something for your mind

Dawn came thin and grey, and with it the sound of men pretending they weren’t afraid: buckles murmuring, leather sighing, steel clearing its throat. You rose into the chill and tied your hair back in a strict knot that would not be trusted to the wind. The camp’s breath steamed along the ground. A hawk wrote a lone signature over the meadow and vanished into a lidless sky. Dunk was already awake, sitting on his heels by the coals, hands bare, knuckles raw where yesterday had asked questions with teeth. He glanced up when you stepped out, that steady look he wore like a habit slanting warmer for a heartbeat before it remembered itself. Egg snored on, blanket over his head like a boy who believes cloth can teach the world patience.

“Morning,” Dunk said, as if the word were a small, careful thing.

“Such as it is,” you answered, and crouched opposite the coals. You reached for his right hand without announcing your intention and he gave it, palm rough as old wood, heat between your fingers like a secret that had not yet decided to misbehave. You unwound last night’s bandage and examined the split across his knuckle where Aerion’s mouth had bargained poorly. “You hit him properly,” you said, not smiling because it would be wasteful and because you wanted to.

“He deserved proper,” he said. His gaze flicked to your own hand and the crescent you’d opened on a man’s rib at the ford. “So did the men you corrected.”

“Then we’re even,” you said, and tore a fresh strip from linen, dipping it in warmed water until it went from cold obedience to pliant promise. You wrapped him tight and neat, the crossing and recrossing of the cloth a quiet architecture that left no room for accident. He watched your mouth while you worked, as if the shape of your concentration could teach him a better prayer than the one the septons sell.

Egg surfaced with a small, outraged noise, hairless head gleaming like a polished apple. “You should have woken me,” he declared, indignant at the idea that dawn and duty might start without him.

“You were guarding the inside of the tent,” you said solemnly. “Vital post.”

He blinked suspiciously, tried to catch you smiling, failed, puffed up anyway. “I dreamt we had seven already,” he announced. “Ser Baelor, Ser Beesbury, Ser Hasty, Ser Robyn, Ser Raymun, and—” He frowned as the dream bent around the absence. “And another Ser whose face I can’t remember but whose armor fit.”

“Then find him,” you said, tightening the last knot on Dunk’s hand until the bandage lay like certainty. “Men are always losing their names and needing someone to hand them back.”

By the time the sun had climbed a hand, the camp’s rumors had developed bones. Word moved along ropes and under awnings with the purposeful creep of ivy: Aerion would take the field swaggering and sanctified; Maekar would lend him a gravity he hadn’t earned; the other five on that side wore house colors like alibis. When the royal quarter unfurled its day, you saw your father’s banner at the edge of it—black and red caught in a clean wind—saw the hard line of Maekar’s pavilion and felt that old, familiar notch in your chest, the one you learned to breathe around as a child so your face wouldn’t give you away. Your throat tightened with the memory of every lesson he’d delivered like a blade being honed. Dunk noticed it without staring, the way a man notices a sudden drop at the path’s edge; he shifted half a pace, not blocking your view, exactly, but standing where the wind had been sharpest.

“He’ll do as he thinks he must,” Dunk said, and the gentleness in it nearly undid you. “So will I.”

“So will I,” you said—and meant it.

You set about the work of finding the rest of the men who would stand with him. The Beesbury had already returned with a honey-warm nod and a quietly vicious spear, the Hasty adjusted his straps with a patience that belonged to men who had harvested things with their hands, and Robyn Rhysling leaned against a post composing either a song or an alibi with equal care. Raymun Fossoway arrived with grease under his nails and green dye seamed into his cuticles, grinning like a boy who had borrowed tomorrow and intended to return it with interest. That made five besides Dunk; numbers do not care about hearts but they soothed Egg anyway.

“Ser Humfrey Hardyng,” announced a new voice, and a tall, spare man with a Vale look—hard angles, honest eyes, the weather carved into his mouth—stepped into the slice of ground you’d made your own. He wore his mail as if he had slept in it on poorer nights and would again if required. The Hardyng sigil had been mended where salt and time eat, and the mends had been done well. He stopped, took in Dunk’s height without flinching, then looked you full in the face though the hood shaded your features. He nodded once to what he saw there. “I’ll stand with you,” he said, simple as bread. “My father says a man’s worth the fights he won’t walk past. I won’t walk past this one.”

“Six,” Egg breathed, bursting with a hope he tried to smother and failed to.

“Then we need one more,” you said, feeling fate stretch like a cat beside a hearth. “One who knows how to be where he is most needed.”

It came in a shape you liked immediately: an Ashford man with a plain shield, a plain face, and the look of someone who had been useful all his life without memorizing how to preen. “Ser Maynard Plumm,” he said, though his smile suggested he had gone by other names on other roads, and he accepted the weight of the seventh as a cobbler accepts a last—measured, practiced, certain. “I stand with hedge knights when princes forget how to be men.”

Dunk’s shoulders eased as if a smith had finally driven home a stubborn rivet. He went to each man in turn, clasped wrists, spoke names aloud as if pinning them into the day where the wind could not tug them free, looked each in the eye without trying to own anything. When he turned back to you the noise of the camp had fallen away in the way good noises do when the truth is standing very near and asking permission to speak.

“Have you a favor?” he asked, almost shy, as if the old forms might snap their own spines lifting this much meaning.

You had not brought ribbons. You did not tie your life to men. But you had a strip of pale silk sewn into the inner seam of your sleeve, narrow as a promise, dyed the color of the dawn over Summerhall when the fires are banked and the stones are just beginning to remember heat. You worked your fingers into the seam and slipped the silk free with a soft, satisfying tear, then wound it around his bandaged hand, over the knuckle that had measured a prince and found him light. You tied the knot on the inside of his wrist where only he would feel it when the weight came down.

“For your grip,” you said. “Not your glory.”

His breath went out and back in as if something had pressed gently against his chest from the inside. “For my grip,” he echoed, and the way he said it left your knees less trustworthy than you prefer.

Egg watched with the bright, unblinking eyes of a boy who understands more than adults allow and less than he thinks. “You’ll win,” he announced to the air, because telling the air what to do feels safer than telling the gods. “You will. And then we’ll buy sugared almonds and I won’t share.”

“Share the first,” you said, because that small superstition belonged to a younger you who still believed the first bite decided the whole taste. Egg made a face and then sighed and conceded the principle like a prince paying a tax he disliked.

The summons came midmorning: the thin silver call of a trumpet from the king’s quarter, then a second reply from the lists like light bouncing between mirrors. Men who had practiced being brave for days now had to try it for real and you watched the collective intake of breath move through the camp like wind through high grass. Aerion’s pavilion vomited silk; Maekar emerged with a face chiseled to the same hard lines you carried in your jaw, and for a spinning second you were a child at his knee again, reciting names of dead kings as if they could make your bones behave. You looked away first because this time you chose to.

They formed on the trampled earth by old custom—two ranks of seven facing each other across a distance that had turned strangers into history before. Aerion preened next to your father, lips still swollen, eyes bright and mean. On your side, Dunk’s height turned the row into a spine and the men around him into vertebrae that looked more durable than anything silk could boast. Prince Baelor took the captain’s place as if the universe had designed it around the way he stood—weight even, gaze clear, mouth carved to tell the law where to sit.

Before they crossed to present themselves, Dunk took your wrist for the first time and not by accident. His thumb found your pulse where it lived snug under the skin and rested there as if counting was a way of touching without presuming. The world tilted, narrowed, gentled.

You stepped closer, close enough that your breath warmed the scar along his jaw, close enough that the smell of oil and linseed and honest sweat went down into you and stayed. You tipped your forehead toward his and stopped a hair’s breadth shy of touching because a hair’s breadth can be as intimate as a kiss if you hold it there long enough.

He closed his eyes for the space of a heartbeat.

Baelor called them, then, and the old words spooled out across the dirt—names and charges and the particular piety that attaches itself to sanctioned violence. Seven torches burned by ceremonial whim though the sun stood high; wax ran in clean tears down carved iron. Aerion’s champions answered in turn: Maekar with iron in his mouth; Ser Steffon Fossoway red as a lie; others whose names were more pride than history. On your side, voices answered with less flourish and more truth: Beesbury, Hasty, Rhysling, Hardyng, Fossoway green as a promise, Plumm with a smile like a locked door, and Duncan the Tall, whose name sounded bigger in the air than on his own tongue.

When they stepped forward to swear hands on hilts, Dunk glanced once over his shoulder the way men do when they have decided who they are and want to make certain the person they chose to know them still exists. Your hood shaded your face but there was no hiding in it; he found you anyway and you met his gaze without blinking, long and clean and unafraid, and if looks could catch a man on a fall, you’d done as much as a look can do.

Just before they took their marks, Egg pressed himself to your side and gripped your forearm with both hands so hard you knew you’d wear small bruises shaped like the faith of a boy for a day or two. “Bring him back,” he said fiercely, as if the command could tell the gods something they’d somehow missed.

“I will bring him back or I will go where he goes,” you said, the old Targaryen oath sneaking out of you like a wolf’s shadow at dusk. Egg nodded because he trusted the shape of it even if he did not recognize the words.

The lists went silent, not empty—there’s a difference. Banners ceased preening. Music forgot itself. The air pulled tight. Dunk lifted his visor and settled it again. Your silk favor lay snug under his gauntlet, knot pressing into his pulse. Across from him Aerion smiled like a man who believes cruelty to be a species of talent and drew breath to say something memorable.

The trumpet spared you his voice. It cut the day into a before and an after, and men who needed to move moved.

When Dunk charged, it did not look like heroics or theater. It looked like a man who has chosen a direction and intends to honor the choice. His first pass took a shield clean off a forearm and his second turned a wooden lance into a bristle of splinters that stitched themselves into a prince’s cloak. He moved like a tall tree knowing where it plans to fall. To your left, Raymun Green-Apple fought with the hungry grace of someone who has not yet learned where his limits are and therefore refuses to recognize them. To your right, Hardyng met a man twice his glitter with half again his truth and began teaching him how to lose without dying.

You tracked Dunk like a sailor tracks a star he has pinned his life to—measured, relentless, certain even when clouds interfered. When his helm took a glancing blow that rang like a struck bell, your teeth found your lip. When his sword found Aerion’s guard and ground down, down, down until the prince’s wrists shivered with the conversation his bones had not planned for, you felt that fierce, heedless joy that comes when the world briefly, blessedly makes sense.

Maekar’s mace fell into the question like a command, flattening Hardyng and sending Hasty to one knee; Baelor met his brother with a parry that had history in it and grief and the odd love of men who know one another’s weight too well. The field devolved into a knot of bright violence and dull necessity. Men fell and rose and fell again. One torch guttered as if offended by the redundancy of sunlight.

You watched, you breathed, you refused to pray because your blood has never forgiven the habit of begging. When Dunk’s footing slipped in a patch of torn turf and Aerion’s blade flared toward the hinge of his neck like a smile that planned to be permanent, you moved without thinking what your moving could possibly change. You stepped to the rail and spoke his name the way a woman speaks a man’s name when the world has narrowed to it—“Dunk”—nothing more, nothing clever, just the truth pressed through your mouth with all the force a body can bring to bear. He heard you over steel and drums and the stupidity of princes. You saw it in the infinitesimal check of his head, the re-centering at the hips. His heel bit. His shoulders set. The silk at his wrist kissed tendon. His blade rose through Aerion’s line like an answer that had been waiting for the right question.

The prince went down on one knee with an astonished grunt that would have been funny on any other day. Dunk’s sword paused at the fragile geography where jaw becomes throat. The field held its breath. Across the lists, Maekar froze with Baelor’s steel binding his. You could have threaded a needle with the silence that followed.

“Surrender,” Dunk said, voice low, no tremor, no grand flourish, no need to borrow drama from the moment. “Yield your pride and keep your tongue.”

Aerion stared up at him with the shock of a man who has just learned a new rule in a game he thought he had invented. His eyes flicked past Dunk, searching for Maekar, for sanction, for rescue, for the old, familiar absolution of his own importance. He found only Baelor’s gaze, steady and unsparing, and your father’s jaw locked hard enough to crack stone. Something moved in Aerion—not repentance, nothing so clean—but calculation with its teeth filed down. Slowly, like a man proving he still owns his hands, he opened his fingers and let his sword fall.

“I yield,” he said. The words tasted of rust and bile and future trouble.

Noise crashed back in, too loud, too much, relief’s ugly cousin howling for drink. Men laughed, men cried, men pretended whichever emotion best suited their pride. Baelor stepped back from Maekar and lowered his sword with a nod that had both gratitude and warning in it. The torches burned on in ceremonial stupidity.

Dunk did not move until Aerion’s blade lay fully in the dirt. Then he took a long step back and let himself breathe. His helm turned toward the rail, toward you. He couldn’t see your face; you couldn’t see his. It didn’t matter. Your spine noticed you were taller.

Around you, Egg exploded with noise like a cork popping free—“You did, you did, you did”—and grabbed your hand and shook it until your bones laughed. Tanselle’s broken dragon waited on its square of cloth behind you, the silk tongue coiled like a sleeping ember. You looked at it and imagined the hinge set right, the spine mended true, the fire ribboned again, and for once the imagining did not break your heart.

The field belonged to aftermath now. Blood took inventory. Pride gathered its casualties. Baelor crossed to Dunk and put his hand to the tall knight’s shoulder with the quiet approval of a man who knows how much the world will punish this victory and intends to stand between the punishment and the man for as long as he can. Maekar turned on his heel and left without granting the day a single word, which was in its way the most honest thing he could have done.

Dunk came to you slowly because the world kept trying to claim him at every step—hands reaching, voices wanting, favors pressed on him by men who did not yet know what they were asking. He reached you last, which is to say he reached you first in the only currency that matters. He lifted his visor and wiped a line of sweat from his brow with the back of his bandaged hand, and your pale silk came away smudged with dirt and victory. He looked at you the way a man looks at cool water.

“You said twice,” he managed, almost hoarse, as if words were heavier now. “Field and luck.”

You stepped into him without hesitating and put your palm flat against the leather over his ribs and felt the thunder there answer to a rhythm you recognized more intimately than you wanted. You tipped your face up so the shadow of his helm cut the sun from your eyes and let yourself do the reckless thing: you leaned in until your mouth brushed the place on his cheek where the scar began, a kiss so brief and clean a septon could have named it blessing and not been wrong. His breath caught as if he’d taken a small wound he intended to keep.

“Once,” you said, voice low enough to be a secret. “The second will be after.”

“When?” he asked, a word that tugged lightly at your sleeve.

“When the day stops demanding you,” you said. “When the next road begins. When you are not a name being shouted by men with coin in their fists.”

He nodded as if you’d laid out a map to a place he planned to learn how to deserve. Egg was still attached to your elbow, bouncing in small, inefficient hops. You let him. You let yourself stand there with your hand against Dunk’s chest and the silk at his wrist and the noise tearing the sky and the knowledge that this was the moment your story decided you were done letting other people write it.

Beyond the rails, Tanselle Too-Tall lifted the broken puppet as if testing its weight and glanced your way. You inclined your head. Later, you told her with the smallest movement of your mouth. Later, we mend what was broken. Dunk followed your glance, then back to you, then down at your palm where it lay, bold as a banner, on him.

“Stay,” he said softly, not a command, not quite a plea, something truer and more dangerous than either. “Ride with me when this is done.”

You should have answered with your hood, with a vanish, with the well-practiced arrogance of dragon-blood. Instead you let the shape of his asking sit between you for three slow heartbeats and then gave it the only answer that did not taste of cowardice. “Yes,” you said, feeling the world’s bones shift to make room for the word. “For a while.”

He smiled then, quick and astonished and entirely his, the sort of smile that makes a woman consider forgiving whole kingdoms. You took your hand back because you had to or you would not, and because you wanted the second to be later for the sake of wanting. The meadow reeled under joy the way it does under grief. The hawk returned and cut one clean arc across the sun. Somewhere nearby, a child began a song about a dragon who learned manners. It was a poor tune and it was perfect.

Afterward would come prices and politics and the mean arithmetic of who gets to keep what. But before the day folded into its ledger, you and Dunk stood in a circle of trampled grass where something simple and honest had been hammered into shape and cooled in the air between you. You were closer than you had been when the sun woke. You had a name in his mouth and silk on his wrist, and he had a place carved into you that wasn’t going to be argued away. The road craned its neck to see which way you’d both go. The answer, for once, felt briefly, beautifully obvious.

Evening came down like a lid and the meadow tried to pretend it hadn’t been a courtroom. Men laughed too loud, drank too fast, bargained as if coin could drown the taste of iron. You stayed close to the edges where the trampled grass still remembered how to be green and where the tents made little canyons of half-dark that felt honest. Dunk walked at your side with that measured heaviness of men who have spent themselves in the right place and are paying the quiet price afterward. The silk at his wrist was smudged and warm from the day’s work; the knot you’d tied pressed the inside of his pulse as if reminding it to continue. You took him to water like a horse you intended to keep alive, not because he’d asked, but because the asking lived in the slope of his shoulders and the grit at the corner of his mouth.

He sat on a low stool by a barrel, helm off, the scar along his jaw catching lamplight. You dipped a cloth and squeezed it out slow until the water ran clear and cool and then laid it along his neck, thumb pressing behind his ear where the leather had cut a red half-moon. He let out a breath that might have been a thank-you if he’d believed himself worthy to put a word to it. “Did I do right?” he asked finally, the sentence simple as bread and twice as necessary.

“You did what a good man does when a bad man pretends to be a law,” you said. You slid the cloth along the line where his hair had flattened under the helm and he closed his eyes, the trust of it sitting between you like a little fire that ate splinters and offered heat without smoke. “Rightness is a poor businessman, Dunk. It pays late and in coin nobody else takes. You did right anyway.”

His mouth tilted. “And you,” he said, the sentence finding its courage a heartbeat later, “stood there and steadied my feet with a word. I don’t know what you are to the world, Y/N, but to me you were the ground.”

You should have made a joke out of it because that is how you survive praise, but something in you refused the old habit. “Then stand on me when you need to,” you said, the honesty clean enough to sting.

Egg exploded around the tent flap, bright and breathless and still rattling with relief. “They’re saying it already,” he blurted, words falling over one another. “How you took the prince’s blade and sent it singing, how you stood like a tower, how the green apple bit harder than the red—Raymun’s been invited to drink with knights who looked through him this morning. Tanselle says she can mend the dragon. The Beesbury has honey cakes. Ser Baelor—” He choked, both hands seizing your forearm. “Ser Baelor wants you.”

The three words parted the night.

You were moving before your mind had finished choosing a direction. The royal quarter burned bright with controlled fire—torches tall as men, shadows that saluted rather than flinched. Servants rippled, Kingsguard stood like carved decisions, and the air had that too-clean smell of linen, boiled wine, and the stubborn denial of mortality. Baelor sat in a great chair that had been carried out of his pavilion and set where a breeze could find it, helm at his feet, hair damp from a rag that had made the trip from a bowl to his brow too many times already. He was speaking to Maekar in a voice that had no time for pride. Your father stood like a spear, hard and straight and aching, every inch of him set against the admission written in the tilt of Baelor’s head.

“Brother,” Baelor said when you and Dunk and Egg reached the light. He didn’t look surprised to find you there; his gaze went to Egg first, because the world is sometimes kind enough to understand the order of things. “Your squire is brave and your knight is honest.” His mouth softened toward you. “And our hawk flies where she wills.”

Maekar’s eyes found you the way a nail finds bone when a hammer is tired of missing. He did not speak your name—not here, not with half the camp learning how to listen. He looked at Dunk instead, as if contempt would be easier to carry than recognition. “You struck a prince,” he said. There was no heat to it now, only the flat weight of a fact that could not be returned to its box.

“I did,” Dunk answered, the word standing tall. “I’ll answer for it tomorrow and the next day and the next after that.”

“Good,” Baelor murmured, approval and weariness braided together. His hand drifted to his temple, fingers carefully avoiding the place where Maekar’s mace had kissed his helm earlier. He’d laughed then and said he’d felt the jolt in his teeth. He wasn’t laughing now. “Duncan the Tall,” he said, and the cadence of it made it sound as if the name had been waiting for him. “You did more than strike. You held a line I failed to draw with words.” His eyes warmed and grew very far away. He blinked back to you. “Niece.”

“Uncle,” you said, and the word was a small rebellion that felt like mercy.

“Keep to the outer wind,” Baelor went on quietly, voice threading between the three of you. “There are times when a hawk must stoop. Not tonight. Not yet. You’ve work still.” He closed his eyes a moment longer than a man should if he intends to open them again the same size. When they opened, they found Egg. “Aegon,” he said softly, and that gentled everything. “Stay with him.” A small motion toward Dunk. “Learn how to stand upright until it hurts and then keep standing.”

Egg nodded, too fierce, lip bitten white. “I will,” he said, and it was a vow good enough for any god who wasn’t feeling petty.

Something in Baelor slipped then, not honor, not will—something held by bone and stubbornness and the delicate kindness of chance. It went like a lamp wick drowning under clean oil. His head eased back against the chair; the line of his mouth accepted an end. Someone closer than you called for a septon; someone else began listing practicalities in the voice men use when they cannot bear to say that a body is a person. Maekar made a sound you had never heard your father make and never wanted to hear again; it broke across the torchlight like a mast in high wind. He caught Baelor’s shoulder with both hands as if weight could persuade life to renegotiate. It could not.

You stood very still. Dunk’s hand came to the small of your back—not claiming, not soothing, simply present—and you didn’t shake it off because you weren’t a fool. The camp took the news the way camps do: in widening rings of misinterpretation that eventually met truth and dropped their eyes. Bells that weren’t there tolled anyway in the bones of men who knew what kings cost.

When the night finally remembered how to move, you stepped away into a quieter dark and Maekar followed because a father is a man first and a man wants to hit the thing that hurts him. He stopped in the mouth of shadow and looked at you with all the fury of a winter that had discovered spring in its house. “You will not shame me further,” he said, calm in the dangerous way that means none of the words are negotiable. “You will not make your face a banner for every hungry mouth that wants to spit my name while it chews.”

You held that old, brutal gaze and let it bite you where it always had, then let it stop. “I stood where a woman’s craft was broken and where a prince demanded he be called god,” you said. “If that shames you, it belongs to you.”

He took a step you did not flinch from. “You were born to a name.”

“I was born to a spine,” you said. Your voice was quiet enough to be dangerous in a different way. “I’ll keep both.”

Something weary entered his eyes then, the first human thing. He looked at Dunk over your shoulder, measuring a man the way soldiers measure one another’s weight. “Take the boy,” he said abruptly, as if he could barter with fate by making the part of the story that had always been true sound like his idea. “Keep him from turning into his brother or his father. And you.” Back to you. “If you must ride, ride. But do not bring the realm behind you. Let my house breathe.”

“You have my word,” you said, giving him the one thing between you that had ever meant anything. No court oath, no pageant, just the little hard knot you tied in your own chest when you decided what you are.

He went then, a man who had lost his brother and could not afford to lose his temper in public. The torches looked taller after he left, and you hated them for it.

You found Tanselle’s wagon by listening for wood being coaxed back into itself. She worked by lamplight with the patience of an artisan and the ruthlessness of a surgeon who has decided the limb will live even if it resents her for the rest of its days. The dragon’s spine had been mended with a new dowel, straight and true; the silk tongue lay re-ribboned, brighter now against the repaired grain. She glanced up and read your face as if it were a ledger where grief and purpose owed one another coin. “He’s gone,” she said, and made it a question only to be kind.

“He is,” you answered. “The law will behave itself for a while to feel better about what it did to him.”

Tanselle’s mouth tipped. “Then we’ll make the dragon bow properly,” she said, and fastened the last knot with a pull that was almost a caress. She set the puppet in your hands. “For you,” she added, and when you started to protest she shook her head. “Not to keep. To return when you find me again. That way you must come back.”

You took the weight of it and felt something uncoil under your ribs. Dunk came forward and set coin on her little table again, more than was needed, and Tanselle took only half and pushed the rest back at Egg with a look that said she knew what a boy’s pockets are for. “Buy almonds,” she told him. “Share the first.”

Egg scowled in remembered superstition. “I was going to,” he muttered, which meant he hadn’t been.

By the time the last torches guttered to fat tears, the camp had learned how to be quiet. Grief makes even fools economical. You returned to your small tent and stood there with Dunk in the thin space between canvas and night where the rest of the world cannot fit unless you invite it. He looked very large and very young, both truths making a third: he was exactly himself, and his own size was the strangest, most beautiful thing about him.

“There’s a road,” he said, as if reminding you both of an old appointment. “It won’t like us, but it won’t argue either. I mean to take it at first light.”

“Good,” you said. “We’re owed a morning that isn’t trying to decide what to make of us.”

He studied you the way a man studies a map he intends to trust more than his memory. “I don’t know if I can offer you anything but what I am,” he said. “A little canvas, a poor fire, a straight line when I can make one, a crooked one when I can’t. And me, in the middle of it, trying to be better than yesterday.”

“I don’t know if I can accept anything but that,” you said. “Titles are winter coats. They all look the same once the snow starts. I want the heat.”

Something eased out of both of you at once, like an ache you hadn’t realized was mutual. He took your hand—careful of your cut, careful of your choices—and pulled you in just enough that your foreheads met this time, no breadth held back, the small bump of bone on bone as intimate as a vow. His breath washed your mouth with the faint taste of iron and apple and stubbornness. You put your free hand to his face and felt the stubble rasp your palm and the tendons jump when he swallowed.

“Kiss me like a man who won’t apologize for it,” you said, because you have never liked to leave things for strangers to phrase.

He did. It was not courtly. It was not tidy. It was not built to be watched. It was a joining of two people who had been storm and were choosing to be shelter for an unkind minute of night. His bandaged hand bracketed the back of your neck without pressing; your fingers curled into his hair and told him what part of his height belonged to you. When you broke, you didn’t step away. You let your faces rest too close and your mouths learn the taste of each other’s breath until the world stopped glaring.

“Twice,” he murmured, a little awed, a little laughing, the word remembering your rule.

“Twice,” you agreed. “Once now. Once later. The middle will be road.”

Dawn found you ready. The camp had retreated into the business of leaving—ropes coiled, stakes pried up, debts paid, goodbyes pressed with the awkwardness of men who find tenderness unmanly and manage it anyway. The royal pavilions stood like empty promises. Aerion had gone at first light, face arranged into sanctity over a bruise shaped like a lesson. Maekar’s men moved with clipped efficiency, grief folded away with the banners. Raymun’s shield had dried a deeper, truer green; he wore it like a newly learned letter he intended to write everywhere. The Beesbury hugged Egg and left honey on his cheek. Hasty clapped Dunk’s shoulder and said something about rain. Robyn Rhysling slipped a song into your hand that was really a knife if you turned it the right way; you tucked it where it couldn’t cut you until you meant it to.

Tanselle brought the mended dragon and made it bow to Egg—once, solemnly—then looped the string around his wrist for a breath and took it back again with a smile that forgave him for being a boy. “Find me,” she told all three of you. “I like plays with second acts.”

You saddled the pony and slung your small pack—a sword, a strip of silk, a puppet carved from stubborn wood, a name you intended to use like a weapon and like a balm. Dunk checked Thunder one last time and tightened a strap that wasn’t loose because men like him trust their eyes more when their hands agree. Egg mounted his mule with ceremonial seriousness and ruined it immediately by grinning.

At the edge of the meadow where the wheel-ruts turned to road, you reined in and looked back because you are not a fool and endings deserve a nod. The lists were only dirt again, the torches smoke without flame, the bright arrangement of tents reduced to scars in the grass. If you listened, you could still hear the bell-note of Dunk’s helm being struck, Baelor’s voice saying nephew and niece like benedictions, Aerion’s laugh failing to take root. You let it all pass through you without lodging. The past is a good map and a poor home.

Dunk leaned closer in the saddle until your knees touched and stayed there. “Last chance to turn polite,” he said, a smile ghosting his mouth.

“I was born impolite,” you said, and gave him your hand across the space between the horses. He took it, big and gentle, and for three breaths you rode like that, fingers linked, the simplest blasphemy you’d committed in a decade.

“Field and after,” he said.

“After begins now,” you answered.

You let go together and put your bodies into the road. The hawk that had watched the trial rode the thermals above you and did not scold. Egg began a story about how he would one day have a real horse and not a mule and you listened because the sound of him planning a future was the only prayer you trusted. The morning smelled of crushed mint and damp leather and the first heat thinking about its work. A mile behind you, a puppet dragon bowed again for a circle of smallfolk who had not been there yesterday and the silk flame fluttered as if laughing.

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

If you're in bed; he will absolutely cuddle you to sleep. If you are some place else, he will try to help you clean up as well as he can and waits together with you, until you're ready to go on again, silently kissing the top of your head and hugging/cuddling you.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

It's beyond obvious that Dunk loves your hair and your tits. He'll always be happy when he can touch and caress your hair while fucking you and he adores watching your tits bouncing around. He doesn't really have a personal favorite body part, but feels quite secure in his appearance. If you admire him and gently touch his muscles, he'll be putty in your hands.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Because of who he is, Dunk will be more than extra careful not to cum in your cunt. Most of the time he'll even pull out of you when he feels like he could be close, and fists himself above you. If you swallow after sucking him off he'll be a bit embarrassed at first, but will find it incredibly hot. He won't ever ask you to do it, though, and will never confess to loving it.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He would love to be woken up by you with his cock in your mouth. Would he ever tell you? Probably not, even though that's what he jacks off to most of the time.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Dunk's experience is limited to the one time where he'd been taken to a brothel by Ser Arlan. He will likely fumble around in the beginning and needs a bit of guidance. He's a relatively fast learner, though.

F = Favorite position 

Missionary, especially if he can then lift your legs and then practically fold you in half. Oh, and if youre somewhere comfortable, he loves being on top of you while you're lying down on your tummy with closed legs.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Dunk is not the goofiest, but will definitely appreciate some smiles. Oh and he'll definitely tickle you while you're adjusting around him, just to see you wiggling around, grinning and enjoying the moment before he 'lets himself go'.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He's hairy and doen't mind it at all. I mean, he's a hedge knight journeying through Westeros... He won't mind it when his partner is hairy too.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

It's difficult to descibe it with him. He will want it to be as intimate as possible, yet not posessive. He will kiss you and worship your body, yet he will probably be quiet, not quite knowing what to say. The closeness and ability to just savour you are his way of enjoying intimacy.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

When Egg's away doing some tasks or fast asleep, he's 100% stroking his cock, thinking about you. He'll feel ashamed afterwards; but you just won't leave his mind. When he's with you, he holds off, preffering to be with you - in you.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Begging!! He loves to hear you begging for more, out of breath, moaning, struggling to form a coherent sentence. Dunk generally loooves hearing you. (Gentle) Overstim - there's nothing sweeter than your twitches and mewls, when he knows that he's given you all he could. Maybe a tiny bit of a size kink? Esp. when you're really short and have small hands... If you maybe even need two to be fully able to stroke him...

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

A bed, specifically your bed, will always be nice (As long as it's big enough for him). He will also have absolutely no qualms about fucking you in the open, as long as there's no one around to catch you.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Anything really. When you are being feisty, when you are tipsy... He doesn't need much to get him going, other than privacy.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Degradation and humiliation are definitely not his thing. He's also very careful with you, so impact play and choking are probably also a no no for him. He's also quite private around his sex life, so anything where people could catch you is out of the question.

O = Oral 

Dunk's rather shy about giving and would probably only start doing it if you ask him to. When he gives you head, he's very sloppy with it and will probably go on even after you came, just because he'd be too afraid not to please you properly and because he loves your moans. He looooves receiving, even though he'd never admit to it. Especially if he's sitting/standing and you're on your knees, looking up at him. He will never push you, yet holding your head / hair is a must for him and will get him over the edge in no time.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

He will always start slowly, just to feel you stretching around him, taking him in, up to his balls. But after you've gotten used to (or rather, his size) he likes it quite fast, unless you're on top or sucking him off. He loves watching you bounce under him.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Dunk will be down for a quickie if you are, especially if you haven't got a lot of time together. Then he will probably take you somewhere hidden and fuck you up against a wall, his hands holding you tight and his mouth silencing any moans. But if you've got the time, he will want to please you as long as he can.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Getting caught is a turnoff for him, so he will always rather want to be safe than to start anything. Experimenting - if you lead him and enjoy it, while pleasing him, why not? Just don't forget that he gets carried away quite quickly.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

At the beginning of your 'relationship' he'll probably not last too long, but it gets better the more you practice. He's very much a one and done man though, which is no problem, since he tries to get you to come as many times as you can.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

He doesn't own any toys and doesn't really feel comfortable with using them. Dunk very much holds onto the belief that anything they could do, he could to just as well. Handcuffs? He can just hold you down. A gag? You'll suck on his fingers.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He will absolutely tease you, but he's quite bad at it, giving in to your puppy eyes. Oh, and by the way, remember the whole blowjob thing? He loves how you toy with him, as long as you stay gentle and sweet with it.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

He is a quiet kind; but when he groans, you know that he's going to come, and soon. He's a heavy breather and will probably only talk after sex.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Dunk will go crazy if you are a sub. He will start off thinking that he's a bit of a sub himself, but really? He is quite dominant. He's never really been allowed to decide for himself, so when he knows that he can finally do what he wants... and when you give yourself to him willingly and obey his nonverbal commands...

Plus he loves it when you call yourself 'his'.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Let's be real. He's a tall guy... with big hands... He's packing. But not uncomfortably so; it probably reaches his navel when he's hard.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

You're always on his mind, one way or another. So when he finally sees you, he feels as though he should carry you off as soon as he can. He's polite about it, though, and waits until you have the chance to be alone (at last...).

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

On better days, he would have taken the time to take you apart piece by piece, perhaps starting with his mouth on your sweet cunny, but you both hardly had time to even undress. Your skirts were carelessly rucked up to your hips, neckline haphazardly unbound just enough to free your teats, while your husband had lowered his breeches just enough to expose his hard, swollen cock before he drove into you. Your grip on his bicep was tight, while your nails dug into the bedpost with the other for support as you stood by the bed’s edge. The pulsating of your core was enough to drive him mad, the dizzying haze of desire overwhelming his wife just as it did with him. 

“H-husband, I’m so close,” you moaned in his ear, head leaned back into his chest. He must have grunted something in response, though he wasn’t sure he even heard himself, voice lost in the din of loud smacking of his trim hips against your plump arse, and your sweet melodic mewls. The rising heat in his belly let him know he was right with you, only a few thrusts behind the release that threatened to overtake him. It was easy to get lost in it all— in you, in your warm, perfect walls. So much so his thrusts turned even more desperately erratic as his body moved in its own accord, his usually alert mind hardly registering the creaking of wood and the sudden breeze into his marital chambers.

Then he heard cackling.

“Seven fucking Hells, brother!” 

Aegon stood at the threshold, one hand still on the doorknob and the other clutching his stomach as he doubled over in laughter. The younger whipped his head at the intrusion, eyes widening before shifting to cover you with his body. He heard you gasp, before scrambling to cover your exposed chest away from Aegon’s curious eyes. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Aemond barked, turning to move to storm over where the idiot stood when he caught his brother eyeing the exposed flesh of your upper thigh, but your firm hand on his wrist kept him where he was to save yourself the last bits of dignity. 

“I… ha!” the elder snorted, laughter finally dying down into low chuckles that rumbled from his chest. He exhaled a deep sigh, dramatically wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Mother sent me to call on you because court starts in five minutes and she believes the Seven Hells have cooled over when she found me ready before you, but I guess you were preoccupied, eh?” he shrugged, amethyst eyes twinkling with a mischievous glint that irked Aemond to no end. “Dear me, fucking before noon? And I thought I was oversexed.”

“Shut up before I make you,” Aemond seethed. His wife sighed, peeking over his shoulder to speak to Aegon.

“Would you give us a few moments, brother? Let Her Grace know we will be right out,” you asked softly, smiling sweetly enough to earn a tight squeeze on the hips from your dragon in warning. 

“Of course, best to, uh, finish up then,” he responded, wagging his finger mockingly before turning to leave, snickering. “Good to know I had you taught well, Aemond!”

“You fucke–”

The door slammed shut before Aemond could finish, sighing against your temple in exasperation from the ruined moment. The soft kiss on his cheek was hardly enough to make up for it, the humiliation in his chest killing whatever drive in his gut. He begrudgingly tucked his softened length back into his breeches before helping you with your laces. You turned to face him once your dress had been rightened, hugging his waist and leaning your chin against his chest. 

“Such a shame, everything was feeling so good,” you pouted up at him. Aemond grunted in agreement, head still running hot in annoyance.

Surely, the court wouldn’t be too curious if his brother strolled in with a bruise on his face. He’d been in worse shape before, what was a little marked-up cheek?

There must be some sick game the gods were playing on Aemond. They were teasing him, testing to see how long he could withhold being unable to have a moment alone with his wife before going completely mad. Court took up a better part of his afternoon, long hours of appeals and hearing whatever problems their people wished to voice. It took much of him to keep his eye forward, ignoring the heat radiating off the flesh of your arm that was warmed by the sticky air of the mid-summer sun filtering into the throne room, while you stood by your husband’s side, his nose engulfed by the flowery sweetness wafting from your hair.

Supper was just as torturous, though having you sat by his side slightly made up for it, and teasing you under the table was a good way to pass the time. Aemond’s rough fingertips crept up your skirts and took hold of your thigh, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t relish in the way you swatted his hand away in panic, cheeks growing adorably flushed. With dessert promptly served and devoured, the one-eyed prince all but jumped from his seat, your hand in tow to lead you back to the privacy of your chambers, but the deep drawl of his grandsire’s voice halted him before anything else, inviting him to the Tower to speak on a matter of the utmost discretion. He let your hand go with a scowl, helplessly watching you walk off into the direction of your apartments.

His grandsire sat him down to talk until well into the night, speaking in hushed tones of a matter of concern in the Reach. He was to fly to Oldtown to settle brewing disputes in the Hightower seat in his grandsire's stead, a task entrusted to him that required his sharp eye and his partiality to matters of politics. 

His steps were heavy on his return, his chest even heavier, and when he finally crossed the threshold of your spacious apartments, you were deep into your slumber. You snuggled up into his side of the bed, arm extending to where he should have been. When a responsibility like this would’ve once had Aemond eager to fly out at first light, he found himself unable to tear himself away from you when duty called, having found a home in your arms that sheltered him with warmth and lightness his reality was so deeply void of. 

He was gone for a sennight—a slow-passing, cruel week.  

The separation was torturous, and not a moment passed where your husband’s mind didn’t wander to his sweet wife. He’d tucked one of your handkerchiefs into his pocket before his departure, tracing the embroidered curves of your initials with his thumb when he grew agitated within Oldtown’s walls. They had given him a comfortable accommodation, a bed much too large to sleep in alone. Aemond had grown spoiled with your warmth, and with this temporary withdrawal, sleep came miserably.

At the week's end, disagreements were smoothed and hands were shaken. Aemond took to the skies, not a second too soon after the Lord Hobart thanked him for the crown’s aid, his longing for home shamelessly showing itself in the tension in his shoulders every minute he was there. Daeron would have to forgive him for not flying together as much as the younger wished, but his brother, ever the kindest out of all the dragon princes, saw him off with a nod of understanding and a firm pat on the back, whispering the promise of his own return to their family. 

Vhagar traversed the horizon at a speed unexpected for her size and age, but his old girl shared her rider’s wish for home. They cleared the distance in a day, and the returning prince was greeted by Ser Criston and a wheelhouse that would take him back to his home, to you.

But the gods wouldn’t grant Aemond reprieve that easily. 

The streets bustled with life as the carriage rolled through the cobbled streets. He had returned just in time for his father’s nameday, a week-long celebration for the ailing king that called for the grandest celebration, with music, wine, and dancing for guests hailing from all over the realm. Aemond watched through the thin slits of the carriage— faces passing in a blur, voices of every pitch overlapping the other. His brow furrowed in perplexion when they took a sudden turn, an unexpected route that led him away from the hill leading to the Keep, but right to the middle of the celebrations— the melee.

“Queen’s orders, my prince,” Cole explained, standing stoically in front of the brooding prince. “She wished to have you join the celebrations as soon as you returned, have the family all present in front of the people.”

Aemond grumbled under his breath all the way up the steps to the royal box, plopping exhaustedly into his seat beside Aegon. The elder patted him hard on the back, adding to his aggravation, clearly oblivious to his dampened mood. “Good to have you here in time to join us, brother, Reyne’s just about to fuck Tarly up,” he cackled, taking a big swig of his wine. 

“A change of clothes first would have been nice,” Aemond huffed, ignoring the battling knights as he looked around for his wife. He twisted around his seat in confusion at the absent sight of you, earning a look from his grandsire that had him uncharacteristically slumping in his seat.

“She’s with Helaena,” Aegon said, whose eyes stayed glued to the violent display before them. “Orwyle said it was ill luck for pregnant women to look upon violence or whatever he was on about. Your wife’s keeping her company.”

Aemond sighed defeatedly, his chest twinging with annoyance. Of fucking course. Everything seemed to be working against his wishes, toying with his already short patience. Gods be damned, they would know better to keep a man like him away from his wife. Perhaps this made him seem like an addict, no better than a drunk stuck to his bottle or a pervert to a whore, but he was well past the point of denying it. You were a part of him, whether either of you could help it or not.

He turned to his mother, who sat frowning with a hand half-covering her face as she watched on, muttering some half-excuse of wanting to freshen up and be rid of the smell of dragon on his skin before enjoying the festivities. The queen granted him leave with the ghost of a quirk on her lips and a knowing look, waving him off dismissively with a ringed hand.

He all but dashed the way back to the Keep, strides large and booming through the halls back to Maegor’s Holdfast. His pulse thumped heavily in his ears, his chest sparked with a renewed lightness with every step closer. Aemond found you in his sister’s apartments, sat on the settee as you embroidered. 

Your head shot up as the door swung open, eyes brightening like a starry night when they landed on him. “Aemond!” you gasped, promptly jumping up from your seat and into his arms. With how tight your arms wound around his neck, it was clear his dearest wife was just as tortured as he. 

Aemond nuzzled his nose into your hair, breathing in the sweet scent of your skin he had missed dearly. With you back in his arms, right where you belonged, everything felt warm. He felt near bursting at the seams, his body immediately responding to the heat of your body pressed against his. His lips found yours on instinct, hungrily devouring the sweet taste he’d grown starved for. Large, calloused hands wandered on their own, finding purchase on your rear with a tight squeeze. It made you whine, pulling away in haste to glance at a sleeping Helaena.  Her third pregnancy often had her weary, as she was now, laid on her bed, with the twins tucked on either side as they slept through the peaceful haze of the late afternoon.

“Come,” your husband ordered, grasping your wrist to pull you out of the room. The growing fire in his loins left him too impatient to lead you up another flight of stairs where your apartments were, urgency nagging at him to hasten lest someone called for him to return to the melee. He led you with quick steps to the end of the hall, in a quiet alcove where he pressed you against the wall, caged between his arms.

His mouth devoured yours, tongue slithering into the warm cavern and dancing with your own. It soon descended onto the length of your perfumed neck, nipping and biting at the spots that pulled deep, pleasant sighs. Your hands gripped his doublet, subtly pushing him away as you called his name.

“Husband, h-here?” you asked, mewling as he sucked on a particularly sensitive spot below your jaw. You were right, this wasn't exactly an ideal location for your reunion, but he was pressed for time, and having to wait to have you until nightfall would drive him to insanity.

“There’s not one soul around, dearest,” he said into your skin, parting with a kiss on the fresh mark. With the inhabitants of the Keep all away at the tournaments, the halls were empty enough, save for the occasional passing servant and the knight standing guard outside Helaena’s door. With the near ravenous state Aemond was in, he could give less fucks who could witness him taking his wife. Your skirts were messily rucked up to your hips, wandering hand dipping past your smallclothes and finding your heat, already dripping in sweet arousal. “Did you miss me this much, wife? You’re already soaked,” your husband chuckled devilishly, eye darkening when you bit your lip as he teased your slit. 

You nodded at him eagerly, a whine rising from your throat when his fingertip brushed against your pearl. “You were gone for too long, husband. It has been miserable without you. When I saw Vhagar fly over the city I could have dashed to the gates myself if Helaena didn’t need me,” you pouted. His heart swelled at your sweetness, peppering adoring kisses onto your hairline as you pulled him in even closer.

“I have been tormented just the same, my love. Every day that passed, you were all I thought about,” he whispered. “No one will keep me away from you now, sweet girl, I promise you.” 

Somewhere in the frenzy of tongue and spit, your smallclothes fell to the stone floor and his breeches were aptly unlaced. Your smaller, dainty hand wrapped around his hardened length, stroking his leaking cock. Gods, it was pathetic how he could come from your slightest touch. He grasped your wrist to stop you, gulping as he continued to twitch in your hold.

“Wait,” he huffed. The need possessed him with a primal urge, prompting him to grab hold of both of your thighs to lift you off your feet. With you pressed against the wall and holding onto his shoulders for dear life, Aemond sunk you onto his cock, down onto the hilt. There was little time to savor the subtle pulsating of your walls, his hips taking on a steady pace from the start. “Fucking... finally,” he grunted.

You bounced in his firm hold, lower back rubbing against the rough stone, but you didn’t seem to mind one bit. Quite the opposite, rather, with the way you openly moaned, your voice echoing through the dim hall. “Gods!” you whined. Your husband’s pace suddenly shifted, hips starting to slap more ferociously against yours. Any soul who would have the misfortune to walk these halls at this very moment would hear you from the opposite end from the resounding rhythm of skin against skin.

“There are no gods here, wife, just you and I,” Aemond growled against your ear, before biting down on your shoulder, making you squeal even louder.

“I– mmph! Ah, Aem–” Any semblance of coherence on your usually pretty head dissipated in a heady jumble. It made your husband smirk, despite the heat starting to tingle in the back of his neck.

“Something to say, my love? Or have I already fucked you into a loose whore, hm?” he taunted, chuckling under his breath when you merely whined in response. He was starting to overheat in his leathers, the sharp warmth in his nape slowly trickling down his spine to signal the start of his end. Something deep within his core made his abdomen flex, the ache in his thighs no match for the utter bliss of the warm embrace of your lovely cunt. With your legs wrapped around his trim waist, his hand raised to the back of your head, fingers wrapping around your hair to pull your forehead against his. He quickened his pace to spur you to your end first, thumb rubbing your pearl in tight circles. “Come for me, wife. I want to feel you spill around me. Go on,” he rasped, breath hot in your ear.

His wife was a moaning mess. You were never this loud, even in the privacy of your own chambers, but the separation had you desperate, heart sticky with need in a way you had never let yourself be before. He and you were both the same in this way, never too forward with what you wanted, until desire ate away at you from within and you started to lose better thinking.

With a particular harsh thrust, your release broke with a moan that Aemond was sure had echoed to the White Sword Tower. He came no second later with a lower, quieter grunt into your neck, spilling thick ropes of his warm seed into your quivering cunt.

You both stayed there for a second, breaths heavy and minds still in a cloud. Aemond placed you back onto your feet, though wobbly. He huffed amusedly, earning a warning smack on his chest as you furrowed your eyebrows playfully. His lips placed a kiss on your damp forehead, and you kissed his scarred cheek in return. For a second, you only looked at him, your flushed cheeks lifted in a smile, and it made him happy. 

An echo of clinking steel let Aemond know his time was up. He made sure your dress had been rightened and your hair smoothed before tying his breeches back up. The prince peeked to see Cole coming up the staircase, no doubt sent by his mother to take him away again. He sighed heavily, nuzzling one last time into your neck as you rubbed his back comfortingly. “You should go. Mustn’t let your mother fret,” you said softly. Your husband merely grunted in response, savoring the feeling of your fingers running through his hair. 

A clear of the throat from the knight made Aemond finally pull away, frowning despite the pleased smile on your lips as you smoothed his doublet. He parted with a kiss all-consuming, and whispers of a promise to fetch you the moment he could. 

His return to the royal box came with much reluctance, though his demeanor visibly changed. The tension was gone in his shoulders, his aura different, and his face not so grim anymore. He settled back into his seat with a deep exhale, directing his attention to the faceless lordlings swinging swords much too large for them, though his mind stayed in an alcove somewhere in the Keep. 

Beside him, Aegon yawned loudly, having grown deathly bored with the melee. Sensing the younger’s subtly brighter demeanor, he snickered under his breath. “Feeling rather refreshed now, are you?” he teased. 

Aemond’s gaze flickered to him in a glance, turning back to watch the young Bolton land the winning blow. “Hm, yes, quite.” He lifted his hand to a squire for wine, taking a small sip to quench his parched throat.