Chapter Text
"Ser Duncan!"
The small group turned their heads towards the castle, where small legs were carrying Egg running towards them fast. Dunk knelt down to greet the boy, only to let out a grunt – half surprise, half pain as the half healed injuries were jostled – when Egg threw himself at him.
"You were just gone, Ser! Even though you said we could see about me continuing to squire for you. And then kepus left, too –"
"I'm sorry, Egg", Dunk said, guilt swirling in his stomach.
He knew now that running from all of this had been a terrible idea. And what had nearly happened to Prince Baelor …
Dunk glanced at the Prince. He was frowning at Egg, but his gaze softened as he noticed Dunk looking towards him.
"I know I shouldn't have left. But I'm here now", Dunk said, turning back to Egg. "Thanks to your uncle."
"How did you find him?", Egg asked Baelor.
Baelor looked past him at Dunk and nodded.
'You tell him', he mouthed silently.
Egg frowned, head turning between the two of them.
"Tell me what, Ser?"
Dunk hesitated. Would Egg be pleased about this or not? He pulled up his sleeve and held out his arm for Egg to inspect. The boy’s violet eyes widened.
"You're Uncle’s soulmate, Ser? Why did you leave, then? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I cannot read, Egg."
"And Dunk introduced himself under the wrong name", Baelor added, fixing Egg with a stern gaze. "Which I, apparently, have you to thank for."
Egg’s face fell.
"Oh …", his voice got quiet as he stared at his feet. "I'm sorry, Ser, Uncle. I didn't think about that. I just thought it sounded like a better name for a knight."
Baelor knelt down beside Dunk and laid a hand on Egg’s shoulder.
"We will discuss this later in more detail. But for now ... I know you did not mean to cause any harm”, he said kindly. “But as you saw in the matter with the puppet show, your actions have consequences. Yours more so than those of most others, as a Prince of the Realm. You must be careful in everything you do, do you understand that, Aegon?"
Egg nodded mutely. Then his face lit up.
"Ser, if you're family then surely Father will let me squire for you! He'll have to!"
The boy ran off towards Prince Maekar to inform the Prince of his newfound realisation.
"Kepa, can I, please, you'll have to let me squire for my new uncle, right?"
Prince Maekar looked as though he had found something rotten in his food.
"I will consider it", he bit out.
Dunk rose, his gaze drifting to Prince Baelor beside him. The Prince was looking at his brother and nephew with amusement and fondness.
So much had changed with this revelation. Dunk didn't think he could have gotten Prince Maekar to even entertain the idea at all, before. All because of a name. The thought sat uncomfortably heavy in his stomach.
"That cannot be right. This oaf isn't Uncle's soulmate", Aerion scoffed.
Maekar pinched his nose. He felt a headache coming on, and as always his children seemed determined to make it even worse.
Not as bad as the headache Baelor has because of you, a stray thought told him, and Maekar squashed it down as nausea began to spread in addition to the pain in his head. Or the wounds of the hedge knight, of your beloved brother's very soul …
"He is", Maekar gritted out. "The mess Aegon made of the hedge knight's introduction may have cast some doubt upon their names if it weren't for the divine intervention granted to your uncle. And he found his way to the man with a halfway healed head wound. Your mother and I –"
– used to always know where the other was.
Not before he and Dyanna had met. Each pair of soulmates was different in how they perceived one another, but Targaryens in particular held a special connection to their other halves. Baelon and Alyssa Targaryen had even been said to have felt each other’s emotions as keenly as their own. Maekar and Dyanna had not been so close as that, but once they had met Maekar had always known with absolute certainty where his beloved was. No matter the distance between them. They had never gone high up North but Maekar was sure that he would have sensed her presence even beyond the Wall.
Aerion stared at him, Maekar's own violet eyes reflected back from within a heavily bruised face. He had not mentioned Dyanna since her death, had not been able to bring himself to speak or even think of the part of his soul that had been ripped away.
And Maekar had nearly caused the same first to his brother by encouraging Aerion, then to his brother's soulmate by fighting alongside Aerion.
He had turned a blind eye to the reports of Aerion's behaviour for too long, and had almost destroyed his own family over it. What would their parents have said, had Maekar succeeded? What would their brothers have said? Could he have ever looked Baelor in the eyes again, had Ser Duncan died at Aerion's hands? Or his nephews if the Gods had not knitted Baelor's skull back together after Maekar had so carelessly crushed it?
Maekar knew that this could not be allowed to continue. Not after Aerion resorted to violence over a puppet show. Treason or not, the boy could have brought that puppeteer to trial. And certainly not after he had caught Aegon with a knife. Maekar had only barely escaped becoming a kinslayer, and to see his youngest son willingly choose such an accursed path … what else had been going on under Maekar's nose that he had remained blind to?
It did not make what he was about to do any easier.
"You will accompany us until Summerhall", Maekar turned to face the window as he spoke, unable to look at Aerion. "From there, you will not depart with us to King's Landing. Instead, you will board a ship headed for the Free Cities. Perhaps Lys will straighten you out, or any of the other cities you may yet visit in your lifetime. But I wash my hands of you."
"Kepa –"
Maekar clenched his jaw.
"Silence, Aerion. Our family's position is fragile enough as it is. We were sent to this bloody tourney in the middle of nowhere to make us look better in front of the Realm. Instead, you nearly succeeded in bringing disaster upon our House."
You nearly succeeded, Maekar.
"So what, you'll just throw me away? Your own son? All because of some thick, lowborn –"
"Do not test my patience right now!", Maekar snapped, turning back to Aerion.
He nearly flinched as he laid eyes upon his son. His child, his second baby with his soulmate. His little boy who loved fishing and dressing up as a dragon. Who used to always toddle after Daeron with wide, admiring eyes – the same way Maekar had once followed Baelor around.
"You leave me no other choice", Maekar said stoically.
"What good is a Targaryen to our family in Essos?", asked Aerion grimly. "What if I fall into Blackfyre hands? What will our family –"
"You will not be part of this family any longer!", Maekar thundered. "Once you depart for Lys, we're done! You may not call yourself a Targaryen in exile."
For the first time in a long time, Aerion genuinely looked hurt. Tears shone in his eyes. Combined with his Valyrian features, they made him seem far more fragile than Maekar knew him to be.
Forgive me, Dyanna, he thought.
Before Maekar could be tempted to apologise, to take back his judgement and grant his boy another chance, something awful and cruel sparked to life in Aerion’s shining eyes.
"This isn't about me at all, is it?", he spat.
Maekar had never seen such cruelty on his little one’s face before, had never believed others when they complained of it. It reminded him more of Bittersteel than of himself or his Dyanna.
"You're casting me aside like some unwanted bastard because you nearly killed kepus. And now I'm to suffer the consequences you cannot bear to deal with."
Aerion's eyes were hard and judgemental in a way they had never looked at Maekar before.
"I looked up to you all my life", Aerion continued, his voice harsh, "wanting to be the warrior you are, the dragon you are. I cannot believe I never saw you for the coward you really are."
Maekar didn't even realise he was moving until the sound of his own palm connecting with Aerion's face echoed through the room. He stood there, trembling with fury, and Aerion simply looked at him. A thin trail of blood ran down the boy’s face. Then, Aerion began to laugh, and kept laughing even as Maekar stalked out of the room in disgust.
The sound followed him around for the next few hours.
"Ser Duncan, Your Grace."
Baelor looked up at the guards as they let in the freshly bandaged knight. He had asked for Dunk to be brought to his chambers once Maester Yormwell was done taking care of him properly. They were guest rooms, not his rooms in the Red Keep. Still, he was unprepared for how right it felt to have his soulmate in his rooms. All his. Baelor frowned as he took in the knight's tense shoulders, the discomfort in his eyes, his silence.
"Are you well, Dunk?"
The hedge knight nodded.
"I'm fine."
His pretty blue eyes darted across the room – looking towards the bed, the books on the desk, the clothes hung over a chair.
"Is this your room?", Dunk blurted out.
Baelor nodded.
"Of course, Dunk."
"Why am I here?", the knight asked in a high pitched voice.
"Where else would you be?", Baelor asked. "There is little point in asking Lord Ashford to prepare another room if this one can serve both of us just fine. And I would not let my soulmate sleep under a tree if he does not have to."
Dunk’s face fell.
"Your Grace –"
"Baelor", Baelor corrected him, "you are my soulmate, please, call me Baelor."
"That!"
His knight pointed at him.
"That is what is wrong!"
"Pardon me?", Baelor frowned.
"You were not in any way interested in some hedge knight until you learned of my true name", Dunk said bitterly. "You said, at the Inn, that I didn't need to pretend if I was disappointed in you; same goes for you, surely. I know I cannot possibly be what you would have wanted for a soulmate. My whole life I wanted to find my soulmate, wanted a family, I – I understand wanting your soulmate. But I don't want you to want me just because some name told you to. If you are only interested in me because of my name, then please … stop."
For a moment, Baelor could do naught else but stare at the knight.
Not in any way interested …? Was that truly how he had come across? Maekar had noticed it, Maekar.
To ride out for him as his last champion, the Prince of Dragonstone fighting his own family on behalf of a hedge knight … ah, but his knight still believed in knightly virtues. To him, Baelor had been acting as a proper knight should. No different than Dunk himself. Was that why Dunk was not disappointed with Baelor in turn? Because he thought Baelor had been acting in accordance with his vows all this time – when Baelor's own shame had partially been the reason for his participation? His awe and guilt in the presence of a better knight than him?
He got up and approached the knight.
"Dunk. Ser Duncan. When we first met I was quite upset."
Dunk’s beautiful eyes lowered nervously.
"I know I must have offended you greatly, bothering you with such things –"
"You misunderstand, Dunk."
His eyes snapped back up, wide and confused.
"You stepped out into that hall, so tall and yet so nervous, so kind and gentle and caring, prepared to face that tourney with barely any armour or weaponry to speak of, and with you you brought the memory of a knight I recalled to have been honourable – and I thought you were the most stunning man I had ever laid eyes on, and the sweetest jewel of the Warrior. You seemed like you had stepped straight out of my childhood dreams", Baelor smiled at Dunk’s reddening face, "all the fantasies I had of great knights as a young boy ere the world taught me differently, everything that I was led to believe a knight should be – you seemed like the Seven had crafted you straight from those boyhood fancies, ñuha prūmia."
Dunk's face was burning red now; the colour looked delicious on him. Baelor wanted to trace his heated skin with his fingertips, see for himself where that blush reached.
"And then you introduced yourself with the wrong name. I was so devastated in that moment – decades I had waited and here was the perfect man for me, but the name did not match! Were I a lesser man and not raised a Prince of the Realm I might have wept into my pillow that night."
His knight was still staring at him with those stunning eyes of his; and Baelor was only a man. Unable to resist any longer, he reached out and caressed Dunk’s cheek. The hedge knight’s gasp was sweeter than Arbor Gold.
"I was yours from the moment I laid eyes on you", Baelor said firmly, "and I call you my soulmate whenever I can, my knight, my Dunk, because the Seven have looked upon me with kindness enough to bless me with the truest knight in all the Kingdoms for a mate; I could not have asked for a more precious person to complete my soul."
He leaned in, his breath ghosting over Dunk’s lips, before finally kissing his sweet knight. His Dunk. The knight was tense for a moment before he relaxed and eased forward into Baelor's hold, a warm and comforting weight against his body, his lips. Baelor wondered idly how his brothers had ever managed to pull themselves away from their soulmates, if that was how kissing them always felt. So perfectly right, like the world was finally calm and quiet. No courtiers, no gossip, no judgemental eyes, no paperwork – just him and his knight.
Eventually he did succeed in pulling away slightly to look at Dunk. The knight was staring at him with wide, awed eyes, something almost reverent shimmering in the beautiful blue.
"Please, ñuha azantys, do not ever doubt that I want you", Baelor said firmly.