I take a break from my 36 hour stroll in hell to pay tribute to a Sacred Text in the Dunk/Baelor world. Dear @nichestars it has been a wonderful ride so far ❤️❤️❤️ and you are amazing ❤️❤️❤️ I hope you don’t mind this mildly smutty thing from SPOMSA Ch 21.
drift compatibility continues to be one of my favorite ways to analyze a relationship. yes this ship is good but could they pilot a jaeger together LET'S DISCUSS
I've been host to a brainworm that's telling me I should start a French Mistake style dunkbaelor AU. Here's a preview! Let me know if you think I should run with it! Fair warning, there are graphic descriptions of gore and injury under the cut.
“A queer troubled look passed across Baelor Breakspear’s face, like a cloud passing before a sun. He raised his hand and touched the back of his head with two fingers, oh so lightly. And then he fell.”
- George R. R. Martin, The Hedge Knight, p. 182
Dunk caught Baelor, just barely fast enough to cup his torn and bloody shield hand around the back of the dying prince’s head before it could hit the ground.
One broken thing holding another, he thought morbidly.
Dunk's many wounds throbbed anew at the weight of a tall man covered in plate and chainmail landing limp in his lap.
“Up,” he cried desperately as his blood slowed in his own veins, icy with pain and grief. “Up, up.”
As the prince’s body stilled in Dunk’s arms, two-toned eyes fixed sightless upward and mouth agape, the light around them suddenly swelled so bright that Dunk had to raise his free hand to shade his eyes.
A strange clamor arose, the din of many voices and footsteps. No screaming or wailing, as there should be with the heir apparent to the Iron Throne lying dead in a hedge knight’s arms with only half a skull. There came sounds of clicking and snapping, wheels rolling, and questions being thrown back and forth. There was a loud snap and someone called out sharply, "Cut!"
Cut what, Dunk wondered. What new trickery is this?
Stunned and confused, Dunk lowered his hand to see what queer occasion made such light and sound. At first, he could not believe his eyes. This was not the place he was before.
Rather, it was the same breezeway, the entry to the stables, but everything else was changed. An army dressed in strange, unmatching cloth swarmed around him. Some hoisted devices of unknown purpose, while others packed and removed black, glossy contraptions from a great number of bags and trunks. Odd stands were propped up everywhere, holding aloft lanterns that seemed to burn with no flame, and shiny silver sheets. He'd only just begun to look around when the head in his hand moved.
No, he thought with dread, it cannot be. This isn’t real.
Baelor’s skull had been shattered, falling away in grisly pieces when Steely Pate and Raymun removed his helm, and Dunk’s gory hand had been desperately cupped over a place where pale, soft matter was trying to push outward. Now he felt a hard, unbroken curve beneath his torn glove, and the small movements of life returning to the body in his arms.
Baelor’s wide eyes blinked once and his chest rose with a breath of air. As Dunk watched in mute horror, Baelor’s eyebrows pinched together, slowly forming an expression of confusion. “Your Grace?” Dunk asked tremulously. Baelor’s gauntleted shield hand slowly and clumsily rose to tap against Dunk’s arm.
“Guys, hate to interrupt - that take was great, but we’ve got to go again.” A stranger crouched down in front of them, one hand pressed to their ear. Dunk couldn’t see them clearly for his swollen eye and the blood running down his face. “Ira wants to see if you can be more demonstrative with your grief, Peter. And he asked that you to keep to the script this time,” they continued curtly. “We all agreed that the book lines won’t land with the viewers as well.”
Baelor interrupted with an awful rough and panicked noise, not unlike the one that Dunk made when his agonizing got the best of him. He’d made it a minute prior to the gods-be-damned trial, in fact, just before he'd vomited over the side of Thunder’s neck. Watching a dead prince wake in his arms, he felt about ready to make it again.
Dunk attempted to haul Baelor into a more upright position, crying out hoarsely at the strain on his injuries. Try as he might, he could not move swiftly enough to keep the man from retching all over the both of them. Dunk numbly noticed that there was blood mixed in with the thin bile. “Oh shit,” someone gasped from behind them, “Bertie’s just been sick everywhere. What the fuck, is he vomiting blood? Hey you, get the paramedics on set. Go! Hurry!”
Bertie, Dunk thought deliriously. Peter? I might be a lunk, but I know those aren’t the names we had at the start of this accursed day.
He did his best to hold Baelor up so he wouldn’t choke on his own gorge, resting his weight higher on Dunk’s chest. The change in position pressed the sharp edge of Baelor’s pauldron into Dunk’s lance wound, and the strange scene around him turned first yellow and then grey at the edges.
“Your Grace,” he said again, his voice coming out thin and shaking with agony. “Prince Baelor, can you hear me? Are you truly awake, m’lord?” He couldn’t keep his hands from clutching at him, trying to feel the warmth of life through dented armor.
The man in his arms gave a rattling cough and long groan, trying and failing to wipe the back of his gauntlet across his mouth. Miraculously, Baelor replied with great strain. “Ser- ," his head wobbled weakly as he tried to turn and look up at Dunk. He heard Baelor’s throat click as he swallowed hard. "Ser Duncan,” he rasped, “What happened – what is this place?”
That was the last he remembered before his wits left him, pain and confusion fading as he was dragged down under the unyielding weight of unconsciousness.
AU: Prince Baelor falls for part hedge knight part horse girl Ser Duncan the Tall. Baelor surprises Duncan in the audience of one of his tourneys and the affair blossoms from there.
Maekar: Some men will say I meant to kill my brother. The gods know it is a lie, but I will hear the whispers till the day I die. And it was my mace that dealt the fatal blow, I have no doubt. The only other foes he faced in the melee were three Kingsguard, whose vows forbade them to do any more than defend themselves. So it was me. Strange to say, I do not recall the blow that broke his skull. Is that a mercy or a curse? Some of both, I think.
Duncan: I could not say, Your Grace. You swung the mace, m'lord, but it was for me Prince Baelor died. So I killed him too, as much as you.
i think a fun little detail in a fic would be if baelors war horse was a mare instead of a stallion. haters would sort of titter about it, like it implies something about his masculinity/sexuality, like oh baelor only prefers mares on the tourney field or whatever. (I have more on this but I'll talk about that later)
anyways, baelors not a horse girl like dunk, just because I feel like really loving your animals would be seen as sort of common (again I can say more about this if anyone is interested), but he definitely has a favorite and it's this mare.
the mare is like low key rank tho, like a fearsome war horse and all, but is just evil to deal with. like the squires and grooms live in fear of this animal, and nobody can ride it except baelor. but baelor won't hear anything bad about his girl, he's like this thing has carried me in a hundred battles she can bite the grooms if she wants, stay mad about it.
and where I think this could be fun in a fic is like imagine the whole gang getting ready for a battle (or a tourney), and dunks like saddling up thunder and he hears people being like "oh someone has to go get the wench for baelor" and they are talking like mad shit on his horse like she's willful and a pig, and nothing with a cunt should have that many opinions.
but Dunk doesn't know about the horse, so he thinks they're talking about a woman. and he's like first of all since when does baelor have a lover (he's definitely not jealous), and second I can't believe they talk about the princes girl like that, like that surely is not chill. but then baelor rocks up and he's like alright where's the bitch and Dunk is like I've never heard the prince talk about a woman that way and is like a little disappointed in baelor bc that's not chivalrous.
anyway, dunk would figure it out eventually and he would absolutely fall in love with the horse (and also baelor), and I just imagine later down the line there's another battle and baelor gets tossed, and is maybe like gravely injured and dunk is like trying to get to him to rescue him, but he's already fallen of thunder and he took off so he's gotta just hop on some rando horse, and what do you know it's baelors mare, and usually nobody else can ride her but she's like I'll allow it just this once for a good cause.
and I think it all ends with the horse basically playing matchmaker between dunk and baelor because they're the only two people in the world the horse tolerates
i actually have so many more horse girl thoughts on this, and about the horses all the characters would have, just...horses man
SCHTREAMSY SCHTREAM *in a thicc german accent*
-> WHEN: Today! D'uh, Cap, when is it in MY time? Don't worry, pal. Here's the link to a countdown till the streams starts
-> WHAT: most likely the pornstar AU comic. This will be nsfw.
-> WHERE: Picarto.tv
I really, really like streams. They keep me productive and I get to chat with people. No voice, no ugly mug of mine - just some music (which you can mute if you want to).
It’s been stated Bertie wore a prosthetic to give Baelor his twice-broken nose! I only noticed bc I was watching Dalgliesh and he looked different in a way I couldn’t place until it clicked.
Ohhh!!! I suspected as much!! And also wonder about his brows a bit bc they seem deeper as Baelor than they are as Bertie. Glad they nailed that detail because it is one of my favorite Baelor things. It gives him a dash of recklessness and adventure.
