Chapter Text
It rolled across the tourney grounds at Ashford like distant thunder over Shipbreaker Bay. Full-throated, unashamed and delighted. Her brother's laughter, or course. The folk didn’t call him the Laughing Storm over nothing after all, yet it did not feel like a song that sprung up from the mouth of a poet. It had not. It had sprung from him, from that wild, irreverent joy he took in knocking other knights flat on their armored arses.
Half-hidden among smallfolk, she stood, her bow slung across her back, riding leathers dusted from the road, while her silk skirts lay locked in one of the chests in the pavilion, bound together by an antlered brooch. As she got elbowed into the side by a floundering drunken man that grumbled a curse, she relaxed. Flicking some of her wind-tangled hair that fell into her eyes by impact, she finally felt accomplished. To these people she was perhaps no more than a blacksmith’s daughter who had wandered too close to the lists.
She preferred it so.
The horn blared again and her eyes found him quickly. Opposite ends of the field, two knights lowered their visors. Lyonel’s helm bore its familiar rack of antlers, blackened steel branching along his body. They were not modest antlers. Nothing about her brother ever was.
Across from him, shifting in his saddle, waited Ser Robert Ashford, one of the fair maiden’s champions and her brother. Broad-shouldered and strong, he looked exhausted in spite of himself, on his proud destrier that looked bred from granite. The orange and white of his shield were mudded and dulled.
Lyonel’s surcoat was cloth-of-gold and ashen black, blazing beneath the overcast sky, the crowned stag of Storm’s End proud upon his chest. Even from where she stood, she could see the black leather of his trousers, the golden-yellow of his doublet beneath the armor. He never did anything halfway.
Nine lances had already shattered between them. Nine. She clucked her tongue.
The whole crowd felt drunk, either on piss-tasting ale or splintered wood. Dust hung thick as fog. This was the tenth course being called.
She folded her arms. ‘Ridiculous sport.’
She much preferred the silence of a forest. Yet all her hopes for a nice week were crushed when Lord Ashford's raven invited them to a jousting tourney in the name of his precious daughter's thirteenth summer rather than a hunt.
Mud made an obnoxious wet sound around her, as hundreds of people pushed on to get closer to the rails.
“I have no desire to see you thrown from a horse,” she had said that morning, lacing up her bracers.
Lyonel had laughed and ruffled her hair, not like that made much difference. Despite not looking quite like the common Baratheon herself, both of them did always look as if they were in the storm, hair wild. “Then do not look when I fall." He gave a grin that made her eyes roll, as she smacked his hand away with little care. But all that got her was a chuckle in return. The Laughing Storm indeed.
Smallfolk had given her a name as well, the Wildwind. The first time she had overheard was in Storm’s End’s kitchens, and for all the trouble and judgement it brought with itself, she had rather liked it. Perhaps it meant chaos and restlessness, yet those did not seem like a bother.
The herald’s banner dropped.
Knights charged. Thunder of hooves shook the muddy ground, dirty water rippled and splashed. Lyonel leaned forward in the saddle with determination, Ser Robert rode straight at him, heavy.
Impact. The roar of the crowd. Wood exploded.
No matter if first or the tenth, the sound cracked through the field like a lightning strike each time. The crowd cheered as Lyonel’s lance splintered perfectly against Ashford’s breastplate. Ashford’s shattered against Lyonel’s shield.
And then—
Both saddles emptied.
They struck the earth almost as one.
Only then, when a fishwife beside her stepped on her boots, making her stumble, did she realise she had clenched her jaw so hard, her teeth hurt.
“Ho! Look at ‘em! Ten courses and both on their backs at last!” the woman laughed.
Lyonel was already rising, shaking his head lightly. His visor was gone and the crowd could see the almost manic glint in his eyes and his reckless smile. He drew his sword. Ser Ashford, now looking even more battered and furious, seized his mace.
She felt her mouth twitch despite herself. ‘Of course you would enjoy this part most.’
Steel rang against spiked iron. Her brother always moved lightly for a man of his size. The court said Lyonel had inherited their father’s quicker reflexes. His black curls escaped beneath his helm, streaked grey near the brow, premature, some said, though she suspected it came more from overindulgence and the sleepless nights than age.
He circled Ashford now, laughing openly, which always got his opponents riled up.
Ser Ashford swung hard. Lyonel ducked, riposted, struck the other’s shield with enough force to jar the arm behind it. They fought like men who had forgotten the tilt entirely. It reminded her of boys in a yard with wooden swords, sweaty and tired, with dirt on their faces but refusing to give up over their childish pride.
Forever her brother was like this - Lyonel searched for amusement the way other men searched for coins or prayer. Drink, dance, sexual trists, tourneys, war—it mattered little. So long as it made his blood rush and his ears ring.
Mother said it would be the making or the undoing of him, and thus far, thank the gods, it was the first. Oh how her dear parents love Lyonel. In the way lords love heirs—prideful and possessive. Their brother Gowen, born two summers after Lyonel and five summers earlier than herself had never drawn such looks.
A murmur rippled through the crowd as Lyonel disarmed Ashford with a sharp twist. The mace flew and got stuck in the mud. The Baratheon sword point came to rest at the Ashford knight’s gorget.
For a heartbeat there was silence.
Then, Ser Rob Ashford dropped to one knee and a gurgling voice, choked on saliva, snot and blood sounded.
“I-..I yield..”
The roar was near deafening.
She exhaled slowly. ‘At last.’
She had never truly doubted it. Lyonel was one of the finest fighters of his day; even the maesters admitted it between their dusty scrolls. In battle he was a terror. In tourneys, a spectacle.
He pulled off his helm and shook out his wild curls, with a chuckle.
The smallfolk were quite taken by him. For one he did not sneer at them. Did not ride past with nose raised to an assaulted maiden. He tossed coins freely to those who were in dignified need, drank with men beneath his rank if they proved good company, clapped stableboys on the back for a job done good. He was swaggering and golden, but also seemed human.
“Laughing Storm!” someone shouted. The name caught. “Laughing Storm! Laughing Storm!” the chant resounded.
Lyonel bowed grandly toward the stands, then seized Ser Robert’s bannered shield. It was rimmed in chased silver, where the sun of Ashford, bright as a maiden’s mirror, shone white.
With deliberate mischief, he flung it high toward the crowd. Shouts turned gleeful and greedy hands scrambled. That was his habit—tossing the defeated knight’s helm or shield among the people. A foolish extravagance that could be called a calculated generosity.
“They say he’ll be Lord of Storm’s End soon enough,” muttered a man to her left, breath sour with cider. “Old Symeon’s grown stiff as driftwood.”
“‘Tis all those winds and sodden weather down there. Stormlanders live wet and cold, like rats in the sewers, I tell ya,” replied another. A ripple of coarse laughter followed. She pursed her lips but otherwise kept her face blank.
They spoke of her father as if he were a tavern tale. Lord of the Stormlands reduced to gossip or a fairytale. Yet that was the way of crowds; they made playthings of those they would never meet, and she always loved listening in. Finding out all of the different worlds the folk imagined her to live in.
A whore in green velvet leaned against a post nearby, eyes fixed on Lyonel. “Bet he’s a storm in bed as well,” she said, biting her lip with hunger for gold and a fun time. Another one in scarlet sighed theatrically, “I’d wager a stag he beds someone before nightfall.”
“Two silvers,” her companion countered.
She almost laughed. ‘You would win,’ she thought. ‘We do have quite the appetite...’
A pair of young squires near her whispered:“Baratheon blood runs hot.”
“Hot and foolish.”
“They say his sister’s worse.”
“She’s odd, that one,” the first said. “Doesn’t look the part and yet refuses to at least wed a match to bring more prosperity to their lands.”
“Talks too much, I hear. What point is that to a lady?” The other nodded.
How certain they were of her faults. She wondered what they would say if she turned and bowed, if she named herself. Would they choke on their mirth? Or double it?
Would they accept a trial by combat if she demanded one for dirtying her name?
They do not know she had begged Lyonel to teach her sword at eleven. Lord Symeon had caught them in the yard, of course, her hair plastered to her brow with sweat and skirts torn, wooden blade gripped tight.
The punishment had been swift and final: swords were not for daughters. But she was not one to comply. The draw, the stillness, the arrow’s clean answer, it suited her better anyway.
She supposed she would win a trial against these two squires easily.
Meanwhile, on the field, Lyonel was being handed a fresh cup of wine by his squire. He drank messily, deep red staining his smile and beard, and raised it toward the stands as a salute.
‘Show-off.’ And yet her chest swelled, traitorous thing. Maester Yandel had once written that Lyonel brought glory to House Baratheon.
While all she brought were voices, or so the folk insisted. Voices could be troublesome things. But her idol had never been a quiet woman. Princess who would not be caged: Daena the Defiant. As a girl, she had devoured every tale about Daena she could find in the library—rebellious and scandalous. Her septa frowned quite a lot as Lyonel smuggled her one old chronicle after the other.
A commotion stirred to her right as two men argued over a small piece of the captured Ashford shield that they managed to get their hands on. One clutched it, the other tried to wrest it free.
It brought her faint amusement. So this was the glory of winning a joust—broken lances, bloodied knights, bent armour and common men grappling in the dirt over plunder.
Glancing back at her brother she begrudgingly noted that even in dirt and sweat he looked carved from legend. She wished, deep in her heart, that she was beside him as well, born to be a knight. Then again, their brothers were born men and did not end up being like Lyonel.
Gowen, for one, would never look so.
Her gentler brother, once timid, often overlooked. Father’s disappointment made flesh, by his love of books and lack of bite. Yet Gowen had secured a Lannister bride, sweet Tya with her golden mane and clever eyes. A fine match, she thought. Gowen, no doubt, felt the same, with their first babe already on the way.
Father’s frost toward him had thawed somewhat since. It was strange how quickly worth could be measured by womb and wedding.
And Torren.. all but a thought unbidden.
The sea had taken him just as his fifteenth name day had arrived. Adventurous, foolish Torren, who loved storms as passionately as their ancestors. Not for their fury but their freedom. He had wanted ships and distant horizons. He had found a galleon and a tempest instead.
They did not speak of him often at home.
But she saw him now in the wind that tugged at her curls. In the reckless tilt of her brother’s grin.
The sun was starting to dip lower, gilding the lists in amber. Lyonel removed his gauntlets and flexed his hands, petting his horse, victorious and unbowed.
He scanned the crowd idly.
For a dangerous moment, she thought his gaze lingered on her.
‘Did he recognize me even among the masses? My stance too straight for a peasant girl, perhaps. My bow too fine?’
His mouth twitched. But then he turned away, accepting congratulations. She exhaled. The crowd began to disperse, still buzzing with talk of broken lances and Baratheon thunderous victory. She remained where she was a moment longer, absorbing it all.
Glory was loud.
But beneath it lay something else: hunger for more. It was a hum in her bones not unlike the one that drove Lyonel to battle and Torren to sea.
She turned from the lists at last, slipping through the throng unseen.
Ahead of her lay the woods.
The Baratheon tents had been pitched at the edge of the Ashford encampment—black and gold banners snapping in the wind, crowned stags rearing proud against the evening sky. She was sure that servants already hurried to and fro, bearing casks and platters. Word of Lyonel’s victory must outrun him. By nightfall their pavilion would be a riot of song, boasting, and spilled wine. She could almost hear it already and fondly knew that he would be insufferable tonight. She would not mind a feast though, she would the questions.
‘Who will you dance with, my lady? Well,...Rather a dog than a sweaty disgusting lord, who is older than my lord Father, with grabby ringed hands and rotten teeth.’
The trees were not as thick as the kingswood, but enough to swallow the sound of men if one walked far enough. The grass grew longer here, wind moving differently among leaves than among banners. She breathed deeper once the camp fell behind her, unslinging her bow and checking the string. The wood was smooth beneath her fingers, familiar as her own breathing. No one had thought to forbid a daughter to bow and when she turned of age, with a roar of a wind she had convinced the parents that hunting was acceptable. Ladylike, even, if done with decorum.
Although she had never cared much for it.
The forest floor held the damp scent of earth and leaf-rot. Birds rustled overhead. Somewhere distant, there was a whisper of a stream. She found the first rabbit by droppings and disturbed grass near a low bramble. Kneeling, her fingers brushed the soil, reading it.
‘You passed here at dawn,’ she smirked. ‘But you are not clever enough to leave the field entirely.’
Moving to higher ground, she crouched, waited.
Time stretched.
Her thoughts did the same: ‘What would it mean, truly, for Lyonel to inherit Storm’s End?’ Father still stood tall, still commanded the Stormlands with iron certainty. Yet men aged. Winds changed. And iron does tend to rust away in the damp. Inevitably, the Laughing Storm would one day be Lord Baratheon. Would the laughter fade then?’
She pictured him in Father’s solar, brows knit in council, maps spread before him. ‘He would manage it,’ she believed. Beneath the revel lay a mind that understood consequence. He had always known when to stop before a jest turned cruel. Always known when to sheathe steel.
‘He would be a just lord. If the realm and his vices let him.’
The creature darted from the brush, white tail passing by her hiding spot, nose twitching, ignorant of its fate. She drew, breath held and the string hummed as the arrow struck clean. A sound of a yelp, pitiful and desperate, cut through air. The rabbit stilled.
“It is what it is.”
She rose and retrieved it, murmuring a quiet apology as she worked the shaft free. Rabbit tied at her belt she moved on.
The path sloped toward thicker growth. It was not long until she shot one more. And then a surprise: a pheasant startled ahead in a burst of vibrant feathers. She cursed softly under her breath and gave chase. It flushed again near a fallen log. She loosed too quickly and missed by a finger’s breadth. The arrow buried in bark.
“Bastard!” she muttered, retrieving it. The bird’s cry echoed somewhere to her right. “Right. Funny to you, is it?!”
She slowed herself and circled downwind. The pheasant strutted from undergrowth with foolish confidence, bright neck gleaming. This time her arrow found its mark.
She exhaled long after the shot, forest seemingly breathing with her. Sinking down against a tree trunk, she allowed her mind to wander where it would.
Loneliness was a strange companion, however, the approaching dread gnawed at her ribcage. She already had a raven from Mother about at least a dozen worthy matches arriving by the time she will be back at home. How long will she be able to resist this for?
With a self-deprecating huff of a chuckle she thought about childhood tales again, and Daena. She did not know if she possessed such fire. She did know that she was not princess-born and unfortunately had no dragons to scandalize the realm with.
Only a wooden bow. Well, that and will that stubbornly bents like grass in the wind. She wondered sometimes what Torren would have made of her restlessness. He had loved the horizons and freedom they promised. Perhaps she would have sailed away with him. To the East. Or anywhere.
She heard a rustle and assumed that the breeze shifted, but then there was a more persistent sound ahead, not the shuffle of leaves, or scuttle of small game, nor the clumsy tread of a boar. Something heavier yet measured, akin to a horse getting led into its stable. She rose slowly, hand moving to the arrow without thought. Through a break in the trees it emerged.
A stag.
Not a small one either, but a great creature crowned in branching antlers and coat dark as wet bark. It's eyes were wise and watchful. For a long moment they simply regarded one another. Her fingers tightened on the bowstring.
She could shoot. She should shoot. A stag would feed half the camp and then some. The pelt alone would fetch admiration. And the antlers, gods, Father would hang them in the hall. It would be fitting, in some crude way.
‘You can hunt more than rabbits.’ A small voice urged in her head.
The stag did not move, seeming almost curious. It huffed a breath and tilted its head, the evening sun making a gold halo at its antlers. She saw in it her brother then, and father, and ..herself.
Slowly, deliberately, she eased the tension from the string as the stag flicked an ear.
“Go,” she urged softly.
It leapt, not requiring a second invitation. With a powerful bound right back into the trees, fur flashing, branches parting, swallowing it.
By urge of something she couldn’t quite place she moved, tracking its path by sound and broken brush. The forest thinned ahead as the setting sun grew brighter. Trees opened into a clearing where a river ran shallow and glimmering over smooth stones. The stag stood at the far bank for a heartbeat, glancing back. Then it was gone.
She sighed, studying her reflection in the water. ‘What a noble lady…’ With hair a mess, smudge of dirt along her jaw and fingers, rabbits and pheasant at her belt. She smiled faintly.
The sun had dipped low enough that shadows started stretching. If she lingered too much longer, her men might begin searching, and that tasted sour.
Besides-..Her stomach growled faintly.
The river curved to the west and if she followed it, it would lead back toward camp. She knew the lay of land well enough from maps and idle exploration. ‘Seems you were all but a harbinger of dinner.’ She mused about the stag, realising how hungry she was. Slinging her bow over the shoulder she began walking along the riverbank, boots crunching lightly over gravel.
Her mind almost gave way to melancholy again but splashing came. Followed then by a men's curse.
Through reeds and willow branches she glimpsed something pale. A broad back, she realised, sun-kissed in freckles and entirely unencumbered by cloth. The man stood ankle-deep—no, thigh-deep—in the river, great shoulders rolling as he bent to retrieve something from the water.
He was unclothed.
Not near naked but entirely as the Maiden made him. And it seems she did so quite generously.
He hauled up a pair of sodden grey fabric and beat it against a rock with grim determination. Muscles shifted along his arms and back. He muttered to himself, but all she caught were cuss words that sounded like: “fuck” or the sort.
She blinked.
Of all the omens a river might offer, be it a drowned man or a silver trout, she had not expected a giant’s bare arse gleaming in the dusk.
Gravel shifted beneath her feet and the giant froze. Very slowly, he straightened and turned. His face was younger than she had expected. He was broad of brow and square of jaw, wind-marked face without courtly polish. His nose looked like it had been broken long ago but healed quite decently. His mouth was wide, half open. Damp short fire-like hair clung to his forehead in unruly strands. Of all the features, she really liked his eyes. The pools of vivid blue, captivating like the waters of Shipbreaker Bay reflecting the rare clear skies in the afterstorm. And gods… was he enormous. Thick and strong like a stone wall, it was almost excessive, yet nothing cruel. By all means he looked less like a ruthless warrior and more like one of the great hound pups found stealing poultry back at home.
Belatedly she realised she had been staring, but he was doing so as well. Snapping out of it, his eyes widened. Her gaze, quite against her will, dipped.
“Gods be good...”
Well.
That was… impressive.
He yelped. Not a roar but a yelp. Her hand went to one of the rabbits at her belt, startled by the ability this man had to produce such a sound.
In his panic, he dropped the fabric, which she realised were his soaken trousers, back into the river and attempted to cover himself with both hands. This proved wildly inadequate, given the scale of his problem.
“Seven save me!” he spluttered. “I— I did not— I mean—”
So instincts did not fail her, he was not a scary man. By all means, he seemed all but a blabbering fool.
“I should hope you did not,” she said back smiling, corners of her mouth tickled with amusement. “Else you have a curious way of greeting strangers.”
The flush climbed from his chest to throat to cheeks in a remarkable display of blotted crimson.
“I thought no one came this way,” he made a strangled noise, scrambling toward the bank, trying to snatch up the abandoned trousers. In doing so, he stepped squarely upon them and nearly pitched forward.
She pressed her lips together.
Do not laugh. Do not..-
The loud and bright chuckle of hers startled a couple birds nearby, as he caught himself with a tremendous splash and reemerged dripping.
“I swear,” he said earnestly, eyes panicked and darting about, “I am usually clothed!”
“How tragic for me,” she replied, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes with a grin. “I shall have only this memory to sustain me.”
He stared at her, uncertain whether she mocked him. Finally managing to wrestle the trousers free he held them before himself like a shield.
“You startled me!” he said, with the faintest note of accusation.
She gave a pointed look-around: “You are bathing in a river beside a tourney field, you startled yourself.”
“I was not bathing!” he protested. “I was washing my—” He faltered, glanced downward, then upward again in obvious embarrassment that made the train of thought fizzle away in his head.
“Trousers?” She supplied sweetly.
His confusion lasted a heartbeat.“Oh.” A reluctant grin tugged at his mouth. “Aye. That.”
She studied him openly now. He was truly a giant—taller than Lyonel by a hand at least, broader by half again. All hearty muscle. And yet he blushed like a novice caught in a brothel he could not afford.
“You may turn,” he muttered, desperation creeping in. “If it please you.”
“Must I? You have already committed to the spectacle.”
He choked, looking away. “Please.”
She relented, turning with exaggerated patience. “Very well. Compose yourself.”
There were frantic wet sounds behind her. A cuss, no doubt as he attempted to drag wet cloth over damp skin. “I am decent,” he called at last, voice thick with relief.
She turned back.
He wore the trousers now, though they clung scandalously and left little to imagination. So much so that she had to will her gaze away. To her delight he looked both relieved and mortified.
“Well done,” she joked. “You have conquered the river.”
“It was a fierce foe,” he admitted earnestly and she swallowed. He was..endearingly blunt. Or perhaps truly a fool. She shifted the pheasant at her belt and his gaze flicked there, then, very pointedly, did not wander elsewhere.
“You hunt?” he asked, clearly grateful for a safer subject.
“I do.”
“Alone?”
“Do you see anyone else?” She almost huffed in utter disbelief as he innocently glanced around, as if half-expecting men to rise from the reeds.
“No,” he admitted.
“Then yes.”
He nodded. “That’s fine shooting,” he gestured toward the rabbits.
“You did not see me shoot.” She countered, the smirk returning.
He blinked. “I— no. I mean— one can tell.”
“Can one?”
He flushed again but held his ground. “Yes.”
She allowed him the victory with a slight incline of her head.
“And you?” she asked. “Do you often greet maidens in such… vulnerable array?”
“Gods, no.” He scrubbed a hand through his wet hair.
“Well..?” She urged and he caught up, finally stepping out of the river and walking to stand before her. “I am Dunk. A knight.” He straightened, which only emphasized how absurdly large he was, but it didn’t last long, the hunch returning.
She let her gaze drift behind him. “Of course you are.”
“I am!” he insisted, wounded pride flickering suddenly and suspiciously. She merely meant it as a genuine agreement. This is a tourney, he had three horses that she could see tied to the tree, a shield and a sword near it. Of course she gathered he was a knight, what did he expect.
“Dunk,” she repeated, tasting it. It tasted funny but suited him. She said her name in turn, just her first name was enough.
He waited.
“That’s all…?” he prompted.
“That is my given name,” she nodded. And with delight realised that recognition did not dawn. No startlement or reverence. Only simple acceptance.
“You are from near here?” he asked.
“Of sorts.”
“The Reach then…” Dunk ventured. “You have the look.”
“What look is that?”
He hesitated. “Memorable?”
She laughed softly, tilting her head. “Careful. Flattery is wasted on a woman who has already seen you naked.”
He made a noise that might have been a groan.“I meant no offense.”
“None taken.” She smiled. There was an awkward pause that thankfully was filled with an impatient neigh. “You are sleeping under the stars?”
“Aye, camped here. Well, not camped so much as… staying clear of the finer tents.”
She glanced past him then, properly taking stock. Three horses were tied in the shade of a leaning elm. One a great, dark destrier with a thick neck and patient eyes; another an old looking brown stot and the third, white and smallest of all, a shaggy palfrey. The shield near them was worn, painted with a white winged chalice. She bit her lip, embarrassed by the fact that she did not recognise the sigil. ‘Septa would be so disappointed in me...’ A knight's sword stood by in a well-used scabbard. No banner snapping in the breeze. No squire bustling about either.
“You are no lord’s sworn sword,” she observed lightly.
“No.” He scratched at the back of his neck. “I am a hedge ..knight.”
She tilted her head. “The river is his bathhouse and the elm his lord?”
He huffed a laugh. “Something like that.”
“You ride alone?” she asked.
“Aye. Since my master passed. Ser Arlan of Pennytree. He was a just and kind man. We were traveling here together but he, well, he passed.” Dunk sounded soft. “It is just me and the horses now.”
“You make him sound like a worthy man.” She said with sympathy and walked a few steps closer to them, unhurried. “And which of these mighty creatures carries you to glory, Ser Dunk?”
“The big one, Thunder,” he said at once, pride flickering through him. “He’s my warhorse. Strong as sin and twice as stubborn.” He laid a broad, work-roughened hand against the destrier’s thick neck. The horse leaned subtly into the touch, as if the beast knew it was being praised and found the praise entirely deserved. “The brown one’s Chestnut, though not chestnut at all, I know.” He scratched at his jaw with a sheepish grin that might have suited a child better than a knight. “The smaller white one’s Sweetfoot.”
Sweetfoot, shaggy and possessed of eyes far too knowing for a mere palfrey, stretched her neck, nostrils flaring. She, in turn, extended her hand without hesitation. Sweetfoot snuffled her palm, then blew warm breath across her knuckles, nose warm and wet.
“Well,” she murmured, stroking between the mare’s eyes, “she has excellent taste.”
“You have the hands for it,” Dunk said thoughtfully.
She raised her eyebrows with a laugh, and he flushed, “..for horses.”
She glanced at him sidelong, lashes low. “And what sort of hands are those?”
“Uhm… Uhh.” Dunk spluttered for an answer. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Nothing flew out but air. ‘Seven save him, he was built like a siege tower and spoke like a boy caught stealing pies.’
She looked down at her fingers tangled lightly in the horse’s pale mane and smirked: “I do like to ride.” Her eyes flicked to his, searching, anticipating the intensifying blush to come, the stammer, the glorious collapse—
“Oh! Well that’s great, I—I like it as well!” He smiled warmly, simple and sincere.
She couldn't help a muffled snort that tore from her. What a man… she thought, wry and oddly endeared. Not even enough imagination to hang himself with.
“You are good with them,” she said, nodding toward Thunder, who shifted his weight obediently when Dunk adjusted the reins. The great warhorse could have dragged three men through mud without breaking stride, yet under Dunk’s hand he stood patiently.
“I like horses very much. You speak plain and mean what you say and they do so in return.”
“Unlike men?” She offered.
He grinned. “Aye.”
She watched him a moment longer as he checked Thunder’s hooves with practiced ease, crouching with surprising grace for such a large man. This was his element. His hands, huge and blunt-fingered, were unexpectedly gentle as they traced the iron shoes and brushed away bits of grit. She caught herself staring again, and looked elsewhere. “You should find a proper tent,” she said idly. “Else some lord may mistake you for a stable boy and set you to mucking stalls.”
“I am a knight. But if fate decides..I would not mind,” Dunk replied at once. “It’s honest work.”
Of course it was. Some knights would rather swallow nails than admit such a thing. Others would sooner die than be seen with a shovel, like the Whitecloaks.
“That is dreadfully inconvenient,” she sighed. “You are meant to be ambitious. Hungry for glory.”
“I am hungry,” he said. “But mostly for supper.”
She laughed, unable to help herself. It rang out clear as a bell over the slow rush of the river. He looked absurdly pleased by that sound, though confusion lingered in his eyes. As if he had not meant to be amusing and was unsure how he had managed it.
“Glory doesn’t fill the belly,” he added earnestly, as though explaining was needed. “Sausage does. Or stew. I would settle for bread, if it’s fresh.”
“Truly, ser. Your thoughts soar higher than any falcon.”
He nodded, entirely missing the edge of it. “Falcons are fine birds.”
Seven help me, she thought. He might be the only knight in Westeros who could be seduced with a meat pie, or a horse.
The light was dimming fast now, river turning from silver to slate as evening crept in. Camp torches flickered in the distance, small wavering stars brought down to earth. “You will tilt tomorrow?” she asked.
“If they let me. I need to find someone that-..well, I am certain you are not one to be able to help me anyhow.” He shrugged, not even bothering to finish the sentence proper. “If not, I will watch.”
“Mayhaps you could win,” she said lightly. “Things far more impossible have happened. Mad men have been crowned kings. Fools have wed beauties.”
He considered that gravely. “I am not mad.”
She nodded and Sweetfoot nudged her shoulder in mild protest as she stepped back. The mare’s whiskers tickled through her fingers.
“Farewell, Ser Dunk,” she said and he bowed her his head respectfully. Turning away then, she started walking back along the river’s bend toward the glow and noise of revelry. Laughter carried over the grass, mingled with the smell of roasting meat and woodsmoke. After several steps, she still felt his gaze at her back and found herself smiling.
Glancing over her shoulder, she confirmed it.
He was watching her go, standing there like a great oafish oak, hand resting absently on Thunder’s neck as if unsure what to do with himself now that she was no longer before him.
She lifted a hand in brief acknowledgment.
He eagerly raised his in return and gave a wave. Then the hill swallowed him from view. A blushing giant with a chalise upon his shield and water in his hair. A fool, perhaps, but a kind one.
By the time she reached the outer ring of pavilions, the last light was bleeding out across Ashford’s fields. Torches were lit, smoke curling up into a bruised purple sky. She walked through it in mud-spattered leathers, rabbits and pheasant hanging at her belt and let the people stare.
“A lady, is she?” someone muttered.
The crowned stag banners rose ahead, black and gold snapping in the evening breeze. Her pavilion was impossible to miss, larger than most, ropes thick as wrists.
She turned to the sleeping tent and with a nod of her head the two bored guards let her through at once. “Pass these down to Maywee.” She held the pheasant and the rabbits out. The guard blinked dumbly. ”..The cook.” She offered and he scrambled to take the meat away.
She stepped inside. Wine. Cushions. Gold-threaded carpets. The scent of perfumed oil. And Lyonel.
He sprawled in a carved chair, armor gone, wearing a black doublet unlaced indecently low, sleeves rolled back to reveal strong forearms dusted with dark hair. His curls were damp from washing and catching the candlelight.
Two women hovered near—one perched on the arm of his chair, fingers combing idly through his hair; the other kneeling to rub salve into a blooming bruise along his ribs. A fair-haired young man stood close at his side, fastening a clasp at Lyonel’s collar meticulously, gaze flicking up every few breaths.
Lyonel looked up when she entered and his grin widened. “Well,” he declared, “Did you conquer the forest?”
She unbuckled the belt and tossed it onto the bed with a soft thud. “It fought bravely.”
Lyonel pressed a hand to his chest in mock injury. “I fought hard as well, if one cares to see.”
“You did. It only took you ten jousts to become the new champion.” She said with bite but all he heard, as satisfaction bloomed across his features, was that she did come to the lists, despite her mornings refusal.
She eyed the bruise. “Now you are merely pampered.”
“Jealous?” He asked sweetly.
“Of your bruises? Hardly.”
His gaze slid over her leathers, the blood at her belt, the loose strands of hair at her neck.
“You look rather feral, sister.” He said approvingly. “It suits you.”
“You stink of wine and steel,” she returned. “It suits you.”
He barked a laugh. “Gods, I have missed you all afternoon.” She rolled her eyes.
“I was gone all but three hours.”
“And they were bleak.” He waved lazily toward his attendants. “Up. Help my sister before she offends half the Reach by attending the feast dressed as a particularly dangerous stableboy.”
“I offend them dressed in silk as well,” she shrugged.
“Indulge me,” he replied, softer now beneath the jest. “I would have them blinded by you, not provoked.”
She huffed in annoyance but walked over to stand behind the dressing screen.
The dark-haired woman she knew well, Ida, approached her first, with open appreciation. “My lady,” she murmured, fingers already finding the ties at her jerkin.
The fair-haired young man, new favourite of Lyonel’s named Adrian, hesitated only a breath before moving behind her to unfasten the buckles at her shoulders.
She met Lyonel’s gaze over the screen deliberately as their hands began to work.
“You collect pretty things like a magpie,” she said.
He answered easily, giving a thunderous laugh. “It is hardly my fault that beauty flocks to me!”
“Like a goose then,” she smirked. “Loud and foolish.”
Ida's laugh was low and pleasant in her ear as she loosened leather ties. “And which are you, my lady?”
She turned her head slightly, lips nearly brushing the woman’s cheek. “What would you like me to be?”
Adrian's fingers twitched behind her nearly fumbling a buckle. The jerkin slipped from her shoulders. Cool air touched warm skin. Ida's fingers skimmed her collarbone with no haste at all. Her boots were tugged free next, as Adrian's palms brushed her calves with reverence.
“Careful,” she murmured, looking down at him, eyes gleaming. “I am rather sensitive.”
Adrian froze up and swallowed thickly as Ida began unlacing her shirt. “If I may, my lady, you are staring,” she observed.
“I am deciding, Ida.”
“On what?”
She grinned. “Whether we should let Adrian join us tonight.” This made Ida giggle.
“M-my lady?” Adrian bowed his head blushing, but she put her hand under his chin to lift it up. Beautiful long eyelashes shadowed his green eyes.
“Greedy.” Lyonel cleared his throat theatrically and both servants stepped away from her. “If you ruin my attendants before supper, I shall be forced to replace them for the night. It is terribly inconvenient.”
“Oh, so you may but I shan't? How possessive, brother mine.” She countered.
The shirt loosened. Fabric slid down her arms, fingers traced lightly over her ribs as she reached for the gown laid out nearby—storm-black silk threaded with gold.
Adrian stepped closer to help guide it over her head. His hands trembled slightly now, but she caught his wrist gently before he could retreat.
“Relax,” she said. “If I meant to devour you it would cause no fury from my brother.”
His flush deepened but he smiled.
Lyonel leaned back, satisfied. “See? I raise them well.”
“You raise nothing,” she shot back. “You merely encourage some.”
“And you pretend you require no encouragement at all.”
She smirked as the gown settled into place, silk whispering over her skin. Then Ida fastened the shoulders and smoothed the fabric down her back.
Lyonel’s expression calmed. “Well?” he asked, already sounding bored. “How was the hunt?”
She lifted her chin slightly as a circlet of intertwined golden antlers was placed on her head. The grin she gave was sweet and riddled with mischief.
“I met a giant.”