SOMETHING WICKED IN THE WATER
#SYNOPSIS. Nimue joins Dunk and Egg on the road to Ashford. Dunk is honorable. He is decent. He is also a man, and there is only so much a man can be expected to withstand.
#CHARACTER(S). Ser Duncan the Tall, Aegon Targaryen
#WARNING(S). Dark romance
Dunk was not a man who questioned the will of the gods. Scarce as their favor had always been for him â and it had always been scarce, for a boy born with nothing in Flea Bottom had little reason to believe the Seven spared him much thought â he had learned to accept the shape of his life without complaint.
He was a simple man. Honor was the only cloth he had ever owned and he had worn it thin in places but he had worn it nonetheless. So he could not explain, by any logic available to him, how he had arrived at this particular stretch of road to Ashford with a squire he hadn't asked for and a maiden he understood even less, walking beside him on feet that had been a fish tail.
He could not explain it. He had stopped trying.
What he could not stop, no matter how he tried, was looking at her. His eyes had developed a treacherous habit of finding her face every few seconds regardless of what else he pointed them at â the road, the treeline, the back of Egg's head, it didn't matter, they always drifted back.
She was pretty when she was still and she was pretty when she moved and she was devastating when she smiled, which she did often and without warning, and every time she did his cheeks went hot and his jaw went stupid.
Gods, but she was something. Something fierce too, he reminded himself, wincing as he shifted his sword arm and felt the long rake of claw marks pull tight beneath his sleeve â still fresh, still deep, the kind of marks that would scar. He had not entirely ruled out that she had been trying to eat him. He had also not entirely ruled out that he would have let her.
If he hadn't known better he would say she was trying to drown him with the surprising strength in her soft hands. The water surging and swallowing him, closing over his head cold and dark and complete, his feet leaving the lake bed entirely before he had understood what was happening â and then she had pulled him back up just as easily, one hand fisted in his hair, and he had broken the surface gasping while she watched him with those big eyes.
But surely such a wonderful creature wouldnât dare to cause harm?
He had stood there, gripping the pearl tight in his palm, the claw marks on his forearm burning at the touch of the cold water, and he had thought â perhaps he had frightened her somehow. Perhaps she had panicked. He was large, he knew he was large, he had always known it, and a maiden alone in a lake with a man the size of Dunk had every right to panic.
He could not fault her for that. He did not fault her for that.
But surely. Surely a maiden that pretty, with pearls in her hair and that fine gossamer veil floating around her and a teardrop pearl sitting so delicately at the center of her forehead â surely such a maiden was not the sort to â he had rolled his sleeve down carefully over the marks. She had pressed her lips to his cheek not ten minutes later and he had felt the flush climb all the way to his ears and he had decided, quietly and finally, not to think about the lake anymore
Egg kept pestering him about it regardless. The boy had that look on his face, the particular one where he thought hard and strenuous about something
He had refused to say anything else, unsure how to voice it. He would sound mad if he did. He would not know how to explain such a pretty creature â not to an innkeeper, not to another knight, not to anyone with the sense the gods gave them. â I found her in a lakeâ was not an explanation. â She hasâhad? a fish tail and teeth like broken glass and she kissed me and now she won't stop and I don't know what any of it means â was considerably worse. He kept it behind his teeth where it belonged and watched the road and said nothing.
He had given her his spare shoes and his shirt and his cloak and his spare pants and gods â he had not been prepared for any of it. His shirt on her small frame, the hem falling past her thighs, the sleeves swallowing her hands entirely, and the pants cinched at her waist with a length of rope because there was nothing else for it, bunching at the ankles, and she had looked â he kept his eyes on the road. It was not proper to think about. She deserved better than his old worn things, that much was plain.
She should have had fine things. Silk and samite and embroidered cloth the way noble women wore, the kind of finery that came with wealth he would never have, fabric that caught the light the way she caught the light. Something worthy of the pearls in her hair and the veil and that delicate teardrop at her forehead. The nearest inn, he decided.
Whatever copper he had left. He would find her a dress at the nearest inn they came to if it cleaned him out entirely, because his clothes made him feel the full weight of what he was â a hedge knight with a bedroll and a horse he shared with his squire and not a copper to his name worth mentioning â and she deserved better than that. She deserved better than him, if he was being honest, which he tried to be.
She tugged suddenly on his forearm.
He stopped walking. Looked down at her. She held his forearm in both hands and pulled, patient and insistent, until he understood and crouched down to her level
She pressed her lips to his cheek.
Warm and soft and unhurried, held a breath longer than usual, her small hands still curved around his forearm over the marks she had left there, and when she pulled back she was smiling that small curved smile directly into his face from two inches away.
And then she did not stop.
His other cheek. His jaw. The corner of his eye, which startled him enough that he made a sound he would never admit to making. His cheek again.
She was very thorough about it, cupping his face in both small hands to turn him where she wanted him, and Dunk stood bent at the waist with his hands braced on his knees because she had pulled him down to her height and he was too large to crouch comfortably and too bewildered to straighten up, folded nearly in half on the side of the road while she worked through whatever this was with the focused efficiency of someone completing a task.
His ears were on fire. Everything was on fire. He was a very large man bent double on a road to Ashford being kissed repeatedly on the face by someone that had a fish tailâ and he had absolutely nothing to say about any of it.
Then she kissed his mouth.
Brief and soft and simple, the same as everything else she did, like it required no more thought than any of the rest of it, and pulled back with that smile still in place.
Dunk straightened up slowly.
His full height. All of it. He needed it.
"That â Iâ" He stopped. Took a breath. Tried again with the measured deliberateness of a man rebuilding something that had fallen over. "My lady. Such displays of affection are â they are things reserved for husbands and wives. For couples who have â who are â it is not proper between two people who are notâ"
She was looking up at him. Directly at him, big pretty eyes and very close, and he felt the thought he had been constructing simply come apart somewhere in the middle of his chest. The flush was climbing again. He could feel it. "It is not â that is to say â a man and a woman ought not toâ" She tilted her head. The teardrop pearl swayed gently. He looked at her face and forgot what proper meant and what it was for and why he had ever thought it applied here.
â Perhaps," he said, after a moment, in a voice that had given up entirely on authority. "Perhaps not in publicâ
She patted his chest with one small hand, the way you patted something large and harmless, and then her hands were moving, sliding from his chest to his arms, down to his forearms and back up and she wrapped both hands around his bicep and squeezed with that same slow deliberate pressure and tilted her head like she was taking measurements and Dunk stood there with his mouth open mid-sentence and forgot entirely what the sentence had been.
Her fingers traced the ridges of his chest, pressing into muscle hardened by years of swordplay and labor. The contrast was sharpâher hands, cool as river stones against his sun-warmed skin, mapping him with unhurried curiosity.
Dunk swallowed hard, his breath hitching when she dug her thumbs into the thick cord of his forearm, kneading like she was testing dough. A soft, pleased sound hummed in her throat, something between a sigh and a purr, and the noise sent an odd jolt through him, half embarrassment, half something else entirely.
She lingered over the swell of his bicep, squeezing with deliberate interest, and Dunkâs face burned hotter than forge coals.
She moved up to his bicep again. Both hands this time, thumbs pressing into the muscle with that same slow deliberate interest, and she made the sound again, lower this time, more satisfied, like she had found what she was looking for and approved of it.
Dunk's jaw had gone very tight. He was staring at a fixed point somewhere above her head with the focused desperation of a man trying to think about something, anything, the road, the tourney, Ser Arlan's advice on sword grip, anything at all, and failing comprehensively because she had both hands on his arm and was purring and he was only a man.
"You areâ" he started, and had to stop because his voice had done the thing again. He cleared his throat. Tried once more, â You are veryâ" She dug her thumbs in again and the word he had been reaching for dissolved entirely. He exhaled through his nose. Long and slow and controlled, the way he breathed before a fight, which felt appropriate because he was losing this one badly.
She looked up at him with those eyes and that small curved smile and her hands still wrapped around his arm.
She looked very pleased with herself
Ser Arlan had never prepared him for this. Then again, Ser Arlan had been only a man too â and perhaps Dunk ought not to have judged him so harshly all those years when he whored and spent good coin on pretty faces. He understood now. He owed the old man an apology he would never be able to give.
She patted his cheek once and walked away toward Egg.
Dunk stood where she left him longer than he should have and watched her go and said nothing about it.
She reached Egg and looked up at him from the ground with that patient tilted attention and Egg looked back down at her from the saddle and whatever passed between them in that moment was apparently sufficient because she reached up and took his small face in both hands and began.
Forehead. Both cheeks. The tip of his nose, which scrunched. The top of his bald head, which she pressed her lips to and held a moment. Egg did not pull away. Egg did not say anything sharp or clever or pointed. Egg, who had an opinion on everything and kept it ready, went very quiet and very still under her hands and his chin tipped up slightly the way a cat tipped its chin up when you found the right spot, asking for more without asking, and his eyes drifted shut and stayed there. She chirped softly.
She smoothed both palms over his head. She tucked his collar up and straightened his cloak and kissed his temple and his cheek again and Egg sat in the saddle and basked in it the way the earth basked in sun after a long winter, openly and without shame.
Dunk watched them and said nothing and looked back at the road.
Something sat in his chest that he didnât have a name for either.
They walked like that for a time, the three of them, the horses plodding and the road flattening out ahead and the distant sound of Ashford carrying on the wind before they could see it â woodsmoke and voices and the faint bright noise of a crowd gathered for something. She had drifted back to his side by then, close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm when the road narrowed, and she did not move away from it. He did not move away from it either. He told himself it was because the road was narrow.
It was not a narrow road.
âWeâll need to know what to call you â he said, to the road ahead, because saying it to her face still did things to his ability to form sentences, âBefore we get there. Someoneâll askâ
She looked up at him. Patient and unhurried, the teardrop pearl swaying gently at her brow.
The silence that followed was considerable
She looked at him. Egg looked at him. Even the horse seemed to have an opinion.
âBess,â Egg repeated, in the tone of a man identifying a dead body.
âItâs a good name,â Dunk said, with the defensive conviction of someone who knew he was losing. âCommon, Tisâ a pretty name â
âShe has pearls in her hair,â Egg said. âShe has â â he gestured broadly at all of her, â â she looks like that, and you want to call her Bessâ
âWhatâs wrong with Bessââ
âMy horse is named Bess, Dunk.â
â The horse is named Maester,â Dunk said
âI renamed her. In my head. Just now. So that you would understand the problemâ
She was watching them with her head tilted, looking between them
"She deserves better than Bess," Egg said, with finality.
"There is nothing wrong with Bess," Dunk said, â Bess suits herâ
"Bess," Egg said flatly, "is the name of a dairy cow."
"There is nothing wrong with washerwomenâ"
She was watching them both with her head tilted and her hands folded neatly in front of her, looking between them with the mild interest of someone watching two dogs argue over a bone. The teardrop pearl swayed. She chirped once, softly, to no one in particular.
"She agrees with me," Egg said
"She doesn't know what we're talking aboutâ
"She knows your tone," Egg said, "Everyone knows your tone."
Dunk looked at the road ahead and said nothing because there was nothing to say that would help him.
Egg was quiet for a moment, the sharpness leaving his voice briefly, replaced by something younger. "My father used to read to me when I was small," he said. "Old stories mostly. He mentioned a name once â Nimue." He looked at her, at the pearls and the veil and the teardrop at her brow and the shimmer of her skin in the last of the light. "It means Lady of the Lakeâ
She tilted her head at him and waited.
She smiled, wide and slow and warm, and the points of her teeth caught the light.
"You're welcome," Egg said
"You will," Egg said, with the serenity of someone who had never once in his life been wrong about anything.
They heard Ashford before they saw it.
The noise came first â a distant roar that grew gradually into something distinguishable, voices and steel and the deep percussion of hooves on packed earth, the particular layered sound of a great many people gathered in one place with something happening. Then the banners, visible above the treeline, bright against the pale sky.
Then the gates, and the crowd funneling through them in both directions, people leaving with tired feet and full eyes, people entering still bright with anticipation, and Dunk slowed without meaning to at the sight of it.
Nimue stopped beside him. Her hand found his arm. He let her take it.
He found comfort in such a simple touch. It was not just him here. He had his squire at his back and Nimue at his side and that was â that was something. That was more than he had arrived at most places with. Ser Arlan had always ridden alone at the end, just the two of them, and before that it had been just Dunk.
He was not that boy anymore. He had people now, small as the number was, and they had followed him here and that meant something. It meant he had to be worth following. It meant he had to be what he said he was â honorable, decent, a true knight.
He looked down at Nimue's small hand on his arm. She was not looking at him. She was looking at the gates, at the press of people moving through them, at the banners and the noise and the whole enormous unfamiliar world of it, and there was no fear in her face. None at all.
Whether she had walked on land before, whether any of this was new to her or old to her, whether she had seen a hundred tourneys from the bottom of a hundred lakes â he didn't know.
He knew very little about her and had no way of asking and she had no way of telling him and somehow that did not trouble him the way it should have. She was here.
She had chosen to be here, with him and his squire egg.
Dunk squared his shoulders.
He was Ser Duncan the Tall. He had trained nine years under a good man who had believed in him when there was very little to believe in.
He had a sword that had belonged to that good manâ honest about what he was, and a name he had carried down every road he had ever ridden without disgracing it. He was not a lord.
He was not a knight with a castle and a father who had jousted before him. He was a hedge knight with mud on his boots and a squire on a borrowed mare and something that had been a fish not two days ago holding his arm, and yet it meant everything to him.
He walked forward through the gates of Ashford and the noise rose up around him like a tide and he did not flinch from it.
The grounds were everything the road had promised and more. The smell hit him first â horses and sawdust and roasting meat and the particular sharp smell of oiled steel baking in the afternoon sun. Then the sound resolved itself into its parts â the distant ring of steel on steel from the practice yard, the calls of merchants hawking food and favor tokens and sharpening services, the low constant rumble of a thousand conversations happening at once.
Banners everywhere, more than he could count, snapping and turning in the warm breeze. Pavilions stretched in rows that seemed to go on further than made sense, silk and wool and fine linen in every color, each one bearing a sigil outside. Sigils he half knew and half didn't â stags and lions and towers and things he couldn't name.
Squires everywhere underfoot, running errands, carrying helms, polishing things that were already polished. Pages younger than Egg with the harried expressions of boys who had been told to hurry and had been hurrying since dawn. And the smell of the food â gods, the food â roasting meat somewhere close enough that his stomach made its feelings known immediately and without subtlety.
Nimue's hand tightened on his arm
She was looking up at him with those big eyes, not at the grounds, not at the banners, just at him, and there was something in her face that he didn't have a word for but felt in his chest regardless. He looked at her for a moment that stretched slightly longer than he intended and then looked away because looking at her for too long still did things to his ability to think clearly and he needed to think clearly right now.
"Stay here," he told her, then to Egg, â Both of youâ
Egg looked at him with the expression of someone who had been asked to do something beneath their considerable capabilities. "Both of us," he repeated.
"So you want me," Egg said, "to stand here. In the middle of Ashford. And watch her â
Egg looked at Nimue. Nimue had found a banner with an interesting sigil and was studying it with her head tilted and the teardrop pearl swaying at her brow, entirely indifferent to the conversation happening two feet away from her.
"And if she wanders?â Egg questioned
"She absolutely will wanderâ
Egg looked at him with the flat patience of someone pointing out something obvious to someone who should already know it, â Ser Duncan, she dragged you underwater. What exactly am I supposed to do?â
"If you lose her," he said finally, pointing at Egg, "I will find the biggest stick between here and the Reach and I will clout you with itâ
"Noted," Egg said, entirely unbothered. "Off you go thenâ
Dunk looked at Nimue one last time. She chirped at him, soft and warm, without looking away from the banner.
He ducked through the door of the registration office.
His forehead caught the top of the frame.
He went in anyway, cheeks burning hot with embarrassment.
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