

FIN