weasel

It was on the tip of his tongue to call out. To offer some pleading jest to break the silence. We've gotten old, maybe -- he with the streaks of grey in his hair, and Lyonel gone pure white, still soft and curled as shearling. The only hint left of bold Baratheon black in the hints about his mouth, the last clinging vestiges of vigor: though hale he still was, and hearty enough, he wore all of his six-and-sixty years on his face, in the creases around his mouth, in the raven's feet beside his eyes. A face made for smiling, that, yet now set in a ponderous frown. Waiting, the both of them, for the septon to finish speaking. For the horn to be blown.

You do not need to do this, ser, Aegon had said, last night, had it only been last night? In the dim small council chamber, discussing what might happen, what the next step would be should Duncan fall, and Aegon--

(Aegon, now, always Aegon, Your Grace, my king, as he was Duncan, Ser Duncan, of the Kingsguard. He could not remember when last someone had called him by his name, and not the one Egg had chosen for him years and years ago.)

--had said I would not make you, and Duncan had stopped him. You aren't, he'd said. He'd been thinking of little Prince Duncan at the time. How when he'd been born his hair had curled, just a bit, and how sometimes when the light caught him right Duncan could imagine, maybe, maybe...

If he could have done it over again. If he could have fought again, what might he have done different? The great dragon falling into his arms, the wretched, mewling helplessness, crying out up, up, as he would for a foundered horse. What sequence betwixt the trial and the dying could he have changed if he were only faster, stronger, better trained? If he were Ser Duncan the Tall, and not merely Dunk of Flea Bottom?

"Well." The voice came through the light, through all that glorious, golden pall. Lyonel leaned through it, helm still 'neath his arm. "Here we are, Ser Dunk."

Dunk. How many people remembered him by that name? Ridiculous, Lyonel had called him once -- his name or his nature, he had never been able to fathom. But danced with him still, that beautiful stag, shared food and drink, fought for him, bled for him. Once, he had thought...had he imagined it? The appreciative cast of Lyonel's gaze, the wanting, the sweltering heat between their bodies as they'd pranced and stomped and clapped. The hand on his thigh like a lover's caress as Lyonel had offered him everything he'd thought he'd wanted: a home, a House, service to a kind and honorable lord, more, perhaps, I would love you like... He could have had it, and...why had he thrown it away?

A different plea on his tongue now: it's not too late. Not for him. Not for Lyonel. We could go, just go, run away -- Essos, maybe. Foolish, of course. Thousands of people were watching, up in the stands, waiting for news in the streets outside. Even if the king granted them clemency, what then? There would be no peace, not for them. Haunted, both of them, by everything that could have been. The king who wasn't. The daughter who ought have been queen.

He turned his head, just slight, and saw him there -- little Duncan, the little prince, with his dark hair and his violet eyes and his long, sad face. Sitting beside Aegon in the stands, in pride of place, with the beautiful lass beside him -- Jenny, was her name, and she danced under the stars and she cleaned her own dishes after she dined, and Duncan liked her despite himself, and liked even better that little Duncan loved her.

For a moment, through the sunlight, he thought he saw -- in that long face, that familiar face, one eye of violet, another of common brown, and then the light came right again and it was little Duncan, whom he'd held since he was born, who had spit up on Duncan's shoulder as a babe and braided his hair at six, who'd called him 'uncle' since before he could read, who had once asked Duncan for advice on how girls liked to be kissed. A different dragon, aye, but one still worth fighting for.

So he swallowed it down, that foolish, child's urge -- to take Lyonel and a bit of coin and find a ship and go. Bitter, it was, to swallow that hope. Bitter down to the dregs.

"Here we are," Duncan said, and Lyonel smiled at him. He wished, a last foolish wish, that Lyonel would call him by name again. Just to hear it. Just once more.

"Come, ser." The horn blew, a wailing blast that shook the air. Lyonel set his helm upon his head, the smile -- small, angry -- gone from view. "I remember you liked to dance."