Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

For anyone thinking of transmigrating to another world, I can’t recommend it. 

Last night I’d fallen asleep on the couch with my laptop on my chest, staring gloomily at my finances with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms playing in the background. 

I’d slept poorly and dreamt strange and bloody dreams and when I’d woken up I was lying in the wet grass of a clearing, staring up at the sky. 

And maybe I should have been convinced I was still dreaming, but it didn’t even occur to me to attempt to believe that. 

I woke up and I knew in an instant that I was somewhere else. 

It was necessary to skip past the rampant and stubborn denial part of the whole transmigration experience, because of the dragon. 

I levered myself to my feet and discovered that whatever force had brought me here had also seen fit to put me in a sturdy dress and boots. Helpful-ish. 

At least I wouldn’t be immediately arrested burned as a witch by the locals for wearing red sweatpants and a too-large pink Hello Kitty t-shirt around. 

I turned to take in my surroundings and that was when I noticed the dragon. 

Once I did notice it, I couldn’t believe it had taken me as long as it had. 

The beast was huge. 

It blinked one great golden eye open and I felt a thrill of pants-wetting terror crash over me as it lifted its great blue-scaled head and rumbled at me warningly. 

I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe. 

It opened it’s great maw. Wide enough that if I’d walked into it I wouldn’t bump my head on the points of it’s ivory teeth. 

Deep in its throat I could see the fire brewing and I knew that if I didn’t think fast I would end this strange second life as an ashy smear. 

I did the first thing that popped into my head and copied Aemond Targaryen, putting up my hand. 

“Dohaerās,” I croaked out, my voice a strangled rasp. 

The dragon paused, making a chuffing noise. Hot, dry breath blew back my hair and clothes. 

“Dohaerās,” I said again, trying to inject some authority into my voice. “Lykirī.”

The dragon made a clicking noise in the back of it’s throat and thankfully closed it’s mouth, the flames dying away to nothing. 

“Lykirī.”

It snaked it’s great triangular head forward and I admit that I cringed and screwed my eyes shut as my palm brushed against it’s scaled jaw, sure for a moment that I was about to lose my arm. 

Another soft chuffing noise encouraged me to peek. 

The dragon stayed very still, watching me with intelligent eyes. 

Its eyes were swirls of molten gold, deep enough to drown in. 

“Gevie,” I breathed, trailing my finger’s tentatively over its warm scaled hide. 

The dragon gave a slow languid blinked and arched its—her, neck, making a deep crooning noise. 

A slightly hysterical laugh dropped out of me. 

“Yes,” I said. “You are terrifying, but very beautiful.”

The dragon chuffed again rustling her wings. 

So. A large blue dragon that answered to Valyrian commands meant that I was in the world of Westeros. 

There were a few blue dragons I knew of from my long love of the series, Dreamfyre was one and Tessarion another. 

This dragon seemed too large to be the young Tessarion, but Dreamfyre had been quite large, reportedly. 

“Are you Dreamfyre?” I asked. 

The Valyrian slipped out without my say-so, startling me. I’d never been obsessed enough to actually learn more than a few words of Valyrian. 

The dragon shook her neck and made a warning noise. 

“Apologies, beautiful, I meant no offence,” I said. “Do you have a name?”

That earned me another disgruntled noise. 

I thought that might be a no, but it also might be a complaint about the idiot human who was trying to have a full-on conversation with a dragon who clearly couldn’t converse. 

I would have to see if someone could tell me the dragon’s name once I found whatever passed for civilization, but it seemed rude to refer to her as ‘the dragon’ even just in the confines of my own mind. 

Looking at the rippling midnight blue and indigo scales I mentally dubbed her ‘Sgaeyl’ after one of my all-time favourite blue dragons. 

As if she could tell I was thinking flattering thoughts, Sgaeyl crooned again and blew out another soft breath. 

She got to her feet and lowered her neck and I admit I was sorely tempted to take that as permission and climb right on. But after a moment common sense prevailed. 

I didn’t know for sure she didn’t already have a rider, and if she did that it would be a short flight before she threw me off. She also wasn’t wearing any kind of harness or saddle. I could, on occasion, be reckless, but not quite to that extent. 

“Some other time, beautiful,” I said, to placate her. 

She huffed disagreeably, but settled back into the flattened hollow of meadow grass she’d made into her nest.

“For now I should find a road,” I murmured to myself.

I blinked. 

Once again a language other than English had spilled out of my mouth without my permission. I assumed I was speaking westerosi which was handy, but somehow more disconcerting than the Valyrian. 

“Which way do you think, sweet girl? Left or right?” 

Sgaeyl made a groaning noise like a creaking ship, but didn’t offer any helpful suggestion so I walked into the sunset. 

When in Westeros and all that. 

In the trees beyond the meadow I found a horse picketed a dragon-length beyond the tree line to the west. 

The horse, a dappled-grey mare, raised its head and whickered a greeting at me. I looked around but there was no sign of its rider and no sigil or device was on it’s tack or saddlebags. 

I rifled through them and found some provisions, more clothes in my approximate size as well as a modest coin purse and a silver-handled brush with a matching hand mirror. 

I nearly dropped the mirror when I caught sight of the reflection in the silvered glass. 

It was my face. My pointed chin, aquiline nose, and too-wide mouth. But the woman in the mirror wasn’t blonde and blue-eyed anymore. Instead her hair was silver-gold and her eyes were a pale lilac colour that could almost be mistaken for grey. 

My hard-earned tan was gone too. My skin winter-pale but clear and free of blemishes. 

“Alright Lara,” I said to myself. “You’ve been dropped into Westeros, you look like a Targaryen, and there’s a great blue dragon in that clearing back there, what are you going to do?”

I found a head scarf in the saddlebags and wrapped up my long distinctive hair and then I got up on the horse and let it lead me to the road. 

I convinced myself that even if it did belong to someone else the horse had been put there for me to find by whatever supernatural force had dragged me off my sofa in the first place. 

Even if it hadn’t been, stealing a horse was less egregious than stealing a dragon. Probably. 

The road was dry and flattish and I let the horse pick the direction. 

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road can get you there. 

It had been a good long while since I’d ridden a horse but, much like riding a bike, it wasn’t something you really forgot. 

While I rode, I experimented and found that I could speak any of the languages of Westeros and Essos, but I couldn’t so much as ask for a bathroom in English, French or German any more. I amused myself by singing modern songs under my breath and listening to them come out in Westerosi or Bastard Valyrian. They were both pretty languages and I was pretty sure I had an accent despite my fluency. 

The mare—I named her Roach even though she was white—plodded industriously along the road for the better part of the morning and into the afternoon taking care of all the navigation. 

It was a long while before we saw another person. 

I immediately wished we’d gone longer. 

Out of the trees, two men appeared. 

One was tall and black-haired holding a dull steel longsword, the other was slope-shouldered and mousy but quick with a cruel look. He had only a knife but it was better-made than the sword, and had a gleaming edge. 

“Well, well, it is our lucky day, innit,” the slope-shouldered man said. “You all alone out here? Where’s your escort, m’lady?” 

He leered and Roach danced under me, sensing my disquiet. 

I’d had some time to think on what I would say about who I was and where I’d come from when I reached wherever I was going. Some of it depended on knowing what era of Westerosi history I’d been pulled into but I’d already decided how I was going to present myself. 

I’d intended my story to debut with farmers and inn-keeps and city guards, though, not smelly roadside bandits. 

I took a breath. 

“A lady’s sworn knights follow behind her,” I lied, trying to channel Jaqen H’ghar. “A lady’s horse desired to run and the good king of Westeros is known to keep safe roads.”

“She’s foreign,” the bigger man said.

“I can hear that,” growled the smaller one. “Where’re you from then?” 

“This one has the honour to be Lara Mazza of the Free City of Lorath,” I told him, wondering if he’d scoff and laugh and call me on the lie.  

He didn’t, but there was something calculating in his eyes and I didn’t like the look of it. 

I reminded myself not to spook too easily. There were only two of them and I was mounted and they were on foot. The road was narrow here but Roach was not a small horse. 

I’d distract them with more talk and then run them down. 

The stoop shouldered man leered at me, his front teeth were jagged and broken on the left side and starting to go black with decay. 

“Well m’lady, you might not know this being of Lorath and all, but here in the Reach there are rules. If you’re wanting to go further down the road you’ll have to pay the toll,” he said. “A silver stag.”

It was a scam to see where I’d hidden my coin, I was sure. He and his big dull-witted friend would take my stag, if I admitted to having one, and let me pass, and then track me down to my camp at dusk or after dark. 

If I was lucky I’d only be cheated and robbed. 

“And if a lady had no coin?” I asked. 

The slope-shouldered weasel sucked on his teeth and I knew what he was going to say before he opened his foul mouth to say it. 

“Well, you could part with your fine horse. Or we could take it out in trade.”

“I’ve never had a highborn. Or a foreigner,” the bigger man said like a man talking about an exotic confection. 

Disgusting. 

“Here now, what’s the hold up!” came another voice. 

Around the bend in the road came my knight in shining rough-spun. Dunk. The man who would soon become Ser Duncan the Tall. 

He was tall. 

Taller than any man I’d ever seen face to face. 

His rough tunic and ragged cloak did nothing to conceal the breadth of his shoulders or the powerful muscles of his chest and arms. 

“Are you lot bothering the lady?” he demanded, his boyish face set into hard lines. 

Slope-shoulders gave Dunk an ugly look and spat on the ground. 

“Just explaining to the lady that she ought not wander so far from her protectors,” he said bitterly. 

He dragged his dull friend off the road and they vanished into the trees before Dunk could get a good look at them. 

“Are you alright m’lady?” he asked. 

“This one is well now that you are here, good ser,” I said lightly. 

He wasn’t fooled and in fact he frowned harder. 

“Were those men bothering you?”

“They were indeed,” I admitted. “This one suspects they are the kind that takes what they have not earned, either by force or trickery.”

“Bandits,” Dunk summarized, glaring into the trees. “There are enough of them on the roads nowadays. The King’s Peace isn’t what it was before the war, or so the old man says. Said. Used to say.”

“A lady had not heard such tales before she set off elsewise she might have hired a protector.”

Dunk balked in his saddle like I’d slapped him. 

“You can’t mean that you’re travelling alone? Where’s your husband? Or father? Brother?”

“This one is yet unmarried, and her father and brother both went to the grave long ago,” I said. 

Dunk warred with himself for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. 

“Well I can’t let you go on alone m’lady. The roads just aren’t safe. If you tell me where you’re headed I can escort you there. You’d be safe with me. I’m a knight you see,” he added that last bit quickly as though the title meant anything without Dunk’s honour behind it. 

Still it was exactly what I’d hoped for so I didn’t point that out. 

“A lady thanks you for the offer, good knight,” I said. Then I made an educated guess. “A lady rides for the tournament at the castle of Ashford.”

Dunk brightened up at that. 

“That’s good then,” he said. 

“Oh?” I teased. 

“I just mean, I’m for Ashford as well. I mean to enter the lists there,” he explained sitting up a little taller in his saddle. 

I am not a small woman but next to Dunk I felt positively dainty especially when he straightened up like that. 

“That is good fortune indeed,” I said. “Perhaps the gods have put us in each other’s path.”

“I don’t know that its as grand as all that, m’lady,” Dunk said, nudging his palfrey into a walk. “I expect there are plenty of folk along this road on their way to Ashford. But I am glad for a bit of company.” 

“Since we two are now companions, perhaps a good knight would grant this one the honour of his name?” 

“Oh, right,” he said. “I’m Dunk. Ser Dunk.”

He added that last bit quickly giving me a sideways glance. 

“A lady has the honour of being Lara Mazza of the Free City of Lorath,” I said easily, not calling him on his shifty behaviour. 

After all, I was the last person who should be giving lectures about lying. 

“The free cities—what brings you all the way to Westeros?” Dunk asked. 

That was the question. 

I’d been yanked out of my life abruptly and whatever power had done the yanking hadn’t bothered to give me any kind of directive. But being put down in this place in this period of history, just in time to run into Ser Duncan the Tall gave off a certain implication. 

And then there was Sgaeyl. 

A full grown dragon loose in the realm during a time when dragons were known to be extinct? 

That meant she was unclaimed, but she’d been very obviously comfortable with humans when I’d met her and that was dangerous. Her rider, when she chose one, would be the most powerful person in Westeros. The last thing anyone needed was another Hugh Hammer or Ulf the White. 

In fact, there was only one man I knew of in this time period who I’d even begin to consider trusting with the knowledge and power of a dragon and that was Baelor Targaryen. 

Which meant that at the very least I’d have to meet the man, decide whether I really should tell him about Sgaeyl. And then, if the answer was yes, Baelor Targaryen was as just and noble and prudent and fair-minded as he was portrayed…well, then he could not be allowed to die in the Trial of Seven.

Which meant I had to stop the trial. 

No pressure. 

“M’lady,” Dunk prompted, and I realized I’d let the silence stretch too long while I was thinking. 

“Your pardon, ser, this lady’s thoughts ran away from her a moment. This one had a desire to see the world when she left home,” I told Dunk. “She heard talk in port of a tourney grand enough that even the royal family would partake and had the thought that she would very much like to see it.”

“Suppose I can’t blame you,” Dunk said. “It’s been the talk of the region for nearly half-a-year, but still you should not have tried to come alone. You’re lucky you made it this far unaccosted and a tourney camp is no place for a woman alone.”

The man had a point. 

It wasn’t like I was dressing up and going to a ren faire where people played at the pageantry of the middle ages for fun but kept all their modern attitudes. This was a real medieval world filled with unfamiliar customs and dangers I couldn’t anticipate. I’d need a guide to keep me out of trouble. 

“Perhaps a lady might prevail on you, good ser, to act as her protector for the duration of the games,” I said, thinking quickly. “If a knight would swear a lady his service, this one has some small coin to pay you for the honour.”

Dunk sputtered and automatic protest that he’d need to be paid to defend her, some chivalric instinct rebelling before practicality caught up with him. 

“Well, it’s true you need a man,” he said. 

I lifted an eyebrow at him. 

“An escort,” he corrected himself, flushing to the ears. “For your safety. And to protect your reputation.”

I almost laughed. 

My reputation. Fucking hell. 

I talked a good game I thought, but that was a consequence of spending too much time reading. I only had the vaguest idea about how to care for my reputation. 

In the my world I was no one really. A bike courier. My reputation there mostly consisted of an acceptable credit score and a 4.9 star rating on a popular delivery app. 

The modern-minded woman in me bristled at the thought that it might be anyone’s business what I did, where I went, how I spoke, who I talked to, or what I wore.  

I reminded my bruised dignity that this was all a very useful development. 

I might not have been the gently bred noble maiden that Dunk was painting me as, but I was a fish out of water and my obvious status as a foreigner was an easy explanation or excuse for any strange behaviour, not any actual protection. 

I would need Dunk’s help, and the poor man deserved a fair wage. 

Not that I had any idea what that would look like. 

I had money, but not a lot of it, I couldn’t afford to be too generous. 

I liked Dunk. I’d liked him quite a lot as a character, and he was already growing on me as a person. I didn’t want him to think I was a cheat or a skinflint.

I tried to find a balance. 

“A stag now, and another for each day of a knight’s service at the tourney. This paid at the end of our time together,” I offered, since I didn’t know how long the tourney was scheduled for or if there even was a set schedule. 

“M’lady, that’s very generous of you,” Dunk said. 

I had no idea if that was true or if I was underpaying and Dunk just didn’t have the experience to know it, but even if the tourney lasted a week or more I had enough silver to pay him without completely beggaring myself and being able to honour my bargain was all I really cared about. 

“Then a knight agrees?”

“Aye,” he said. “Aye that’ll serve.”

I ferreted out one of my less well-hidden silver coins and handed it to Dunk who inspected it only briefly before tucking it away in a small pouch under his tunic. 

We fell into companionable silence riding together, each of us occupied with our thoughts. 

Dunk was, I assume, dreaming of a winner’s purse and a place on champion’s row, but I had bigger concerns. 

Namely, why the the hell the gods had chosen me of all people to interfere with, how the hell was I meant to keep Aerion Brightflame from assaulting Tanselle Too-Tall, and what the hell would I tell Baelor about Sgaeyl. 

Chapter Text

The sun was going down quickly and the road was becoming harder to navigate when Dunk asked, “Are you hungry, m’lady?”

I was starving actually, now that he pointed it out, I’d been riding all day and hadn’t eaten anything since before I’d rudely awakened in a different world. 

“There’s an inn ahead,” Dunk continued. “We ought to feed and rest the horses, and wait for moonrise to set off again. If that’s agreeable?”

“This one would be glad to eat and rest,” I said. 

My hips and lower back were starting to ache and the warm light in the windows of the inn and stable beckoned. 

Dunk led the way finding the drive that split off the main-road in the dark and leading us into the inn-yard. 

He swung down from his horse and helped me off mine, his big hands light on my waist and arm. He took Roach’s reins from me leading her and his mount together. 

Standing in the stable yard, half-in the shadows cast by the flickering lantern-light was a small boy dressed in an ill-fitting and terribly ugly yellowish surcoat. He was nine or ten and his pale head was shaved as bald as an egg, making his dark eyes appear too large for his face. 

Daeron had done his work well. No one would ever guess that this skinny, sad-eyed creature was a prince of the realm. 

“Hello there. Are you the stableboy?” Dunk asked. 

Egg didn’t answer him but he did move a bit closer which seemed to be all the answer Dunk needed. 

“I want the palfrey and the lady’s mare rubbed down, and oats for all four,” he said. “Will you tend to them?”

“I could,” Egg said, lifting his chin. “If I wanted.”

“None of that now,” Dunk said sternly. “See to the horses. You’ll get a copper if you do well and a clout in the ear if not.”

He offered Egg the palfrey’s reins and the little prince took them and led her and the rest of the horses into the stable. 

Dunk led the way to the front door of the inn and held the door open for me. 

The taproom was dim and a little smokey and quiet enough that you could hear water boiling in the kitchen.

The innkeeper, a thick-waisted woman with her hair in a wrap, popped out and gave them a nod of greeting. 

“Sit where you like,” she said, gesturing to the empty tables. “I’ll be but a moment.”

Dunk picked a large, well-lit table close to the bar while not intruding on the space of the only other customer. 

Daeron Targaryen was living up to his moniker. 

He’d plainly been drinking heavily and was passed out at a table in the back corner near the stairs. He’d knocked over his cup at some point and was half-lying in a puddle of wine, his sandy hair going red at the ends. 

The innkeeper bustled back out of the kitchen and came over to them. 

“I’ve lamb tonight, roasted with a crust of herbs, or there’s ducks me son shot down this morning,” she said without fanfare. “What’ll you have?”

“Both,” Dunk answered. 

That made her chuckle. 

“Aye. You’re big enough for it. And you m’lady?”

“This one would like the lamb if it is no trouble,” I answered. 

The woman’s brows lifted when she heard my accent, but she didn’t comment on it. She went to the bar and poured us both a cup of ale. 

“How much farther to Ashford?” Dunk asked her, drinking his first cup in two long pulls.  

“Day’s ride or thereabouts,” she said. 

She poured him another cup without missing a beat.

“Is my boy seeing to your horses or has he run off again?” 

“No he’s there,” Dunk said. 

I took a sip of my ale and didn’t correct him. 

It was weaker than the beer I was used to and less bitter. It would have been better cold, and it looked terrible, cloudy with bits floating in it, but it wasn’t terrible tasting. It was kind of like medieval kombucha. 

In any case I’d have to get used to drinking it because it would undoubtedly be served everywhere and in some areas would be safer to drink than the water.

“Half the town’s gone down to the tourney. Mine would too if I allowed it.” She nodded to the girl sulking on the stairs. “Swear I couldn’t tell you why. Knights are built the same as other men, and I never knew a joust to change the price of eggs.”

I took another sip of ale to keep from commenting. 

Maybe a single joust wouldn’t do it, but I’d bet money I didn’t have that the goings-on at a tourney could and did change the price of eggs. 

Tourney grounds were social hubs for the nobility and the gentry and the knight and merchant class. They brought plenty of business to a region, and marriages, knighthoods and trade deals would all be hammered out in and among the revelry. Additionally personal grudges would be settled and sudden deaths might created succession crises or unexpected inheritances.

Even before taking into account the disaster that was set to happen at Ashford, King Daeron had sent his sons and grandsons to Ashford to try and rehabilitate the reputation of House Targaryen because the. eyes of the region would all be there. 

“Bound for the tourney yourself?” the innkeeper asked, nodding at Dunk’s shield.

“I dreamed of you,” Daeron interrupted, pushing himself suddenly upright, his wet hair hanging stringily around his handsome face. 

He pointed a knife at us. Or, at Dunk. 

Well, in Dunk’s general direction. 

“Stay the fuck away from me, you hear?” he slurred. 

“M’lord?”

Daeron levered himself up swaying like the proverbial drunkard. He gave Dunk another warning look before sheathing his knife and slapping a gold dragon onto his table. Swaying over to the stairs he staggered up them with heavy feet, sending the little girl sitting there scuttling out of his way. 

“Never you mind that one,” the innkeeper advised, tucking the gold away in her belt-pouch quickly. “I’ll see about your supper.”

Dunk seemed to put the incident behind him easily, especially once the food arrived, but the short encounter had set my mind whirring. 

I wasn’t quite sure how Targaryen dragon dreams worked in practice. Their prophecies were reliable but hard to interpret until after the fact. I didn’t know if that was because of immutable gods-directed fate, the self-fulfilling nature of prophecy, or if the dreams would change with the shifting currents of the future. 

Like many interesting things in George’s world it was left something of a mystery. That had been fine and even good when I was just consuming media for entertainment, but now I was living it, and not knowing how Daeron’s gift worked was making me nervous. 

Was he still so wary of Dunk because his dream hadn’t changed? Had he dreamed it earlier, before I was yeeted into the story? Was there a new dream tormenting him, different but equally troubling? Did he know about Sgaeyl? Had Sgaeyl existed in the original world or timeline or whatever, or was her being there where I woke up another, more dramatic, intervention by the Power-That-Be?

Any of that would have been great to know, but I wasn’t about to get any answers from Daeron which left me to speculate and catastrophize. 

Dinner was actually pretty good which meant this was probably a respectable inn, if not quite up to the standard of a prince. 

I should have guessed it would be. For all that he’d shaved his brother’s head and put him in rough-spun Daeron was still drinking wine and stumbling about in reddish velvet and brocade. He didn’t seem like the type to really slum it even for the sake of avoiding his dark dreams and his dreary responsibilities. 

The food was hot when the innkeep came around with it, and the portions were decently large.

The lamb was served with dark brown bread, turnip mash and a drizzle of thick gravy. All of it needed more salt my modern palate informed me, but I knew that I’d also have to get used to that.

As I understood it, salt was an affordable luxury item even in coastal regions and could get very expensive inland between taxes and transport fees. People with limited access were probably more likely to use it as a preservative than a seasoning or to save it for a special occasion. 

Dunk outlined his plan to ride for the first few hours after moonrise and then make camp a little off the road, and I agreed readily. After our meals were done and we’d nursed another cup of ale apiece we paid our tab and headed back out to the stable to collect the horses. 

The inn’s stables were large and well-appointed but, like the inn, uncharacteristically empty. 

The innkeep’s boy had probably gone off to Ashford while his mother wasn’t looking alongside the rest of the stable hands and their families.

There was a low huff of a horse losing their patience, and a small high voice.

“Hiya! Take that! Yah!”

Dunk pushed through the door quickly and we found Egg, comically small astride Thunder, with Ser Arlan’s mail coif and helmet covering his small, bald head. 

“Oi!”

Egg gasped and froze in Thunder’s saddle, wide-eyed and clear on the fact that he was in big trouble. 

“My lord,” he said quickly. 

“You thief!”

“I—I did not mean to offend you!” Egg stammered.

Dunk crossed the stable in three long strides and snatched Egg bodily off Thunder’s back, setting him carefully on his feet. 

“Take that armour off you! Now!” Egg quickly pulled the helmet off and tucked it under one arm. “And be glad Thunder didn’t kick you in that fool head of yours. He’s a warhorse, not a boy’s pony.”

Egg bristled a little, some of his brass returning now that he knew Dunk wasn’t going to hit him. 

“I could ride him as well as you,” he said. 

I had to be impressed by the boy’s sheer gall, speaking that way to a strange knight without the weight of his title and family to protect him. 

“Close your insolent mouth,” Dunk said. “I’m a knight I’ll have you know!”

“You don’t look to be a knight,” Egg said, pulling the mail coif off his head and neck. 

Dunk scoffed. 

“And all knights look the same, do they?” he said. 

“No. But they don’t look like you either,” Egg retorted. “Your belt’s made of rope.”

“So long as it holds my scabbard it serves,” Dunk replied but his ears and neck went red.

“A boy should show more respect,” I interjected. “A knight is in this lady’s service. A boy has behaved badly. Bothering good horses who have worked hard and deserve their rest. Wearing armour that belongs to another. An apology is owed.”

Egg had to good grace to look abashed. 

“I am sorry,” he said. “I was just—I didn’t think it would do any harm.”

“A boy should take more care,” I said. I quoted his uncle at him, hoping that the words would stick. “A boy need not intend harm to do it.”

“Yes, my lady,” he said, more genuinely repentant now, taking off the leather cap that had been hiding his comically bald head. 

I didn’t know if that would be enough to get Egg to think of the consequences before acting but I felt better having said it. 

Dunk was giving me an impressed look and a I could feel the smile tugging at the corner of my mouth threatening to ruin my I’m-not-angry-just-disappointed face. 

“Did you at least tend the palfrey and the lady’s horse before getting up to your foolery,” Dunk asked, eyeing Roach and Sweetfoot carefully.

“I did,” Egg said. “Just as you asked. And they’ve had their feed.”

Both were untacked and I realized that I’d left my saddlebags with my expensive brush and hand-mirror inside in the care of a nosey sticky-fingered nine-year-old. 

I’d have to remember to be more careful. 

“Well, that’s something anyway,” Dunk said. 

“Are you bound for the tourney?” Egg asked. 

“Aye,” Dunk answered. “The lady needs protection and I’ve a mind to enter the lists.”

“Take me with you, ser,” Egg blurted. “Please!”

Dunk scoffed. 

“And what might your mother say to that?”  

“Not much. She’s dead.”

He said it in the cold factual way that made me think that it had happened a while ago when he was too young to remember her well. 

“Is the innkeep not your—” Dunk cut himself off really looking at Egg for the first time. “Are you an orphan, boy?”

“Are you?” 

“I was. Once,” Dunk said. “Till my ser took me in. He taught me arms and riding…taught me everything, really. Best he could.”

Dunk turned away from egg and started the process of saddling Sweetfoot and Roach. 

“If you could bring me to Ashford,” Egg started, something equal parts sly and earnest in his voice, “I could squire for you, ser. And you could teach me. Best you can.”

“No,” Dunk said. “I’ve no need for a squire, lad.”

“Every knight needs a squire,” Egg said. “And you look like you need one more than most.”

“And you look like you need a good clout in the ear,” Dunk said sharply. “Fill me a sack of oats. The lady and I are off for Ashford. Alone.”

Egg’s skinny shoulders slumped with his disappointment and my heart squeezed at the sight. For a wild moment I thought of convincing Dunk we should take him with us tonight. 

He was going to follow us anyway. Surely it was safer than letting him come alone in the back of some stranger’s lamb cart?

But no. 

There was a chance, however slim, that Egg would see sense or be caught trying to sneak off and be found with Daeron by Maekar on the first day of the joust saving everyone a great deal of trouble. If not, well, at least we could genuinely say that it wasn’t our idea to scoop up the little princeling since Dunk almost certainly wouldn’t be willing to lie about it. Especially not if it got Egg in trouble. 

“Look lad,” Dunk said when Egg handed him the oats with the most hangdog expression I’d ever seen on a nine-year-old, “trust me when I say, you’re better off not squiring for the likes of me.”

Dunk led the horses out into the yard and he gave me a leg up onto Roach lifting me like I weighed no more than the sack of oats he’d tied to Chestnut’s saddle. 

Roach gave a horsey grumble and I patted her neck. 

“Just a few more hours, lovely girl, then we will rest,” I murmured. 

Dunk mounted Sweetfoot and tossed Egg his promised copper. 

It pinged softly and hit the ground. 

Egg stared at it and then at Dunk. 

Dunk snorted. 

“Sulk all you want,” he said. “I know you’ll scoop it up soon as I’m gone.”

Dunk urged Sweetfoot forward but I lingered for a moment. 

“There will be other tourneys,” I advised with a great deal of sympathy and little hope that Egg would heed me.

I gave the pouting boy a nod and turned to follow Dunk back to the road and into the night. 

Chapter Text

We reached Ashford Meadow mid-morning the following day. 

We’d woken with the light, had a small breakfast of bread and cheese and fed and watered the horses before mounting up to continue the long ride. 

I would have cheerfully murdered someone for a cup of coffee. 

I’d slept deeply the night and had strange dreams I couldn’t remember and my body ached in strange places from the long day in the saddle combined with sleeping on the lumpy ground. 

Our encounter with Egg at the inn seemed to loosen Dunk’s tongue and he asked curious innocent questions about my journey from Lorath and the places I’d seen and why I’d left. I tried to answer honestly where I could but soon I came up with another tactic—turning the questions back on Dunk himself. 

Like most people, he was happy to ramble on about his travels with Ser Arlan, his training as a squire, his favourite meals and the latest gossip. 

All of it was information fans would have killed to have recorded in a wiki somewhere and I listened attentively, which only encouraged Dunk to talk more, elaborating on this or that small point.

It made the ride go quickly and before I knew it we’d arrived. 

Ashford was bigger than I’d imagined. 

Ashford Castle was large, looming over the meadow on the hill above the river, but there was also a market town that had sprung up around the keep, and in the meadow on the on the far bank of the river a second town all made up of tents and pavilions had sprung up alongside the tourney grounds. 

Merchants of all sorts had set up stalls and banners of noble and knightly houses from the Reach, the Stormlands, the Crownlands and even the Westerlands were in attendance. 

New roads had been carved into the grass between the rows of tents by hundreds of feet, hooves, and rolling wagons but fortunately the weather had been mostly dry and there wasn’t much muck. 

Dunk was happy to tell me which banner belonged to which house though I noted a few of the familiar ones for myself—Baratheon, Lannister, and Tyrell—as we wound our way through the noise and bustle of the crowds. 

We paused at the start of the main track that ran from the tent city to Ashford town.

“Would you accompany me to town, m’lady?” Dunk asked tentatively. “It’s only I don’t want to set camp without speaking to the master of the games.”

“This one would be glad to accompany a knight, if it would not be an intrusion,” I said.

“Not at all,” Dunk said. “Let’s find someone who can give us directions.”

We rode past the tourney grounds where the lanes for the jousts were being assembled. 

I didn’t know what Plummer would make of me, but maybe my presence at Dunk’s elbow would add an air of legitimacy.

I didn’t necessarily want to change the outcome of the meeting, having Dunk and Baelor meet  and take each other’s measure was still very important, and the only way that meeting could or would happen was if Dunk had the idea of approaching Baelor regarding his entry into the tourney tomorrow. 

All that being said, it wouldn’t hurt for Dunk’s knighthood to be seen as probable rather than just plausible. 

Dunk approached a group of guardsmen who were more concerned with harassing a pretty dairymaid than keeping visitors out of the castle. 

One of them split off from the group to show us the way to the steward’s apartments. 

Plummer wasn’t a particularly impressive man. 

Forty or fifty-something with a prominent widow’s peak and a fairly disgusting case of what I hoped was post-nasal drip. 

He gave me a side eye but seemed content to treat me as furniture while he listened to Dunk’s account of his knighting, and gave him heart-palpitations with the threat of an ‘Ashford chair’. 

Dunk’s slowness served him well here, the non-reaction to his vulgar threat was enough that Plummer…well he didn’t stop bullying poor Dunk but the tenor of it changed.

“Did you take a boot to the head?” Plummer asked. “Ashford chair. This is the Reach. Not the Riverlands.”

He said it with such disdain that I felt like I knew why the ambitious Hoster Tully had been forced to wed his daughter North instead of South. 

“You think we’re fending off some scourge of cottagers skulking about entering tourneys,” he scoffed, an action that turned into a long and disturbing hocking of phlegm. “You’d need coin. Armour. Horses. Men. Training, gods be good. Imagine a poor farmer charging down Lyonel Baratheon in the lists.”

“That would be—”

“A different sort of entertainment.”

Dunk made an agreeing noise. 

“Well. I’m no farmer,” he said. 

“Yet you’ve come dressed as one,” Plummer said, looking him up and down. 

Dunk frowned. 

“Look man,” he continued. “My lord of Ashford fancies himself a man of great import. Gods know why. And that means I’m mean to ward off every up-jumped squire, sellsword, and freerider vying to challenge. You understand. There are princes about.”

“No, of course,” Dunk said. “Thank you for your time.”

Whether it was Dunk’s deeply disappointed expression or the sight of Ser Arlan’s shield and device that made Plummer show mercy I didn’t know but as Dunk reached for the door he called out. 

“Your late master, he’ll have been known to the true knights here assembled?”

“There was a pavilion flying the banner of House Dondarrion,” Dunk said. 

“Aye, there’s a Ser Manfred of that house.”

“Ser Arlan served his lord father in Dorne a few years past, Ser Manfred will remember us.”

“By scent alone, no doubt,” Plummer said. “Well. If he’ll vouch for your good honour, bring him here on the morrow before the tourney begins. Leave your escorts behind.”

He looked pointedly at the fly buzzing around Dunk’s head and then at me standing silent and watchful in the corner. 

“As you say,” Dunk agreed. 

We turned to go again an Plummer called out one last time. 

“You are aware that those vanquished in tourney forfeit their arms, armour and horse to the victor and must ransom them back?”

“Aye.”

“And you’ve the coin to pay such ransom?”

“Oh gods no,” Dunk said without thinking. 

Plummer gave him a look. 

“I mean, I won’t have need of coin.”

He said it so steadily with such conviction that for a moment even I believed him. 

He nodded to Plummer briskly and held the door open for me. 

“A knight should watch his head,” I murmured as I passed under his arm and Dunk remembered to duck through the low doorframe at the last second. 

Of course it wasn’t as easy as marching into Manfred Dondarrion’s pavilion, having a five minute conversation where they reminisced about Ser Arlan and his honour and virtues and agreed to go up to the castle in the morning. 

Dunk returned from his inquiry frowning and frustrated and muttering to himself or to Sweetfoot as we led the horses through the tourney grounds away from the lavish pavilions toward the more modest tents ringing the training yard. 

The practice yard was extensive, and there were knights and squires of all ages drilling and sparring with blunted blades. My eyes found the Fossoways without any trouble. 

Ser Steffon’s bright red hair stood out, as did his swordplay. 

He was very good, that was clear even to someone like me who’d only ever seen sword fights on television, and he fought with the kind of deliberate roughness of someone who didn’t care whether they injured their opponent. 

Raymun Fossoway had a boyish face and a terrible patchy beard growing stubbornly along his jaw. He kept pace with his cousin for a few exchanges and then Steffon kicked him hard enough that he went flying through the simple fence that denoted the boundary of the training ground. 

“Don’t muck about with me Raymun!” he barked. “You’re a good-for-nothing useless rat.”

Raymun’s face twisted with frustrated anger and he spun, lashing out with a blunted mace, Steffon blacked two more blows, disarmed Raymun handily and gave him a humiliated open-handed slap across the face that sent him sprawling. 

Their bout had spilled into the path in front of us and Dunk and I watched and I fought the urge to wince. 

“What’re you gawping at you blue-eyed cunt,” Steffon demanded. 

Raymun got to his feet, panting, and spat moving to lean on what was left of the fence. 

“That a longsword you wear?” 

“Uh, yes,” Dunk answered after a moment. “It is mine by right.”

“That’s an odd thing to say,” Ser Steffon said, and I could almost feel Dunk’s small tired sigh. “I’m Ser Steffon Fossoway. Come try me. As you see, me cousin here, is not ripe yet.”

“Do it, ser,” Raymun urged. “I may not be ripe but my cousin’s rotten to the core. Knock the seeds out of him.”

“Quiet!”

Ten out of ten apple pun delivery. I almost wanted to clap, but the cousins weren’t likely to take that well so instead I did my best to rescue Dunk.  

“Good ser,” I said, just loudly enough to catch everyone’s attention. 

I gave Dunk a pointed look. 

“Right—I mean, yes. Yes, m’lady,” Dunk said. “Thank you for the offer, ser, but I’ve matters to attend to.”

“That what they’re calling it, eh?” Ser Steffon said eying me for a moment before dismissing us. “Another time, mayhap—Ser Grance!” he called, striding off to harass some other poor unfortunate. 

Raymun gave us a tight nod and scooped up his fallen shield and discarded mace, hurrying after his cousin. 

“Perhaps we should seek quieter accommodations,” Dunk suggested. 

“That would be most agreeable,” I said. 

We turned the horses away from the bustle of the main camp and started looking for a place to make our camp.

Dunk followed the river upstream until we found a likely elm tree on a grassy hill next to a hedge. It was quiet, private and the river was close all-in-all it was a little slice of natural paradise. 

We picketed the horses and Dunk dug out a little area for a fire pit and, further away behind a fluffy bush, a deepish squared-off pit for a latrine. 

Once camp was set we had an awkward conversation about bathing and laundry. 

As in, Dunk needed to do both. 

And that meant he would be wandering around naked until the sun dried his clothing. 

We agreed that he’d do his chores on one side of the bend in the river, within shouting distance, and I’d do mine on the other and I wouldn’t return to camp until Dunk gave the all clear. 

That was probably the kind of arrangement that would ruin both our reputations if we weren’t careful, but I hardly cared, I was more than ready for a bath and a change of clothes. 

I gave Dunk a chunk of soap I cut from the uneven bar I found among my things, because his clothes really did stink like unwashed man, and soaking them in river water and beating them against a hedge absolutely wasn’t going to cut it.

I was in better shape by virtue of only having been riding for hours and sleeping outdoors for two days, but even still, I needed a scrub and clean underthings. 

The outfit my transmigration had provided me with was designed for riding and travel. A sturdy dark blue coat, a paler blue dress with split skirts, close cut trousers that laced up the sides tucked into sturdy boots. My under layers consisted of a short linen shift cut and stitched to support the girls, matching pantaloon-style underthings and a pair of wool socks. 

My outer garments were mostly clean and spot cleaning was enough to take care of the little spots of mud but they still smelled pretty strongly of horse-hair. 

Dunk had lent me a bit of rope and I made myself a clothesline, hanging my coat, dress and trousers. 

I used a stick to beat the worst of the horse hair off them and left them to air out in the sun. 

Then I stripped out of my sweaty under layers and made a makeshift washboard out of a flat rock on the bank, once I could no longer smell myself on them I hung them to dry as well. 

Laundry taken care of I tied my hair back and piled it on top of my head and waded into the centre of the river where it was deep enough that I could submerge myself to my shoulders. I scrubbed my skin carefully with sand especially under my arms and then followed it with a small amount of soap. 

In with the soap I’d found a canvas roll of what I thought would be writing implements or paintbrushes but turned out to be a medieval toiletry kit. There were hazel wood sticks, a bit of undyed wool and a thin phial of gritty tooth powder, a few sachets of what I thought was probably moon tea and a bundle of thick cloth pads with ties that were probably the answer to ‘what am I going to do when I get my period’.

I had fresh underthings in my saddlebags as well as a cloak with a hood and one other dress without a split skirt but I didn’t want to dirty it just yet. 

I let the sun dry me off, glad that it was warm in Ashford, even in the spring, and then shimmied into my cloak and underthings. 

Although the day was warm, the sun steady and the breeze strong it would still take few hours for the clothes to dry which left me at loose ends. After about fifteen minutes of lying on my cloak with my eyes shut I found myself, for the first time in my life, desperately wishing that there was more laundry to do. 

Left alone in this quiet peaceful place with only my thoughts for company, clean, fed, unneeded for immediate machinations and reasonably safe from the dangers of Westeros my brain started processing the huge insane and alarming thing that had happened to me. 

I’d been pulled out of my world, physically altered by forces beyond my ken, woken up next to a dragon, been harassed by highwaymen, rescued by a knight, and scolded a prince and I hadn’t even been here two days yet. 

Worse, I had to face and acknowledge an uncomfortable truth. One I’d already known but had been carefully not thinking about. 

This was my life now. 

There would be no going back. 

I didn’t know how I knew it, but I knew. 

The sky is blue, the grass is green, this world was where I would live out the rest of my life. This is where I would die. 

Perhaps even soon. 

The Great Spring Sickness was probably already brewing somewhere in Westeros or Essos. A plague that would ravage the Seven Kingdoms for a year or more and kill one in every four people. 

I shivered.

One crisis at a time. 

I could worry about the plague once I’d succeeded in saving Baelor. 

If I succeeded. 

When I succeeded. 

When. 

I blew out a long controlled breath and scraped both hands through my hair. 

Dunk, my knight in dingy rough-spun, called over to let me know that he was decent, saving me from the vagaries of my own thoughts. 

I dressed quickly, covered my hair back up and went to join him. 

*

Dunk was determined to speak to Ser Manfred promptly, so he and I returned to the tourney ground as night was falling. 

It wasn’t difficult to find even in the deepening dark. 

The light from the lanterns and the noise from the revellers could be seen and heard from miles off. 

We made directly for the Dondarrion pavilion and I wasn’t surprised when Dunk was turned away again by Ser Manfred’s lady friends but I was becoming concerned. 

Dunk looked…something. 

Not only frustrated but also fearful. 

Disheartened. 

I linked my arm through his and he startled slightly but allowed me to lead us through the grid of tents and stalls. 

“A knight is troubled,” I said. “Will you tell this one what worries you?”

“It’s nothing, m’lady.”

“A knight lies.” He flinched with his whole body. “If he does not wish to speak of his troubles with a lady, he need only say so.”

After a moment he began to speak.  

“It’s not that exactly. It’s just that don’t even rightly know what it is that troubles me. Maybe it’s that everyone I’ve met here is looking down their nose at me before they’ve even seen me tilt. Like they think I’m a fool for trying.”

“Would a knight care to hear this one’s thoughts?”

“S’pose it couldn’t hurt,” he said. 

“A man is newly knighted. Not on the battlefield or tourney ground with some feat fresh in his mind, but at his old master’s deathbed. A man doubts. He does not trust his strength. They sense it.” I nodded to a clot of drunk knights and lords. “Like sharks sensing blood. They use it to get what they want. To shame, or manipulate, or dismiss.”

“That’s true enough,” Dunk said. “But what can I do about it?”

“What a knight has been doing. Only better.”

“Better? Better how?”

“Before these others a knight must show confidence, no matter if it feels unearned,” I advised. 

“Confidence,” Dunk parroted dubiously. 

“Experience is a thing one gains after it is needed, not before. If a knight does not act as though he belongs, the sharks in the water will not even give him the chance to prove them right or wrong.”

“Beg your pardon, m’lady, but that’s easier said than done,” Dunk said. 

I patted his arm sympathetically.

I turned toward the market stalls thinking about offering to buy us both some dinner and an ale and heard a familiar sound—Tanselle Too-Tall’s bold and measured voice reciting the stanzas of what I thought was probably the second act of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield. 

I grinned and tugged him towards the puppeteers’ tent.

“A lady also thinks a knight should enjoy himself while he has the chance,” I said. “Come. Let us see the show.”

The puppeteers’ tent was packed wall-to-wall with people watching rapt as Tanselle and a few other performers acted out the story of the knight who slayed a dragon by distracting it with its own reflection. 

“Fate has set his lonely path, 

Through corridors of chance.

A boy from nothing risks it all, 

Ignoring looks askance.”

I had to give the puppeteers and performers their props. The dragon puppet they’d constructed was very life-like and the actor making the noises was making a very credible imitation of dragon-song. 

“Perhaps he’s only stupid, 

Holding fast his mirror-shield. 

Great honour his ambition, 

Must keep a truth concealed.”

I glanced at Dunk to see how that landed, but he didn’t seem to notice the words of the legendary poem to focussed on the girl speaking them.

“For if his humble shape is bared,

A foul and fiery demise. 

Should the dragon discover, 

None but a man in great disguise.”

The puppet-dragon screeched and a gout of fire erupted from the puppet’s open mouth like a true dragon breathing fire. 

The lords and ladies in their seats and the crowd gathered in the back of the tent cheered and clapped and Tanselle bowed to the audience. Her eyes caught on Dunk, the tallest man in any crowd and one of the biggest too, and she tucked her hair behind her ear smiling at his naked admiration. 

He didn’t take his eyes off the stage until Tanselle left it and another actor stepped forward to announce that the third act and the thrilling conclusion of the tale would be presented two days from now in the evening after the first day of jousting and that seats were still available for purchase. 

Which presented a bit of a snag. 

I’d hoped I might be able to convince Tanselle and her troupe that it wasn’t prudent to perform Serwyn and the Mirror-Shield once the Targaryens were about but not performing it after creating this much hype would potentially force them to refund two or three dozen irate nobles. 

I couldn’t see the troupe being willing to risk losing all their profit on the off chance a Targaryen decided to venture into their tent and took their performance the wrong way. 

I’d have to think of something else and quickly. I only had two days. 

I let Dunk steer me out of the tent before the exodus could separate us and looped my arm back through his as we headed back into the night. 

I angled us toward the tents where I thought I’d seen ale being served earlier and right on cue there came a shout. 

“Halfman! Halfman!”

Dunk scowled as Raymun Fossoway, rosy-cheeked and cheerful, came running up. 

“Do I look like a halfman to you?” 

“Aye. Half-man, half-giant.”

Dunk turned to walk away but Raymun followed persistently. 

“Look, I’m sorry. I should not have urged you to try my cousin. He’d have broken your hand or a knee if he could. He likes to batter men in the yard, you know, in case he meets them in the lists.”

“An underhanded tactic, which must make it effective,” I commented. 

“Aye, milady,” Raymun said grinning. 

“He did not break you,” Dunk pointed out. 

Raymun scoffed. 

“I’m his blood, for whatever that’s worth,” he said. “Though he is on the higher branch of the apple tree, as he never ceases to remind me.”

“Will the pair of you ride in the tourney?” Dunk asked. 

“He will. I would that I could, but I’m only a squire.”

Dunk would’ve stopped in his tracks but I tugged his arm gently and he kept walking. 

“You fight well for a squire,” he said. 

Raymun grinned and flushed at Dunk’s praise, standing taller.

I stopped myself from smiling too wide, but it really was funny. It was the blind leading the blind with these two. 

“You have the look of a challenger,” Raymun said. “Who’s shield do you mean to strike?”

“Make’s no difference,” Dunk said. 

Raymun laughed. 

“That’s what you’re supposed to say.”

Dunk gave Raymun a half-smile. 

“Though, it makes all the difference in the world.”

They shared a commiserating look. 

“Are you two hungry?” Raymun asked. 

“Always,” Dunk answered honestly. 

“A meal would be welcome,” I added. 

“Come on then.”

Raymun lead us to the enormous yellow feasting tent draped with banners featuring the Black Stag of House Baratheon.

The guards eyed Dunk’s rough attire but when Raymun led us into the tent they minded their own business. 

Tables had been set up, and chandeliers hung from the great wooden tent-posts. There were musicians playing in the corner and serving-girls went around with pitchers of wine and ale keeping the cups of the already-merry guests full. 

Raymun led us to a table towards the back of the tent and found us a spot at the benches between two knights of the Reach and a woman I assumed was the wife of the older one. 

He served us each a cup of wine and I took mine with a nod of thanks, sipping it tentatively. It was full-bodied and subtly sweet. If I’d been at home I’d have called it a Pinot Noir, but I’d guess that since we were in the Reach it was most likely an Arbor red.

It was quite good, and I took another sip. 

Across the tent a booming laugh rang out and Dunk’s eyes immediately caught on the high table.

“Lyonel Baratheon,” Raymun said, following his gaze. “The Laughing Storm, they call him.”

“I thought he’d be bigger,” Dunk said, something in his shoulders loosening a bit. 

Raymun chuckled and clapped Dunk on the shoulder and then left us, probably to go and re-join the squires’ party outside. 

“Raymun!” Dunk hissed, alarmed no doubt at being abandoned. “Where are you going?”

“A squire is likely not permitted to sit at table in the lord’s tent,” I explained to Dunk under my breath. “Only knights and gentry will have a place.”

“Then, are we even allowed in here?” Dunk whispered. 

“Is a man a knight?” I said, lifting my eyebrow pointedly. “Confidence.”

“Right,” Dunk said dubiously taking long swig of his wine. 

“I’ve had a profound thought!” Lyonel Baratheon suddenly bellowed above the din of chatter and music. “If anyone would care to listen.”

The tent fell quiet and everyone turned to the high table listening with rapt attention smothering giggles and smirks. 

“Four thousand years ago…our ancestors gathered in that… big field outside,” Lyonel started, “to blood each other with sticks and have a bit of gay fun...”

I quickly had to smother a smirk of my own because apparently I had the mind of a twelve year old boy. 

“And they say it was this country’s first ever joust!” Lyonel went on, leaning forward as if to share some great secret with the crowd. “Well, I say...”

He paused, seemingly for effect initially, but the pause stretched and stretched. 

“…the fuck was I gonna say?”

He muttered to himself for a moment. Truly, this man had to be seen to be believed. 

“Ah. Men could not have devised such a joy. So, who was it? Huh? Who was it?”

Silence.

Someone coughed.

Dunk refilled his cup and took another long gulp. 

The wife of the knight across from us looked to be on the cusp of losing it, biting her lip to keep from laughing. 

Lyonel squinted at them all for a moment longer.

Then he shrugged, smirking. 

Grinning. 

And then laughing. 

“Fuck it. A hundred gold to the man, beast or god who sticks me best!”

That was the declaration of a man looking to get laid if ever I’d heard one but it seemed to be lost on the crowd especially once he threw down a fat purse. 

His audience of sycophants and hanger-on erupted in cheers. Knights banged their cups on the tables and the musicians resumed their playing. 

“Now eat your birds! So we can dance!” Lyonel bellowed. 

Servers pushed their way into the tent and the whole roast chicken set before them seemed to tip the scale in favour of staying for Dunk who reached immediately for a leg. 

I smiled at his honest enthusiasm and snagged a few choice cuts of breast, a wedge of cheese, a roll of bread and some fat purple grapes for myself. 

Whatever else you said about Lyonel Baratheon you couldn’t say he laid a poor table. 

The food was excellent, the wine abundant, and the music spirited. 

Once dinner was over and the plates had been collected by the servers the tables were pushed aside, another cask of wine was opened, and the lords and ladies who’d come to curry the favour of the Laughing Storm were in their cups, clapping along to the music and well on their way to actually enjoying themselves. 

The servers brought out three towers of desserts and Dunk and I were quick to each snag a pastry filled with jam that was perhaps an earlier cousin of the jelly doughnut. 

I was watching the spectacle of a lady in a dark blue gown that she’d tied up between her legs dancing barefoot with her husband, an incredibly drunk young man in a doublet of blue-grey brocade so I missed the moment when Lyonel called Dunk over until he leaned down and murmured in my ear. 

“I think we’re caught, m’lady.”

“A knight had best grab another pastry then, if we are about to be thrown out.” 

Dunk took my advice and we wound through the crowd to the high table to stand before Lyonel and the members of his household. 

The Storm Lord only had eyes for Dunk, he was toying with a dagger. 

“Have you ever been punched in the face before?” he said, in lieu of a greeting.

“I—I beg your pardon, Ser Lyonel?”

“Big men get punched more than little men. Did you know that?”

“No, but—but I believe it,” Dunk said.

“Is that why you slouch? So you don’t get punched?”

“I—I don’t slouch—“

“Oh, you’ve been cowering all evening like a maiden on her wedding night,” Lyonel said, chuckling. 

“I—I meant no disrespect, ser, honest,” Dunk said earnestly. “Where I come from you learn to go unnoticed is all.”

“The Seven above gave you tallness, so be tall,” Lyonel said. “Or I will name you a heretic and burn you…drown you…drop you off a tall pl—I don’t know. What do they do with heretics?” 

“Burn them, my lord” one of the men at the high table said. 

“Fine. Burning it is. What have you brought me?”

Dunk went white as paper and then flushed with embarrassment. It was a little alarming to watch. 

“Oh, uh—um, ser, I must beg your pardon again, I didn’t realize—”

Lyonel watched him stumble through his apology with naked fascination. 

“You wish to curry my favour some, and yet you come with an empty hand?”

Dunk had nothing to say to that so he pressed his lips together and nodded. 

“Lord Cafferen, the smug cunt in red, he can scarce pay his rents on time. His people starve each winter. Yet even he shinied up this…bauble from his family’s cellars, for he understands that all men, in their way, wish only for your help, or your head.” 

“And this paragon of good judgement is the man a lord wishes us to emulate?” I put in. 

“She speaks!” Lyonel shouted, startling Dunk and a few of the men around the table. 

“Thank the gods, I was starting to think I might be seeing things.”

“Is my lord not now concerned he might be hearing things?” I said. 

“Well, I hadn’t been, but now that you’ve said that…” He turned to the man next to him. “You’re seeing this, right? Hearing it? Who stands before me?”

“A tall Hedge Knight and a pale Essosi woman, my lord,” the man on his left said.

“Hah!” Lyonel said grinning triumphantly. He leaned forward. “A clever woman is a delightful torment.”

“A lord gives pretty compliments.” 

“Is this yours then?” he said, gesturing to Dunk.

“A knight is in this lady’s service,” I said. 

“And have you brought me ought, my lady?” Lyonel asked pointedly. 

“A lady has brought a knight,” I said widening my eyes in a parody of innocence. “A lord will enjoy him, a knight is splendid company—” Dunk was giving me a look of deep betrayal. “—and it seems a lord has need of better friends.”

Lyonel laughed. 

“Ah, you are a bold pair,” he said. “I do appreciate that, don’t mistake me, but why the fuck are you in my tent?”

“Supper!” Dunk blurted, probably to stop me from saying anything else outlandish. 

He raised the last bit of his pastry to illustrate. 

“Supper.”

Lyonel stared for a moment and then burst into laughter again. 

“Alright,” he chuckled. “That actually makes sense.”

Dunk grinned back, clearly relieved that Lyonel wasn’t offended by their intrusion. 

“What’s your name, man?” 

“Dunk—Ser Dunk.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Lyonel said bluntly. 

Dunk pressed his lips together. 

Lyonel turned to me. 

“And you? Are you Lady Dip? Lady Spread?”

“This one is Lara Mazza of the Free City of Lorath,” I told him. 

He pointed at me. 

“See. That. That is a proper introduction,” he told Dunk. 

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Do.” 

Lyonel cleared his throat and waved Dunk closer and tentatively the knight took a few steps forward and leaned over the table to hear what the shameless incarnation of drama and chaos had to say. 

“Do you like dancing?” he whispered. 

“Doesn’t everyone?” Dunk answered. 

Lyonel grinned, delighted, and gestured at the musicians. 

The rhythm picked up and the crowd of revellers cheered, clapping and stomping. 

Lyonel stripped off his cloak, set aside his crown of antlers and bullied Dunk out of his quilted vest, chivvying the big knight into the centre of it all. Dunk took it with good grace, copying the dancers around him with fair results. 

Lyonel danced with all the drama and flamboyance I was coming to expect of him and he made it look good. 

He and Dunk had some sort of odd footwork competition that ended with them dancing together like old friends. 

Not wanting to be left at loose ends I drained another cup of wine joined a circle of dancers and tried to forget my fears and doubts and my reflexive need to hover over Dunk, and just relax for a minute and enjoy myself. 

Chapter Text

I stood on a moon-soaked cloud looking up at a midnight sky and I tried not to know I was dreaming because the moment I knew it—the cloud, once perfectly solid, became nothing but dust and vapour beneath my feet and I began to fall—

“Lara.”

Dunk caught me before I could tumble off the chair. 

“Easy now,” he said. “You were dreaming.”

I blinked. 

We were still in the Baratheon tent, but Lyonel had gone and only the most devoted partiers were still gathered. 

I must have fallen asleep listening with half an ear to Lyonel’s rambling stories about voyaging at sea. 

“Apologies,” I said, straightening up and surreptitiously checking that my hair was still well-covered. 

“It been a long day,” Dunk said. “We should get back to camp.”

I searched his face. 

“What has happened?” 

He had been in good spirits when last I looked, what had changed? 

“I’ll tell you on the way,” Dunk said, helping me up with such strength that I nearly flew from the chair. 

We left the tent and headed out into the night. The cool air cleared my head some. I should not have indulged in quite so much wine. I’d need water before bed or I’d wake with a miserable hangover. 

When we reached the edge of the tourney ground and started picking through the long grass, making for our hedge and our elm tree, I nudged Dunk gently in the side. 

“I was able to speak to Ser Manfred,” he said. “He came late to Lyonel’s gathering and I caught him as he was leaving.”

“And?”

Dunk blew out a frustrated breath. 

“And he says he doesn’t remember Ser Arlan, though the old man took a nasty wound in his father’s service. And he won’t vouch for me on the strength of my word either.”

Right. I had known about that. 

Ugh. 

I really would need to be more careful with the wine, my thoughts were coming too slowly. 

“And so, what will a knight do now?” I asked. 

“Keep trying I s’pose,” Dunk sighed. “House Dondarrion had Ser Arlan’s service most recently and was one who might’ve known of me, but there are others. I saw the banners for Hayford and Tyrell. I’ll go knocking on the morrow.”

“Chin up, good ser,” I said. 

Dunk nodded firmly. 

“Right. Ser Arlan was a knight near sixty years. He’s served half the lords of the Reach and jousted against more. There’ll be at least one who remembers him.”

We climbed the last rise before our camp and spotted the small flickering fire under our elm tree immediately and it only took a few more strides for Dunk to see Egg, seated in front of the cheerful little blaze cooking a fish on a handmade spit that was better than anything I could have managed. 

“You!” Dunk said. “What are you doing?”

“Cooking a fish,” Egg said, brazen as always. “Do you want some?”

“No. I mean—how did you get here? Did you steal a horse?”

“I rode in the back of a lamb cart,” Egg said. 

“Lamb cart,” Dunk scoffed. “Well, you’d best find another one.”

“You can’t make me go,” Egg said. “I’d had enough of that inn.”

He said it so primly it was a wonder that anyone ever believed he wasn’t a prince. 

“Now listen, I’ll have no more insolence from you, boy. I should throw you over the back of my horse. Take you home.”

“You’d need to ride all the way to King’s Landing,” Egg retorted. “You’d miss the tourney.”

“King’s Landing? You from Flea Bottom?”

“No.”

Dunk snorted. 

“Aye.”

And thus the misunderstanding grew legs and began running away from Egg. 

It really was quite something to see. Though again, how Dunk ever came to the conclusion that Egg was rough enough to have been raised in Flea Bottom was beyond me. If nothing else the lack of accent should have given him away.

But Dunk, though I loved the dear man, assumed the best of people. He wasn’t on the look out for liars and con-artists and was oblivious to those minor details that gave them away. 

Egg was only a little better. Even though he’d been raised in a court full of cunning liars he was only a boy. 

“How did a boy find our camp?” I asked. 

“I asked around. You are quite tall, ser. And different. People notice you.”

“A boy is too clever for his own good,” I said. “Did no one teach a boy to be wary of strangers?”

“Yes. Though I don’t know why. Every stranger I’ve met thus far has been perfectly civil.”

That was enough to give me heart palpitations. No wonder Maekar always looked ready to tear his hair out.

“Foolish, reckless boy,” I said, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him gently, and checking him over for injuries. “A boy has been lucky not to meet with bandits or other unsavoury men.”

Egg looked at Dunk. 

“She’s right you know,” he said. “You ought to be more wary, even in the Reach. I had to run a pair of brutes off on the Roseroad just north of the inn.”

“I’ll be more careful next time,” Egg promised. 

Next time. Fucking hell. 

Dunk noticed the little clothesline Egg had made of our length of rope and the saddle blankets that were draped neatly over it. 

“What’re those doing there?”

“I washed them,” Egg said with brisk pride. “I made the fire, caught the fish and groomed the horses. I would have raised your pavilion but I couldn’t find one.”

“There’s my pavilion,” Dunk said, nodding at the elm. 

“That’s a tree,” Egg said, like he was worried that Dunk truly believed it was a pavilion. 

“It’s all the pavilion a true knight needs,” Dunk said. “I’d sooner sleep under the stars than in some smokey tent.”

“What if it rains?”

“The tree will shelter me.”

“Trees leak,” Egg pointed out. 

Dunk huffed a small laugh. 

“So they do.”

“What’s your name?” Egg asked. “You never said, back at the inn.”

“Dunk.”

“Ser Dunk,” Egg said. “That’s no name for a knight.”

Dunk sighed. 

“I’ve been told.”

“Is it short for Duncan?” 

“Might be,” Dunk said. 

“My aunt used to say that a nickname is all well and good for boys together, but young men going about in the world should use the name their mothers gave them,” Egg said. 

“A boy has a point,” I said. “A lord made the same one.”

Dunk grunted.

“Ser Duncan, then. Ser Duncan of…” He trailed off frowning, probably realizing that going around as Ser Duncan of Flea Bottom would be just as bad as going by just Dunk, and then he straightened. “Ser Duncan the Tall.”

“Never heard of him,” Egg said.

Dunk laughed a little. 

“You wouldn’t’ve. He’s only recently been knighted. This is the man’s first tourney,” he said. 

“Still. Now a knight may give a proper introduction. A storm lord will be pleased.”

“Aye. There’s that.”

“And you, my lady?” Egg prodded. “What’s your name?”

“This one has the honour of being Lara Mazza of the Free City of Lorath,” I said, bowing for the drama of it.

“Ser Duncan and Lady Lara,” Egg nodded. “That sounds more like it.”

“Glad we meet with your approval. Have you got a name, thief?”

“Aeg.”

“Egg? And is that the name your mother gave you?”

“No. But it’s what everyone calls me.”

“Hmm. Well Egg, by rights I should beat you bloody and send you on your way,” Dunk said. “But you look like you don’t eat much. So if you’ll swear to do as your told I’ll let you serve me for the tourney.”

Egg’s small face lit up with a delighted smile. 

“After that, well, we’ll see,” he added sternly. “I don’t have much. But if you prove worth your keep you’ll have clothes on your back and food in your belly. The clothes might be rough-spun, and the food salt beef and salt fish, but you won’t go hungry. And I promise not to beat you, ‘cept when you deserve it.”

I might've had something to say to that, except I didn't think Dunk would ever raise a hand to Egg in anger. 

“Yes, my lord,” Egg agreed. 

Dunk shook his head. 

“Ser. I’m only a hedge knight.”

“Yes, ser.”

All that said and done we settled in for the night. 

Egg ate his fish and a lump of cheese Dunk had left over from breakfast and we discovered that he only had his ratty too-large cloak for a blanket. So Dunk and I each pulled a blanket out of our bedrolls and we rolled them out in front of the fire.

I went to the river to fetch water to boil so that we’d have some to drink and cook with and then chivvied Dunk and Egg up to wash their faces and clean their teeth. 

It was late when we finally lay down, Egg sandwiched between Dunk and I, but my mind wouldn’t quiet. 

Egg turning up in camp was a sharp reminder that I wasn’t here in Ashford to smooth Dunk’s way to the tourney field. 

I needed to find a way to deal with Aerion. 

I couldn’t stop the puppet show which meant somehow I needed to stop the prince.

Ideally without violence and injury. 

If I tried to intervene directly I wouldn’t even have the ability to call for a trial by combat.

I wasn’t a knight. I wasn’t even a lady, whatever I said and whatever they called me. I was a foreigner with the Valyrian look. I didn’t have a name or a family to protect me. Only Dunk. Any violence would blow back onto him and that would ruin everything I was trying to do here. 

I also couldn’t rely on being able to appeal to the princes. Egg was a child. Daeron wasn’t even in Ashford. A fight between Aerion and Valarr would be predictably disastrous, not to mention deeply embarrassing for the Targaryens. Even Baelor and Maekar were limited in how directly they could intervene if Aerion called for a trial.

The fact of it was that the political climate of Westeros was delicate right now. The Targaryens were holding on to their power by a thread. 

The Blackfyre Rebellion had been bloody and had stirred up old resentments from the time of the Dance and the Conquest. And now the royal family had no dragons. 

They’d fallen from near-mythical status to the level of mere human. 

It made them vulnerable. 

And it made their current unpopularity dangerous. 

If the masses believed that they could strike a prince and have there be no consequences…

The only thing that kept the Realm knit together was the convenience of the Iron Throne. The one who took that chair had the power now to rule over all of Westeros. 

It was no longer enough for the old houses to fracture the realm back into seven or more petty kingdoms, always at war with each other. Supplanters would now work to take the whole kingdom, not just one piece. 

For the moment the Targaryen’s clung to their power and King Daeron tried to improve their standing in the court of public opinion. 

Prince Valarr acting as one of Gwin Ashford’s champions, winning the day, and crowning the birthday girl the Queen of Love and Beauty was just one drop in the bucket that would need to be filled. 

Mulling it over, it seemed likely that Aerion was aware of what his grandfather wanted out of this event to some extent, and the he'd either twisted it’s interpretation or thought the whole business to be beneath his dignity. 

Possibly some combination of the two.

But what the hell could I do about it?

I rolled onto my back and blinked up at the sky just in time to see the shooting star streak past in a flash of green. 

“A falling star brings luck to those who see it,” Egg said. 

“Go to sleep, boy,” Dunk said. 

“All the other knights are in their pavilions by now, staring up at silk instead of sky…”

“Do you want a clout in the ear?”

Egg rolled over wiggling around for a moment to get comfortable and then stilled. 

Dunk voice broke the quiet this time. 

“So the luck is ours alone?” he said hopefully. 

I smiled for a moment and then closed my eyes and made a quick wish. 

It couldn’t hurt anything. 

But I was uncomfortably aware that this was Westeros.

Stars don’t fall for men.

A falling star was the herald of dragons.