Chapter Text
Dunk could still remember that day in Ashford, when Baelor’s eyes had alighted upon him and he’d smiled, that queer and unreadable smile. He had been so nervous, his hands damp and sweating and he’d already been thinking of where he might go; perhaps one of the Marcher Lords would take him on, for he’d heard there was some unrest in the Reach, though he did not know if–
“You’re young,” Baelor had said, interrupting his thoughts. His tone was half-wondering and his eyes were fixed upon Dunk’s face with such intensity that he felt himself squirm under his gaze. “This must be– the first time.”
Dunk had flushed and he’d said, a touch defensively. “I’ve ridden in tourneys before, ser.”
It was a half-truth– Ser Arlan had not allowed him to enter the lists but he had squired for him plenty, and had fancied riding as a helmed mystery contender, silently unhorsing opponent after opponent… He had always been given to dreaming.
“Of course,” Baelor had replied, distant and polished once more; the picture of a lord, and he did not look at Dunk so closely after that.
Wonderously, he remembered Ser Arlan, leant back in his chair and his clever fingers spinning his ring round and round; he’d remembered Ser Arlan and he let him enter the lists; he tried to help him face his haughty, prideful nephew; he’d stood with him, head haloed by the white sun and the proud tilt of his face as the crowd roared for his chivalry; and at the end of all things he’d fallen, a great tree crashing to the earth before its time, roots upended and all it had sheltered gone scrambling in its wake; and Dunk’s hands wet with blood as he tried to cradle the remnants of his skull together, as the prince of the realm, as his lord, as the man who had for the first time in his life seemed to stand in front of him with true, deep honour, died. Died for him. Died because of him. That such a man; that a god should fall before a– a–
“Get up,” he remembered saying, desperate, one hand covered in warm and wet blood, the other petting helplessly at Baelor’s cheek, his neck, as if he could coax him up as he did Chestnut when she was exhausted, coat lathered with white foam. His palm slid over the too-tight plates of armour, his son’s armour he realised, somewhere in his mind, for he’d thought it was Prince Valarr Targaryen riding when the gates had first opened and his helm, small and crushed on the ground beside them. He kept repeating himself, babbling. “Please, Your Grace. Your Grace, you must get up.”
“Worry not,” Baelor’s voice, hissed out in whisper, his hand trembling as he reached up toward Dunk’s face. His face, wounded and swollen; Dunk could barely see out of the pucker of his left eye, felt his mouth split and bleeding, cuts stinging at the tears rolling down his cheeks. “Worry not ser. I will see you again. Meet me again under the old elm tree– oh–”
It seemed for a moment his eyes shone, his gaze affixed upon Dunk’s; for a moment he was not wounded at all but his face was hale and flushed with life, his eyes bright and alive in his face–
His breath left him. And all Dunk had in his arms was the suddenly small, absent body of a man who one day may have been king.
It had begun happening to him when he was a child, the slipping. He didn’t know any other way to describe it, the way he would sometimes tumble and fall between the fabrics of time, slipping from one place to another, ducked underwater and coming up gasping. He was still in Flea Bottom most of the time when he was young. Only once did he find himself in a strange and unfamiliar place. There were tall stone arches above him and ahead, a wide open space with trees and undergrowth, the lush smell of green and life filling his nose. To Dunk, who knew nothing but the cramped and ramshackle alleys of Flea Bottom, it was baffling how something like this could exist. His life so far had been one of living practically on top of someone else, crowded so close that you couldn’t breathe for the stink of other people, and yet in the world there existed such a quiet, empty, peaceful place. He basked in it for a moment, staring around himself with wide eyes; his heart trembled in his chest.
Then, in the distance, came voices, the high pitched arguing of boys approaching and Dunk yelped; “Who’s there?” one of the voices cried, full of haughty authority, the sound of feet beginning to run toward him; then his stomach dropping as he was pulled back and found himself blinking at the familiar rotting and thatched walls of their temporary home.
It had started out as only seconds, then perhaps a few minutes, an hour. It was when he was further into his youth, all gangly limbs and too-big feet that he began losing days. Ser Arlan had been speaking to him once, his wiry eyebrows screwed together as he lectured him on something he’d said unthinkingly to a lord whose hall they had very graciously – “very graciously!” He said, thumping his fist on his chest – been given leave to sleep in the cold dark hall with the other illustrious hedge knights after having fought in what was a glorified border skirmish between minor houses.
It was during this lecture, where his hands were sweating at his sides no matter how many times he attempted to wipe them off, that time clutched her thin hand on his shoulder and pulled. He found himself in Flea Bottom, behind a wall and watching as Rafe yelled at a man before pulling a crude gesture with her hand and running away. There was a hard lump in his throat and he felt it all suddenly draw close once more; that they would never again laugh together, or play stupid jokes or dream of running away to far off lands or– or–
All he could think of was her face pale and wan below him, the blood gushing warm and hot onto his hands. She had barely been able to speak for the blood spurting endlessly out of her wounded neck; endless until her eyes were cool and blank staring up at the crowded roofs and not even able to see the sun in the sky.
Then he was pulled back and it was night, the warm summer air settling onto the cool earth. Around him, the sound of birds and insects alive in the twilit hour. Embers rose flickering into the sky as Ser Arlan prodded at a makeshift fire. He did not look up at Dunk as he spoke.
“So you’re a changer then, are you?” His voice was gruff and matter-of-fact, the same tone with which he’d tell Dunk to feed the horses, or sharpen his sword.
“I don’t know ser,” he said, honestly. “I– I seem to go wherever the gods send me. Whenever they send me.”
He realised he did not know where he would go if Ser Arlan asked him to leave; which he would be in his right to do as surely he didn’t want a squire who could disappear for hours, or days without any word on when he might return. Let alone the otherworldly nature of his disappearances; Ser Arlan was not a pious man, but he prayed to the Seven before riding into battle, and he always lit a candle on The Long Night of the Crone. He wet his lips, prepared to beg, prepared to throw himself down at the old knight’s feet when Ser Arlan spoke again.
“Well you’d better learn then,” he said, and he looked back up at him, shrewd. “It might save you one day. Or kill you. But that could be said of anything, couldn’t it.”
“Ser?” Dunk shifted his weight from foot to foot, uncertain. “Does that mean– am I still your squire, ser?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” he replied. “Now go tend to Chestnut– she was favouring her right foreleg.”
So it was with Ser Arlan. Under him Dunk learned many things: where one could always find work with a minor Lord who might pay in coin atop of food and board; how to take care of horses for a healthy horse was as valuable as good steel; and in any conversation with a maester who seemed at least marginally above competence, Dunk would hear him ask whether they ever heard tell of men who seemed to slip betwixt the many layered fabrics of time. They never had any answer or explanation, even as they travelled all throughout the realm, yet Ser Arlan kept asking.
It ceased for a while, and he could go a year, two years without feeling that tugging in his gut. When he tumbled it would be again to some strange and unfamiliar place, sometimes in the back alleys of King’s Landing, Oldtown; once, most terrifyingly in the midst of a battle, where he’d yelped and fallen to the mud, crawling hastily away. He’d been on the outskirts, and counted himself lucky for it; he thought perhaps he’d evaded any wounding for the lack of any heraldry on his chest.
He wondered if he had grown out of it, when it stopped sometime amidst his squiring for Ser Arlan. He could tell it relieved the old man, who no doubt had wondered might happen to his young hanger-on. He hoped silently that it was just a strange and unusual anomaly of his youth, and it seemed it was. That was, until the sun rose, a year and a day after the Ashford Tourney.
He and Egg had just left Dorne, both atop Thunder and Dunk still nursing the hurt of Chestnut, lost in the desert. He was already thinking, dreading, having to spend coin on another horse, or to win one in the lists. Then, suddenly, his stomach was dropping and his hands were tingling; he heard Egg’s voice, high and uncertain as he brought Thunder to an abrupt halt and half-slid half-fell off him to stumble toward the nearest bush.
“Ser? Ser what’s wrong— Ser Duncan!”
“I’ll be alright,” he called behind him, words slurring together as the world blurred before him. “Don’t worry just wait– just wait here I’ll be back soo—”
Then the trees tilted sideways and he fell
into
darkness–
Dunk found himself waking in the middle of a clearing, his back against the old and wizened trunk of a tree. As he looked up, he saw with faint surprise and some delight that it was an elm tree.
“Hello,” he said, softly, and pressed his hand to the rough bark. The forest was alive and rustling around him, the faint chirruping of birds in the canopy, and here and there he could see squirrels leaping between the branches. As he took in a deep breath, he could smell the lushness of the undergrowth, the soft tussocks of grass as they were crushed underfoot and above it all the sweetness of wildflowers bursting their way out of the ground and swaying their colourful heads in the summer breeze.
He had just turned around to begin walking – for he did not know when he might return to Egg, but he hoped it would not be a day, perhaps only a few hours – when suddenly from behind him, called a voice from somewhere amidst the bushes.
“You there, man!” He looked around, startled. A pause, and then it came again. “Yes behind you. Over here.”
He spotted it then, an arm waving languidly from beneath a tangled thicket. He approached warily; as of yet, none of his travels had resulted in interacting with anyone else, other than a glance perhaps, or a shouted word. As he rounded the bush, he saw with some surprise that there was a young man, lying flat on his back and smiling up at him. He had a head of dark curls and a handsome, well-formed face. He had a long straight nose atop a mouth that smiled easily, and warm tanned skin such that was rarely seen this side of the border.
“Hello, my good man,” he said, cheerily. “Thank the gods for you! I apologise for not standing up to greet you– unconscionably rude but as you can see–” and here, he gestured to his left leg, where Dunk saw he was holding himself at an odd angle. He had already pulled off his boot – well-made, of smooth and supple leather, he noted absently – and discarded it beside him, revealing the delicate arch of his foot, and twisted ankle already beginning to swell.
“I fell out of a tree,” he said, by way of explanation for a question Dunk had not yet asked. He laughed, rolling his eyes to the heavens and even with his injury seemed full of easy mirth. “I know, I know. And my horse has run off too, abandoning me to my fate.”
“I’m– sorry,” Dunk said, awkwardly. “Shall I–”
“If you could help me up,” he said, patiently, and held up his arm, palm open and expectant. He was wearing a ring on his little finger, and though Dunk could not see the signet – nor would he be able to recognise it, for he’d never been good at recognising the crests of the Great Houses even as Ser Arlan had tried to drill them into him and more recently, Egg – he knew from that, if not his bearing, that this was clearly the son of some lord. He had the airs of someone highborn in the prideful tilt of his nose and the delicate features of his face. There was something about his eyes that pulled at the back of Dunk’s mind but– he did not know many lords and more than that he did not know what year he could have possibly found himself returned to.
Dunk clasped his hand and pulled him up, obligingly, and settled him with a hand on his chest as he winced, hopping his weight off of his injured leg.
“Thank you,” he said, stoic, even as his face was white from the pain. “Now then. You wouldn’t happen to have a horse nearby, would you?”
“No, m’lord.” Dunk said, carefully, watching his expression. The young man nodded, a distant look in his eyes as though thinking hard, although it could have been the pain; he did not react at all to the title, which solidified his position in Dunk’s mind. He glanced sympathetically down at his ankle, leg held carefully to not put any weight on his foot. He could remember twisting his ankle once when he was a child in Flea Bottom; they’d been running from an angered merchant with a handleful of apples when he’d slipped and fallen on the uneven cobblestone street. His pride had been the most bruised, with the merchant catching up to them and hauling him to the city watch. They’d taken one look and tossed the merchant a coin – not enough, if his complaining was anything to go by – before sternly telling Dunk and Rafe to run along and not get into anymore trouble if they knew what was good for them. Dunk had limped away feeling sorry for himself until Rafe disappeared and came back a few moments later and pressed a heel of bread into his palm. Stale though it was, it had tasted all the better for the tears welled up in his eyes.
He adjusted himself then and squatted down to more firmly take on some of the young lords weight. He looked at him gratefully, and nodded in acknowledgement.
“Right,” he said, thoughtfully. “Best look for mine then. She won’t have gone far– Sundancer is a sweet girl, only startles easily.”
“Not a good thing for a horse to be in battle, m’lord.” Dunk said, unthinking. “Nor a tourney, if she might throw you as soon as another rider comes toward you. Best that your horsemaster tries to break her out of the habit soon, or yourself. It may be in her breeding but all things can be learned if taught carefully.”
“Sage advice,” the young man said, brow quirked as he looked at him curiously. “Pray– how do you know such things about horses? Are you a horsemaster yourself?”
“No,” Dunk replied, laughing. They were making their way cautiously through the woods now; he could see here and there the path that she had left through the trees, hoofprints in fresh turned earth and coarse hairs left on outstretched branches. The young lord pointed out things he missed whenever he stopped, quietly instructing him to turn right or left. He was polite, Dunk thought. At least more polite than other young lordlings he’d met, hopped up and too big for their britches, ordering around smallfolk with unearned pride. “No, m’lord. I’m just a hedge knight, you see.”
“A hedge knight!” He exclaimed, and Dunk felt himself flush but he was continuing on, enthusiastic and thumping his hand on Dunk’s back. “Well met, ser! ‘Tis an honourable thing to be a hedge knight– I don’t care what anyone else might say. The freedom you must have, to sleep beneath the stars and serve whatever lord you wish, go wherever the winds might take you…”
Dunk looked at him askance; he was looking up at the sky, eyes practically glimmering with stars. He knew nothing of it, Dunk suddenly realised, smiling. Nothing of the world, of the shit that Dunk had found himself in, beaten down with no Maester to tend to him, tying strips of fabric round his own wounds and peeling himself out of dented armour, wincing as he pulled himself back onto Thunder and rode on to the next town; nothing of hungry days when nobody would hire him, not for coin or board and huddling under his cloak to sleep shivering under a sheet of cold winter’s chill. No– the life of a hedge knight was not romantic to anyone but the sons and daughters of haughty highborn lords. Everyone else knew better.
“It’s a fine life,” Dunk said, instead. He was not one to crush a young man’s dream. “Difficult of course, but– fine, and free, as you say.”
“What luck I have,” he said, cheeks dimpling as he grinned up at him. “That you should be coming through these woods just as I needed.” Then his gaze changed, curious. “What were you–?”
Then his head twisted as he saw something behind Dunk, and he straightened, unthinkingly putting his weight on his foot before grimacing, crumpling into his leg until Dunk hauled him up, hefting his arm under him to take the bulk of his weight. His face had gone pale, and he was breathing hard but he pointed with a wavering finger, and he was smiling still through it.
“There! Sundancer!”
Dunk turned his head to see a sleek bay mare grazing in a clearing just ahead of them, chewing at tufts of green grass sprouting at the edge of a clear and burbling stream. She raised her head at the young man’s cry and whinnied, tossing her mane. She was a sand steed, unmistakable just from the look of her; sleek and well-muscled legs, long neck and a narrow, beautiful face with a star upon her brow.
“What a horse,” Dunk said, wondering. His heart ached at the thought of Chestnut; she had none of the look of Sundancer save for their colouring for she had been a stouter horse, solid where she was slim, broad where she was small. But still, but still, his heart ached in his chest.
“Isn’t she wonderful,” the man said, pleased at his reaction. “She was a gift for my nameday just gone. Rode most of the way from Dorne without hardly stopping, and she wasn’t even tired– so they say.”
Dunk knew it to be the sort of exaggeration that accompanied such a gift, yet still he nodded; he could half believe it from the look of her. She trotted over, reins dangling in the grass and pushed her nose into the young lord’s outstretched palm, snuffling gently at him.
“Let’s get you up then, m’lord,” Dunk said, and at his nod, maneuvered the both of them round her side, lifting him as he swung himself up and over onto the saddle. The young lord knocked his ankle once, unavoidably on the way and both of them winced before he straightened up again. The sun caught on his hair, and Dunk blinked for a moment, the feeling of deja vu come upon him – a man atop a horse, the sun behind him and glancing off polished steel armour–
“What was your name again?” Dunk said, mouth suddenly dry as he looked up at him, at this young man smiling down with mismatched eyes, one blue-violet and one a deep brown, a face that did not yet have the age and world-weariness of a man grown, a face that was familiar, had been since he’d seen it, a face–
“I never told you,” he said, cheeky as only youth would allow, and as behind him there came a sudden crashing through the undergrowth and raised voices, he added with a smile, “though perhaps you should start calling me your Grace.”
Then the kingsguard, with their white caped armour and flashing steel were upon them, and Dunk was being pushed back from the horse and the youth – Baelor, a voice in his mind said with a cry – was laughing and calling them off. They did pull back, or at least the man who had Dunk backed up against a tree did, still looking suspiciously up and down him. Baelor was gesturing down to his leg and up at the trees, a self-deprecating smile on his lips as he congratulated the knights on finding them, apologising for having run off only he couldn’t stand it anymore, all the family–
“Where– are we?” Dunk said, dumbly to the Kingsguard still stood in front of him, sword back in its sheath but his hand still firmly on its hilt.
He was slow to speak, the suspicion still hardened on his face, but Baelor answered for him, calling above the din.
“Why, ser!” He said, sweeping his arm around them, and Dunk did not know how he could’ve mistaken him for anything but a prince of the realm. “You are standing amidst the great woods of Summerhall!”
By the gods, he was young, Dunk thought, watching Baelor as they made their return to Summerhall. It seemed that the whole of the clan had descended upon the residence, as they spilled out to greet him, white and silver hair shining in summer’s light. It was in his carelessness, his hand raised in casual greeting, and handsome smile upon his face as he called out to them.
“Hello, hello,” he said, staying mounted as someone ran to get him wooden steps from the stable. “I’m alright, just a bit of a tumble, oh it’s alright don’t cry–!” This to a younger boy ran up to the side of his horse with a shock of white hair and red-faced, lip already trembling as he reached up toward him. Baelor sat forward in his seat to clasp their hands together, a softer, fonder smile on his face.
“It’s alright Maekar, there now,” he murmured; only Dunk was close enough to hear him, Baelor having instructed him to walk by his side, though he quickly realised it was only to chatter at him as they walked, peppering him with questions about being a hedge knight but hardly leaving room for him to answer. “I’m alright. Were you very worried?”
“Yes,” he said, and Dunk blinked rapidly to reconcile this image of the stern and headstrong prince ever having been so young as to be a child brought to tears. “It was– Rhaegar said it was my fault you were injured, for asking you to– to–”
“No, Maekar,” Baelor said firmly; for the first time, Dunk heard him speak and felt a rush of familiar recognition down his spine. Suddenly, the young prince’s voice was warm, and reassuring, and resolute. “It wasn’t your fault. I chose to go out into the woods without telling anyone; I knew I could get in trouble, and it was just my luck that a brave hedge knight happened to come upon me.” He looked back at Dunk and smiled, quick, before turning back to his brother. “And look what I brought,” he said, private and grinning before he brought his hand out from behind his back and released into the air, whirling samsaras of the elm tree. Maekar yelped and cheered as they spun through the air, flitting about with the gentle breeze. He raised his hands to grasp at them as they fell, before chucking them back up to watch them fall. Baelor lent back in the saddle to smile down at him.
“Is that why you were there, Your Grace?” Dunk said, quietly to him once he’d gotten down from Sunchaser, as everyone filed back into the castle. “To get those winged seeds for your brother?”
“He loves them,” Baelor said, shrugging. “Our father has decided that Maekar must be further instructed in all things, reading, writing, his swordsplay. So he has hardly had the time to relax, even as we came here to escape all the bother of the House.”
“Right,” Dunk said, distantly; he realised that by the House, Baelor meant the Red Keep, enough in itself to send his head spinning quick as the elm tree’s seedlings. He saw, then, a maester hurrying toward them, no doubt to corral the prince to bedrest. He felt himself hold back a smile; the best of luck to the maester that Baelor might deign to stay abed.
“Will you stay, ser?” Baelor had seen him too, and had looked expectantly back at Dunk. “I’m sure you would be allowed to join us for dinner; no doubt my father will want to congratulate you on a daring rescue.”
They both laughed, before Dunk shook his head. He could already feel it, the distant tugging in his stomach, the tingling of his hands.
“No, Your Grace,” he said, and inclined his head. “I’d best return to my travels– but thank you.”
“If you’re sure,” Baelor said, doubtfully, but the Maester had reached them now and was beginning to speak rapidly, pressing a walking staff into Baelor’s hand.
“I’m sure, Your Grace,” Dunk said, and bowed. “Thank you for– er. Thanks for making sure the Kingsguard didn’t take my head back there– or my hand.”
Baelor laughed, and it was a bright joyful sound, ringing through the courtyard.
“The pleasure is all mine, ser.” He inclined his head himself. “Go well in your travels, and may we meet again.”
As Dunk left, and as the tugging in his stomach grew stronger, as he turned the corner round the castle wall, he heard Baelor call from behind him, with a voice that was suddenly sharp with desperation.
“Wait, ser, you never told me your name–!”
And as he heard the scuffling of approaching footsteps, a voice frantically telling the prince to stop and a grunt of pain, his world tipped and spun around him, and his hands and feet grew cold, and he tipped, falling–
falling into—
darkness–
Dunk stepped, stumbling, into the midst of a makeshift camp. Egg looked up from the fire, wide-eyed and startled. A beat, another, before his eyes filled with tears and he launched himself bodily at Dunk’s legs.
“There, there,” Dunk said, surprised and suddenly heart-warmed as he ruffled a hand along Egg’s scalp. “There now, I’m back. It’s alright.”
“Where were you, ser,” Egg said, tearily. He wiped at his face brusquely with his small palms before glaring up at him, hands on his hips. “How did you– you just stepped out of thin air. What’s going on?”
Dunk sighed, and pushed him gently back toward the fire before sitting down. Thunder nickered as he walked over, pushing his nose into Dunk’s hair, snuffling at his ear.
“I have a story for you, boy,” he said, finally. “And no interrupting alright, you can save your questions for the end.”
And as the embers rose into the sky he began to tell the strange and weaving tale; and as the embers rose into the sky, the seed of hope planted itself in his chest.