GUYSSSSS, I have two important (not really) things to say:
Number one: I have changed my username
Number two: I have about one month of summer left, so I’m basically entering my last month of freedom before uni comes to destroy my sleep schedule
I’ll be trying to write as much as humanly possible before I start uni at the end of september, because after all the studying suffering, I somehow got into my dream degree after years of trying 😛😛 I’m incredibly happy, but also painfully aware that once it starts, I probably won’t have much time to write
That’s also why I disappeared for a while, I was busy studying for exams and trying not to spontaneously combust lmao
So from now until September, I’m going to squeeze as much writing out of myself as I possibly can. After that… I’ll probably be around mostly during christmas, easter, summer, and whatever tiny fragments of free time i can get
Anyway, thank you for sticking around, and sorry for disappearing for basically 6 months… and GO CHECK OUT MY FANFICS!!!!!!!
Summary: Daeron avoids his wife after his dreams, until one vision changes everything.
Warnings: angst, fluff, smut. Talks of death, alcoholism.
The scent of him always reached you first. It was the smell of the city that clung to his clothes: smoke and sour wine, the faint, cloying perfume of the Street of Silk, and beneath it all, the salt tang of Blackwater Bay. You had grown to know it as intimately as you knew the lines of his face, the particular cadence of his footsteps when he tried so very hard to be quiet. He never was. Daeron Targaryen, for all his dreams of dragons and death, could not move through the world without leaving a wake of chaos behind him.
Tonight, the chaos arrived well past the hour of the owl. You had not waited up for him; you had learned, in the three years of your marriage, that waiting was a fool’s errand. Waiting meant watching the candle dwindle to a puddle of wax, meant listening to the distant revelry of the Red Keep and wondering which pleasure house held your husband tonight, meant feeling the slow, cold creep of resentment curl up in your belly like a serpent. You were in your bed, the heavy drapes drawn against the chill, a book of Seven Kingdoms histories open and unread upon your lap. You were not waiting. You were simply…not sleeping.
You heard him before you saw him. A stumble in the outer chamber. A low, muffled curse in High Valyrian, the words slurred almost beyond recognition. The clatter of something, a pitcher, perhaps, or a cup, knocked from a table. Then the softer, placating murmur of the maids. You could picture it without rising: Daeron, bleary-eyed and swaying, his gold hair a tangled mess, his fine doublet stained with wine and Gods knew what else. He would be leaning heavily against the doorframe of his own dressing room, his beautiful, tragic face slack with drink, while two or three patient servants attempted to undress him, to wipe the grime from his skin, to make him something approaching presentable.
You did not go to him. You had done that, once. You had rushed to his side, your heart a frantic drum of worry and love, your hands reaching to steady him, to help. You had learned that he could not meet your eyes in those moments. That your presence, your kindness, only seemed to deepen the well of his shame, to make him curl in on himself like a salted snail. It was a strange, bitter mercy, you had decided, to let the maids do their work without the added weight of your disappointment in the room.
So you stayed. You turned a page in your book, though your eyes did not move across the words. You listened to the distant splash of water, the low, rhythmic sounds of a body being scrubbed and dried. The maids would be silent, efficient. They were paid well for their discretion.
The door to your bedchamber opened much later. The sound was soft, almost hesitant. The tallow candle on your bedside table guttered in the sudden draft, sending frantic shadows dancing across the stone walls. You did not look up from your book, though you still saw nothing of the text. You simply waited.
His silhouette filled the doorway. He was clad only in a loose linen sleeping shirt that fell to his knees, his feet bare. His hair was damp and pushed back from his forehead, revealing the sharp, sculpted beauty of his Valyrian features. The room was dim, but even so, you could see the deep, bruised hollows beneath his eyes. He looked like a ghost of himself, a pale, sorrowful wraith haunting the edge of your sanctuary.
He took a stumbling step into the room, then another. He did not speak. He never did, on nights like these. The man who could make you laugh until your sides ached with his dry, witty quips, who could debate the finer points of history and philosophy with a scholar’s passion, was now reduced to a creature of pure, desperate need. Words were beyond him. Apologies were a currency he had spent into worthlessness.
He reached the foot of the bed. His hands, long-fingered and elegant, the hands of a musician or a painter, came to rest on the carved oak footboard. They were trembling. They were always trembling. The maesters said it was the drink, a weakness of the nerves. You knew it was more than that. You knew it was the weight of the visions, the fire and blood and screaming he saw behind his eyelids every time he closed them. The drink, you had come to understand, was not the cause but the desperate, failing antidote.
His gaze, when it finally found yours, was an ocean of mute agony. There was no explanation, no excuse, no lie about an evening with the king or a late council meeting. There was only the raw, undeniable fact of him: your husband, returned from his self-destruction, standing at the foot of your marriage bed with nothing to offer you but his broken, wanting body.
You should have been angry. You were angry. It was a cold, hard stone lodged deep in your chest, a constant companion. You were angry at his weakness, at his selfishness, at the whispers that followed you through the halls of the Red Keep like a persistent wind. Poor lady, they’d murmur behind their hands. Married to the dreamer. The drunkard. The whoremonger. You were so very tired of being strong, of being the anchor, of being the one who was perpetately left behind.
You closed the book with a sharp snap. The sound made him flinch. Good, you thought, a petty, vicious thrill running through you. Let him flinch. And yet, you did not turn him away.
Because beneath the anger, beneath the hurt and the exhaustion, you understood the language he was speaking now. It was a crude, desperate, physical tongue, but it was the only one he had left at this hour. It was his way of trying, in the only way his shattered mind and body would allow, to bridge the chasm he had dug between you. It was not an apology, but it was a plea. A raw, humiliating, moaning plea for connection, for absolution, for proof that at the core of it all, there was still something left between you that was just yours.
He moved around the side of the bed, his steps silent now on the carpet. You remained motionless, your spine rigid, your face a mask of neutrality you had perfected over years of practice. He pulled back the heavy duvet, and a draft of cool air washed over your legs, making you shiver.
Then he was on you.
He didn’t crawl into the space beside you. He crawled over you, his lanky, trembling body a cage of heat and the lingering, faint scent of lavender soap. He settled his weight upon you, his hips finding the cradle of your thighs, and you felt the stark, urgent heat of him pressing against your belly through the thin linen of his shirt and your silk nightdress. He was already hard, already desperate. His face, so beautiful it sometimes made your heart ache to look at it, hovered just inches above your own. His eyes, a shade of violet so deep they were nearly black in the candlelight, were wide and wild, pupils blown.
He didn’t kiss you. He just stared, his breath coming in shallow, ragged pants that fanned across your lips and tasted of mint and the faint, underlying sourness of wine. One of his hands found your hip, his fingers curling into the silk of your nightdress. The other hand, his left, came up to your face. His thumb, still trembling, traced the line of your jaw, the curve of your lower lip. It was a touch of such devastating tenderness that it nearly broke your resolve. This was the Daeron you loved. The man who existed in the quiet moments, the one who was, when sober, or almost sober, so achingly gentle it made you weep.
But his sobriety was a ghost in this room.
You remained still and silent beneath him. You were not unwilling, but you were not welcoming, either. You were a fortress, and you made him storm the gates.
He seemed to understand. A choked, desperate sound escaped his throat, something between a sob and a groan. His hand left your face and fumbled between your bodies. You felt his knuckles graze the soft skin of your inner thigh as he rucked the hem of your nightdress up, bunching it around your waist. The air was cool on your exposed skin. He didn’t bother to undress you, nor himself. He simply shoved his own shirt up enough to free himself, the fabric riding high on his lean stomach.
His fingers found you, and he froze.
You were dry. You were, in fact, still angry, your body a locked door he had not even bothered to knock upon.
In the early days of your marriage, this would have been the point of collapse. He would have rolled away, consumed by a fresh wave of shame, and the chasm would have yawned even wider. You would have lain beside each other in the dark, two separate islands of misery, until dawn broke. But that was before. Before he had given up on words.
A tremor ran through his entire body. But he did not stop. He did not care, or at least, he could not afford to care. His need was a tide that would not be turned by a little difficulty. He would make you ready. He would force your body to forgive him, even if your heart would not. It was a logic born of desperation.
He shifted his weight, pressing his forearm across your hips, pinning you in place. It wasn’t a violent hold, but it was an unarguable one. He was stronger than he looked, your drunken prince. He held you still as his trembling, spit-slick fingers returned to you. He worked them against your dry, soft folds, not with the teasing, patient artistry of his sober self, but with a single-minded, frantic devotion. He was a man digging for water in a desert, convinced it must be there.
It was clumsy. It was too much, too fast, the friction a raw, uncomfortable sting. You gasped, not with pleasure, but with a sharp intake of breath against the intrusion. He stilled instantly at the sound, his frantic rhythm breaking. The pressure of his arm on your hips loosened.
For a moment, you thought he would stop. His watery violet eyes searched your face, and you saw a flicker of the man he was supposed to be, the one who would rather die than cause you a moment’s pain. He was in there, trapped, watching himself from behind the fog of drink.
“Please,” he whispered. The word was cracked, a broken syllable from a broken man. It was the first word he had spoken to you since entering the room. It wasn’t a command. It wasn’t an excuse. It was begging.
And because you loved the man trapped inside, because you pitied him, because some dark, shameful part of you even understood the frantic, ugly nature of his love, you let your knees fall open a little wider.
It was all the permission he needed. He shuddered, a full-body tremor of relief, and returned to his task with a renewed, though somewhat gentler, urgency. He circled his fingers, slicking them again and again with his own saliva before bringing them back to your cunt, spreading the moisture, coaxing a reluctant response from your flesh. He was a moaning mess, the sounds spilling from his lips low and constant and utterly unprincely. They were sounds of pure, concentrated effort, of a man trying to perform a miracle. His hips, where they were pressed against your thigh, gave tiny, abortive thrusts, seeking any friction.
Slowly, involuntarily, your body began its betrayal. The discomfort lessened, replaced by a growing heat. A slickness that was not just from his efforts began to bloom, a treacherous welcome for the man your heart was so furious with.
He felt it, too. Of course he did. His eyes, which had been scrunched shut in concentration, flew open to meet yours. There was a terrible, hopeful light in them. He pressed one finger, then a second, inside you. They slipped in smoothly now, a fact he registered with a broken, triumphant moan.
“Yes,” he breathed, the word hot against the skin of your neck. “Yes, my love. Yes.”
The endearment, spoken in that wrecked, reverent voice, was a knife twisting in your gut. You turned your head away, staring at the dancing shadows on the wall, focusing on the physical sensation to block out the emotional conflict. This was his act of contrition. This was his prayer. You would let him pray.
He withdrew his fingers, and you felt the blunt, hot head of him take their place. He nudged against your entrance, a sensation that was now slick and wanting. He pushed in. A single, deep, unrelenting slide until he was fully seated inside you. You both gasped, a shared, involuntary sound of connection. For one suspended moment, you were perfectly joined, and it felt like a homecoming, a return to the center of the world.
Then he began to move. There was no apology in his rhythm, as there was when he was sober. No gentle, questioning strokes. This was a fucking driven by ghosts. He was trying to prove something, to you, to himself, to the uncaring gods who sent him his cursed dreams. He fucked you with a deep, pounding intensity that seemed to emanate not from his body but from his very soul.
The headboard began a gentle, rhythmic knock against the stone wall. His face was buried in the crook of your neck, his breath searing against your skin, a continuous stream of panted, broken Valyrian and Common Tongue fragments. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you. Please. I love you. I’m sorry.” It was a litany of despair, timed to the frantic, deep thrust of his hips. His trembling hand found yours on the rumpled sheet and gripped it so tightly your knuckles ground together.
You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and focused on the climb. The physical pleasure was a strange, detached thing, a bright, sharp peak that rose above the fog of your misery. You chased it, used it, let it build in your core until it burst, stealing your breath and arching your back from the bed. The involuntary clench of your release was what finally unraveled him. He gave a strangled, sobbing cry, his entire body seizing as he spilled himself inside you, his hips giving a few last, erratic jerks.
The silence that followed was immense.
His full weight collapsed onto you, a crushing, welcome burden. The trembling had stopped, for now. You could feel the frantic, panicked hammering of his heart against your own chest, slowly beginning to calm. The expensive linen of his sleeping shirt was damp with both of your sweat. You lay there, pinned, staring at the ceiling, your mind a perfect void.
Then he started to cry. It was a silent thing at first, just the hitch of his breath and the wetness you could feel spreading on your skin where his face was still hidden against your neck. Then his shoulders began to shake. He was weeping, soundlessly, exhaustedly, like a child who has finally worn himself out past the point of tantrums and found only a deep well of sadness on the other side. His tears were scalding hot on your skin.
Your fortress walls, so carefully constructed, crumbled into dust. The anger didn't vanish, but it was momentarily eclipsed by a wave of profound, heart-shattering pity. This was not the triumphant return of a conquering hero. This was the wreckage.
Slowly, as if moving through deep water, you brought your free hand up and laid it on the back of his head. His hair was damp and silken under your fingers. You began to stroke it, a soft, repetitive motion, the same way you would soothe a frightened animal. There were no words of forgiveness you could offer that would mean anything, no assurance that it would not happen again. There was only this. The dark. The silence. The solid heat of him in your arms, and the quiet salt of his tears on your skin. It was, you realized with a dull ache, the most truthful communion you had shared in months.
A couple moons later, his behaviour started to change. His visions still came, unbidden and brutal, flashes of fire and screaming, of dragons dancing and cities turning to ash. They took him at odd hours, and after them, the thirst was a monstrous, living thing inside him. He would still drink. Gods, how he would drink, a desperate, frantic attempt to drown the flames he saw behind his eyes with a flood of strongwine and ale.
But one thing had changed. At first, you didn’t believe it. On the first night, when the knock came on your chamber door not from a stumbling, bleary prince but from a couple of strong-armed Red Keep guards, you assumed they were delivering you bad news.
He’s dead in a gutter, you thought, a cold, terrible certainty gripping your heart. But they were merely holding him upright between them, his head lolling, his fine hair falling over his face. He was utterly, catastrophically drunk.
“Found him in the lower bailey, my lady,” one of the guards said, his voice carefully neutral. “Was trying to climb the serpentine steps. Kept askin’ for you.”
He had not gone to the city. He had not gone to the brothels. He had, in his mindless, sodden state, been trying to crawl home. To you.
That was the first time.
The second time, you were the one who found him. A frantic maid had fetched you to the small, private hall where he and his closest companions sometimes gathered. His friends were gone. He was alone in the dark, slumped in a chair at the head of the table, a single candle burning low before him. An empty flagon of Dornish red lay on its side. He wasn’t unconscious, just staring with glassy, unfocused eyes into the guttering flame. When he saw your silhouette in the doorway, a spark of recognition, a terrible, desperate relief, flickered in his face.
“You’re here,” he had slurred, the words thick and labored. “I came here. Not…not there. I came here. For you.”
He couldn’t walk. You and a page boy had to practically carry him to your chambers. He was heavy and limp, his head resting on your shoulder, his breath sour and hot on your cheek. But he had come here. He hadn’t gone to the perfumed arms of a stranger to lose himself. He had, however clumsily, however pathetically, chosen you.
The third time, he made it all the way to your very door. You had been asleep and woke to a soft, persistent scrabbling at the wood, like an animal trying to get in from the cold. Alarmed, you had risen and opened it to find him on his hands and knees, his elegant clothes soiled and torn, his eyes wide and unfocused. He looked up at you, and the expression on his face was one of pure, pitiful adoration.
“I dreamed you died,” he whispered, his voice raw with terror and drink. “You died, and I was alone. You were gone. I had to…I had to find you.”
He crawled past the threshold, and you knelt down to meet him. He collapsed into your lap, his arms wrapping around your waist, his body wracked with silent sobs. He was a prince of the blood of Old Valyria and the dragon, and he was on your floor, clinging to you like a shipwreck survivor to driftwood.
You were bewildered. What had changed? Why was he no longer avoiding you in his worst moments? Why was he bringing his wreckage to your doorstep instead of hiding it in the city’s dark corners? It was, in a twisted way, a kind of improvement. But the reason for it gnawed at you. Hope was a dangerous, fragile thing; you were terrified to let it take root.
The answer came on a night that was, by all accounts, a good one.
He was almost sober. He’d had a cup of watered wine with the evening meal, perhaps two, but the haunted look was absent from his eyes. He had been reading to you from a dense historical tome, his low, melodic voice tracing the exploits of Volantene and Dothraki Khals. You were curled up on a chaise lounge before the fire, your head resting on his thigh, and his free hand was idly, gently, stroking your hair. It was so peaceful, so achingly normal, that you felt a sense of profound gratitude. This was the man you had married. The gentle scholar, the dry wit, the tender lover.
Later, in bed, he was the same. He was gentle, as he always was on these lucid nights. He fucked you almost apologetically, as if each sigh and gasp of pleasure he drew from your body was an undeserved gift. He let you rise above him, let you take your pleasure at your own pace, his hands resting on the sway of your hips, his violet eyes gazing up at you with a reverence that bordered on religious. He made you laugh with a perfectly timed, absurdly aristocratic quip in the afterglow as you lay tangled together. You felt truly, brilliantly happy.
It was in that quiet, sacred space, the two of you sweaty and sated and wrapped in each other, that the truth finally slipped out.
You had been tracing the line of his jaw with a single finger, a lazy, loving exploration. “Why?” you murmured, the question you had been holding for weeks finally finding voice. “Why do you come home to me now, when you’re…lost? You never used to.”
He went still beneath your touch. The air in the room, which had been so warm and close, suddenly seemed to grow thin. For a long time, he did not answer. His gaze drifted from your face to the canopy of the bed above him, as if he were seeing something else entirely.
“I had a dream,” he said, finally. His voice was distant, hollow, stripped of all its earlier warmth.
A chill chased away the lingering heat of your passion. His dreams were not normal dreams. You knew this. You waited.
“It was different from the others,” he continued, his eyes still fixed on something you could not see. “There was no fire. No blood. No screaming. It was just…a room. A quiet room, bathed in soft light. I was in a bed.” He held his own hand up, frowning at it as if it were a foreign object. “I felt…tired. A deep, bone-tiredness. But peaceful. Like a book that has finally reached its final, well-worn page.”
He paused, and his eyes finally met yours. They were clear, bottomless pools of sorrow and a strange, unsettling joy.
“And you were there,” he whispered. “You were sitting on the bed beside me. You were holding my hand. And you were…still young. Your hair was still the colour it is now, your face unlined. Beautiful. So beautiful. You were crying, but you were smiling at me.”
His hand found yours under the sheets and gripped it, hard.
“I was dying,” he said, his voice cracking. “In the dream, I was dying. And I understood, in the way you just know things in dreams, that you would live on. For a long, long time. You would mourn me, but you would not be broken. You would be…alright.”
A single tear slipped from the corner of his eye and traced a slow path into his hairline. A smile, the most heartbreaking thing you had ever seen, bloomed on his face. It was a smile of pure, unadulterated relief.
“Do you see?” he asked, his voice filled with a terrible, sincere joy. “I don’t have to live without you. I will go first. Before you. The dream showed me. I will never have to know a world that doesn’t have you in it. I will never lose you.”
He let out a shaky breath, as if a monster that had been sitting on his chest for years had finally climbed off.
“And you…” he brought your hand to his lips and pressed a long, tender kiss to your knuckles. “You will be free. You’ll remarry, perhaps. A lord. Someone solid and sane, who does not smell of wine and night terrors. Someone who can make you happy in a way I was never able to. You’ll be happier. Truly.”
He looked at you then, his gaze earnest and bright and utterly convinced. “I’ve never been so happy in my life as I am right now, knowing that. I don’t have to avoid you anymore. I don’t have to hide my worst self from you, because I know how the story ends. And it ends well. It ends with me gone, and you safe, and young, and loved.”
He was finished. He lay there, looking at you with that serene, dreadful smile, waiting for you to share in his joy. He had given you the most romantic, horrifying, selfish declaration of love you had ever heard. His greatest comfort was his own death. His happiest thought was your eventual, happy widowhood.
He knew you deserved better. He was, in his own broken, twisted way, truly happy with that outcome.
The tears that filled your eyes were not only for his death. They were also for the life you were living, right now, with a man who was already half a ghost. You did not speak. There were no words for this. You simply pulled him to you, cradling his head against your chest, and held him as tightly as you could. He nestled into your embrace with a content sigh, his body relaxing completely, as if he had just confessed a long-held secret and been granted absolution.
His breathing deepened into the slow rhythm of sleep. A few moments later, he began to tremble, a faint, constant tremor that seemed to emanate from the very marrow of his bones. Another vision, perhaps, flickering behind his closed eyelids. You held him through it, stroking his hair as the fire burned down to embers in the hearth.
You held him, and you thought of the man you married, the gentle scholar with the laughing eyes, who was still in there, somewhere, buried under the ashes of prophecy. You thought of his terrible, joyful dream of abandoning you to a lifetime alone. You thought of the future: a long, lonely expanse for you, a mercifully short, tormented one for him. He thought it was a happy ending. You stroked his trembling back and felt the faint, frantic flutter of his heart against your ribs, a caged bird. You were not so sure.
a/n: You can donate on Ko-fi, your support helps me write more: https://ko-fi.com/catbayunthestoryteller <3
breaking my silence : maekar is not the girl dad yall think he is
it’s mentioned (or at least heavily implied) that only egg and his brothers had dragon eggs placed in their cradles. and honestly maekar is kind of a failure as a father … like all of his sons have pretty misogynistic and weird views about women (yh yh medieval times but still) even egg in the books talks about how he finds girls annoying and hates being around them.
idk, if anything maekar gives way more “boy dad” energy than girl dad … like he’d probably just leave the daughters to the septas and call it a day. not saying he wouldn’t care about them at all, but i feel like he’s already so overwhelmed with his sons that any daughters would just kinda fade into the background.
Can we please stop making virgin/innocent readers act like literal toddlers. Thanks.
Virgins still have a general if not very clear concept of how sex works, we're not fucking idiots.❤️ And stop making "bookworm!" Readers only read smut, that's not book worm, thats smut addict. You guys are so annoying. "Oh it hurts! It won't fit!" *Sob sob sob* "you're so pure, I don't want to ruin you" Actually shut the fuck up. Virgin doesn't mean stupid baby who has no basic or full concept of human anatomy.
-Saying as a virgin who knows more about sex than most people in my state and have never attended sex ed.
Innocent reader in general makes me mad because literally anyone over the age of 13 has a general understanding of sex unless you're literally sheltered with no access to the internet and that's neglect. Stop promoting age play even if it's unintentional, it's disgusting and misogynistic. Stop making virgins sound brain dead just because they haven't had sex. And it is that serious because people are gonna think that's how we act in person.
AND STOP ASSOCIATING VIRGINS WITH CHRISTIANITY. You guys are so fucking weird and not in a good way. Do I know this is mean? Yes. Do I care? No, because most of you are in your late 20's-30's typing up this shit and should know the difference between realistic first time and the misogynistic expectations first time. Also virgins masterbate, so I don't wanna hear "what would you know!"
The most expensive part of the budget for making A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, was the licensing fees for the use of 'SexyBack' every time Bertie Carvel appears on screen.
scrolling through the aot x reader tag and each scroll is either a smutfic or a shitty smau, and somehow every one is from the hood or a drug dealer and calls reader "ma"
𖤓 Summary: a princess finds a boy hiding in the stables and names him dunk. over the years they get into trouble together, laugh, and share quiet moments away from the keep. as they grow up, feelings get complicated and promises get broken. one morning, dunk is gone, leaving the princess with nothing but memories and a broken heart
⚝Warnings: mild language, emotional intensity, themes of friendship and growing up, character death (not the princess nor dunk), childhood friends to ¿lovers? (we dont know yet hehe), social differences between dunk and the princess and slight angst at the end
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊ A/N: this is obviously inspired by the new Wuthering Heights movie (the one with my husband jacob elordi 😛😛) but I don’t know if I’ll give them the same ending. also i kinda changed my style for this fic because i wanted it to feel more like a movie and not as much as a book, thats why the different povs because i felt they were necessary (hope you guys don’t hate it)
⭑ Word count: ≈4.9k
The stables of Summerhall always smell like horse feces, but still, you like it better than the keep. The keep is full of lessons, maids, and people who speak too carefully.
You are halfway down the aisle between the stalls when you hear a loud sound.
You stop.
“Quiet.” you mutter to the gray mare in the corner.
But the mare is not looking at you.
Her ears are pointed toward the back wall
You follow her gaze.
For a moment nothing moves. Then the pile shifts, only slightly, but enough that you see it.
You walk forward slowly, boots crunching softly against scattered straw.
“Who’s there?” you ask.
Silence.
You kick the hay and it collapses inward, revealing a boy curled underneath it who looks up at you in deep fear.
He is filthy, thin, and far too tall for someone who looks so young. For a second he does not speak.
Then he blurts, breathless, “Please don’t tell.”
You stare at him.
“Don’t tell who?”
“Anyone.”
The desperation in his voice is almost embarrassing.
You crouch in front of him and ask, “Why are you hiding in my stables?”
He swallows.
“I… I needed somewhere to sleep.”
“So you chose my stables?” you ask again, sharply.
He flinches.
“You’re afraid of me.”
He hesitates, then nods, which makes you laugh.
“You should be afraid of my father, not me. He can be quite mean, but he’s not a cruel man.”
The boy looks like that does not comfort him at all.
“You need a name.” you say “Do you have one?”
“I do.” he mumbles.
“Well,” you say decisively, “it was probably a bad one.”
You consider it for a moment, then point at him.
“Dunk.” you say happily. “That will be your name.”
“That’s a very strange name.”
“But I like it, so you will keep it.”
He looks down at his hands.
You study him for another moment, curiosity prickling in your chest. But you decide you like him.
“Come with me.” you say suddenly.
His head snaps up.
“Where?”
“To see my father.”
The boy goes pale.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No,” he repeats more urgently. “please.”
You grab his wrist.
“Stop being dramatic.” you say. “If he wanted to kill you, someone else would have done it already.”
You drag him out of the hay before he can argue further.
He stumbles after you through the stables and across the courtyard, trying unsuccessfully to pull his hand free.
“Please, mercy.” he whispers. “Don’t take me to your father.”
“You’re very loud for someone who has sneaked into my stables.” you reply.
Servants stare as you pass.
One of the guards raises an eyebrow but wisely says nothing.
By the time the boy realizes where you are taking him, you are already pushing open the doors to the hall.
Prince Maekar looks up from the table where he has been speaking with two knights.
His eyes move from you to the dirt-covered boy beside you. Then back to you.
“What,” he asks slowly, “have you done now?”
“I found him in the stables.” you say proudly.
“That much is obvious.”
The boy tries very hard to disappear behind you.
Maekar gestures impatiently.
“Explain.”
“He was hiding in the stables.”
“And you brought him here because…?”
“Because I want to keep him.”
One of the knights coughs into his hand.
Your father closes his eyes briefly, as though praying for patience.
“You wish to keep him.”
“Yes.”
“He is not a kitten.”
You glance at the boy. “No.” you agree thoughtfully. “But he’s almost as thin.”
“And why,” he asks slowly, “should I allow some stray boy to remain in my castle?”
“Because I’m asking nicely, father.” you say as you look at your father with those eyes that make it impossible for him to deny you anything.
“You may stay,” he says at last. “if you work in the stables. You will earn your food and you will stay out of trouble.”
The boy nods so quickly it is almost painful to watch.
You run up to where your father is, kissing him on the cheek, “Thank you father, you really are the best.”
• ──────── ⋆⋅ 𖤓 ⋅⋆ ──────── •
After the day you found Dunk, you spend most of your time together.
It is far more entertaining than your lessons.
Dunk follows you everywhere.
At first he does it cautiously, like a dog unsure whether it is allowed on the furniture. But it does not take long before he begins to laugh at your jokes and argue when you cheat during races.
You climb trees together behind the gardens.
You throw apples at the servants’ quarters windows and run before anyone can catch you.
Sometimes you simply sit on the stable fence watching the horses.
“You’ve never ridden?” you ask.
“No.”
You stare at him in disbelief.
“How can someone live ten years without riding a horse?”
“Easy.” he says dryly. “I simply don’t own one.”
You grin.
“Well now you do, it’s yours.”
It takes him three tries to mount the mare without falling.
You laugh so hard you nearly fall off the fence.
“Stop laughing!”
“You look absolutely ridiculous!”
He manages it eventually.
When the horse begins to move he goes rigid with concentration
“You’re sitting like a sack of flour, it looks like you’ll fall off any moment.” you inform him.
“Thank you for the encouragement.”
You laugh again.
That sand afternoon you drag him into the solar with a book.
“Sit.” you command.
He sits.
You open the book between you.
“I’m going to teach you to read.”
His expression suggests this is the worst idea he has ever heard.
You point at the first word.
“What does that say?”
He squints at the page.
“…I don’t know.”
You point again.
“What about that one?”
“…No.”
You stare at him.
“You really are stupid.”
He goes very still.
For a moment he says nothing.
Then he asks quietly, without looking at you, “Must you mock me?”
The words land harder than you expect.
You blink.
“I wasn’t-”
He shrugs, still staring at the floor
You suddenly feel unpleasantly aware that you have hurt him.
Which is ridiculous.
“Fine.” you mutter. “I’m sorry.”
He glances up, surprised.
You shove the book toward him.
“Try again.”
• ──────── ⋆⋅ 𖤓 ⋅⋆ ──────── •
When you are eleven, you decide to run away.
It is entirely your idea.
“Let’s leave.” you whisper one afternoon.
Dunk stares at you.
“Leave where?”
“Anywhere.”
“That’s not a place.”
“Exactly.”
You sneak out through a servant’s gate and run across the fields laughing.
“You’re running fast.” he pants, grabbing at your sleeve.
“Not fast enough if we want to be free!” you snap, tugging him along.
“You call this freedom?” he says, still catching his breath. “We’re soaked, and my only pair of shoes is ruined.”
You stop, turn, and grin at him. “We don’t need a plan. We’re just… escaping. And I’ll get you new shoes.”
He shakes his head, trying to look stern. “Escaping?”
“That’s exactly it!” you insist, hopping over a fallen branch. “You like that, don’t you?”
Dunk grumbles, but he smiles despite himself. “I don’t know what I like yet. You’re leading me into trouble, that’s what I do know.”
“Trouble is fun.” you declare. “Come on, follow me.”
You run through a narrow path between two small woods.
“I told you, running without a plan is foolish.” he mutters, squinting at the darkening sky.
“And I told you,” you reply, brushing raindrops from your eyes, “rules are boring.”
The rain grows heavier, splattering the ground and turning paths into slick mud. You slide, laughing, and he nearly loses his balance. You grab his arm.
“Careful!” you shout. “I can’t carry you, Dunk, you’re almost a giant now.”
“Almost?” he says, glaring at you, but the corners of his mouth twitch upward. “I’m taller than you now, you know.”
“Yes, yes.” you tease. “But I outrun you anyway.”
The rain becomes relentless, you look around, but there is no shelter in sight except for a tiny abandoned hut at the edge of the forest.
“Quickly!” you say, dragging him toward it.
Dunk pushes the door open. “This is stupid.” he complains, stomping mud from his boots. “Why are we here? I don’t even know if it the roof won’t leak.”
“Because we have no choice.” you say, catching your breath and pressing your hands against your wet hair. “The storm’s too strong to go back. We’ll wait.”
He frowns, stepping inside, but you can see the relief in his eyes. He shivers as he sits on a bench.
“You always do things like this,” he mutters, glancing at you. “drag me into chaos because you think it’s fun.”
“Because it is fun.” you insist, sitting opposite him. “Admit it, Dunk. You love it a little.”
“I hate it a lot.” he says, pretending to be annoyed, though the faint twitch of a smile betrays him.
You sit close together, backs pressed against the wall. You find an old blanket in the corner and throw it over both of you, leaning on him.
Hours pass, the storm showing no sign of stopping. You glance at him. “Do you think they’ll notice we’re gone?”
“They most likely already have.” he says quietly. “Prince Maekar will be furious. You know that.”
“I don’t care” you answer stubbornly, folding your arms.
When the rain finally slows you slip out of the hut. “Let’s go.” you whisper “We need to get back before someone realizes we’re missing entirely.”
Dunk groans. “I don’t want to walk through mud and puddles all the way to the castle. I look like a swamp creature already.”
“Come on.”
The two of you make your way back, slipping over mud and ducking under branches.
And then you see your father standing rigid, face dark with fury.
“There you are. Do you know what time it is? Do you know what you’ve done?”
You step forward quickly. “Father, please, it’s not-”
“It’s reckless! It’s dangerous! You dragged this boy, this lowborn boy, beyond the walls in a storm!”
Dunk hangs back, silent. You see his jaw tighten.
“I’m sorry, Father.” you insist, trying to calm him. “We were careful. We didn’t go far, and-”
“You disobeyed me.” he interrupts, voice booming. “You will stay here. And him, he will no longer sleep in the castle.”
“No!” you shout. “Father, please! He has nowhere else! You can’t send him away!”
“He will sleep in the stables, where he belongs.” Maekar says coldly. “That is enough mercy.”
Dunk swallows. You grab his arm as the guards step forward.
“You can’t,” you hiss. “he stays with me!”
Maekar’s expression does not change. “It is not for discussion.”
And just like that, Dunk is escorted away, carrying his few belongings toward the small hut by the stables.
• ──────── ⋆⋅ 𖤓 ⋅⋆ ──────── •
DUNK’S POV:
You know something is wrong before anyone tells you.
You are halfway through bringing some chopped wood inside the castle when two servants hurry past the open doors, their voices hushed and urgent.
“…the princess-”
“…the septon has already been called-”
You straighten slowly, wiping your hands on your trousers.
“What happened?” you call after them.
They pretend not to hear.
That is when the knot begins forming in your stomach.
You try asking one of the kitchen boys later.
He looks at you strangely and asks, “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
He hesitates, glancing toward the castle.
Then he says quietly, “Maekar’s wife, princess Dyanna, died this morning.”
“Died?”
“In childbirth.” the boy mutters. “The babe lives, they say. A girl named Rhae. But the princess… she didn’t.”
He leaves you standing there.
Your first thought is not about the dead princess, your first thought is about her daughter.
You picture her hearing the news.
You throw down the wood you were holding and head for the keep.
You barely make it across the courtyard before a guard steps into your path.
“Go back to the stables, boy.” he says.
“I need to see her, please let me pass.”
“Not today.”
“She’d want me there.”
The guard laughs softly.
“I’m her friend.”
The guard’s expression hardens.
“The funeral will begin soon. This area is restricted, so go back to where you came from.”
“I won’t make trouble,” you insist. “I just want to comfort her-”
“No.”
You stare at him for a moment longer before turning away.
But you don’t go back to work.
Instead you circle the courtyard slowly until you find a place near the sept where you can see the procession without being seen yourself.
The bells begin tolling soon after.
People gather in the yard: lords, ladies, knights, servants. Everyone dressed in black.
Then she appears.
For a moment you don’t recognize her.
The girl who once raced you through muddy fields and stole apples from the kitchens looks smaller somehow now, wrapped in mourning silks.
You want to go to her.
You want to push through the crowd, kneel beside her, say something that might break that terrible stillness in her face.
Instead you remain where you are.
Because you know exactly what would happen if you tried.
When it finally ends and the crowd begins to disperse, you move instinctively toward the steps.
A different guard stops you this time.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I need to see her.”
“Not tonight.”
“She needs someone.”
“She has a family.”
You almost laugh at that, but instead you return to the small hut beside the stables.
The rain begins sometime after dark.
You sit near the hearth with a piece of wood in your hands, trying and failing to carve something from it.
Mostly you are thinking about the way her face looked during the funeral.
Hours pass.
You are half asleep when someone knocks softly on the door.
You frown.
No one visits the stable boy’s hut at midnight.
The knock comes again.
You stand slowly and open the door.
She stands there.
For a moment you cannot speak.
Her black mourning dress is soaked through from the rain. Strands of her hair cling to her face and neck. Her eyes are red and swollen, her cheeks streaked with tears she clearly stopped bothering to wipe away.
“Princess-”
“Don’t.” she says immediately, voice raw.
You step aside without another word.
She slips past you and shuts the door behind her.
For a moment she simply stands there, breathing hard like she has run all the way across the castle grounds.
Then she looks at you.
“Why didn’t you come?”
“I tried.”
“They said you were nowhere to be found.”
“They wouldn’t let me inside.”
She stares at you for a long moment and then she crosses the room quickly and sits down on the edge of your narrow bed.
For a second she looks uncertain, almost embarrassed.
You have never seen her like that.
Then she crawls under the blanket and curls against your side without asking permission.
You freeze.
She presses her face into your chest.
And suddenly she is crying again.
Not the quiet, controlled tears you saw during the funeral.
These are different.
“I hate them.” she whispers. “All of them.”
Your arms come around her automatically.
“Who?”
“Everyone,” she chokes. “they kept telling me to be brave. To be strong, to act like a proper princess.”
Her fingers clutch at the front of your shirt.
“I don’t want to be a proper princess tonight.”
You tighten your hold on her.
“Then don’t.”
Her shoulders shake.
“I wanted you there.”
“I know.”
“I kept looking for you.”
Your throat tightens.
“I was there,” you say quietly. “outside.”
She tilts her head slightly, still pressed against you.
“You were?”
“I watched the whole thing.”
“Why didn’t you come closer?”
Slowly her breathing begins to calm.
“You won’t leave me, will you?” she asks suddenly.
The question catches you off guard.
“No.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t leave me, you’re mine. You belong to me, Dunk.”
She shifts closer, pulling the blanket tighter around both of you.
After a while she falls asleep there, face tucked beneath your chin.
You stay awake for a long time afterward, but you eventually fall asleep as well.
• ──────── ⋆⋅ 𖤓 ⋅⋆ ──────── •
Five years pass in ways that are both slow and sudden.
At first nothing changes. You still visit Dunk almost every day, slipping away from lessons and maids and the suffocating etiquette of the keep to sit in the grass outside the stables. You bring books sometimes, though he still reads painfully slowly, tracing the letters with stubborn concentration while you lie on your back beside him complaining about court gossip.
Most days you escape the moment you can.
Today you find Dunk outside his hut.
He is splitting wood beside the stables.
For a moment you simply watch him.
He has grown even taller over the years, so tall that he seems almost out of place beside the low stable roofs.
You remember the day you named him.
The memory makes you smile.
“Are you planning to chop down the entire forest?” you call.
The axe stops mid-swing.
He glances over his shoulder.
“You’re early today.”
You walk toward him slowly.
“I missed you.” you say lightly.
He raises an eyebrow.
“You saw me yesterday.”
“That was yesterday.”
He plants the axe into the stump and wipes his hands on his trousers.
“You should be inside,” he says. “your septa was looking for you.”
“My septa is always looking for me.”
“That’s because you keep running away.”
“Exactly.”
You sit on the chopping block beside him.
For a moment neither of you speaks.
It happens sometimes now, these strange quiet moments that never existed when you were children.
“You’re different, you’ve changed since the day I found you.” you say suddenly.
He frowns.
“How?”
“You look… more serious.”
“I’ve always been serious.”
“That’s a lie.”
He huffs.
“You used to laugh more.” you insist.
“You used to steal apples and blame me when the cooks caught us.”
“That was strategy.”
You decide immediately to ruin the moment.
“So,” you say casually, swinging your feet against the stump, “we have guests.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
He pulls the axe from the wood again.
The blade sinks into another log with a sharp crack.
“What kind of guests?”
“Noble ones. The Baratheons, to be more specific.”
“That narrows it down.”
You lean back on your hands.
“I greeted them this morning. The eldest son is very handsome.”
The axe pauses briefly before falling again.
“Is he?”
“Yes.”
You watch him closely.
“They say he’s charming too.”
“That is good.”
You narrow your eyes.
“You’re not curious at all?”
He shrugs.
“What would I be curious about?”
“You haven’t even asked his name.”
“Does it matter?”
“It might.”
The axe strikes harder this time.
“Why?”
“Because I might marry him, I am now ten and six.”
The words hang in the air between you.
You watch carefully.
You know him too well to miss the slight tightening of his shoulders.
“That makes sense.”
Your chest tightens unexpectedly.
“What do you mean, that makes sense?”
“You’re a princess.”
“And?”
“And he’s a noble.”
You stand abruptly.
“That’s a terrible answer.”
He finally looks at you properly.
“What did you want me to say?”
You hesitate, because you are not entirely sure.
“You could at least pretend to care, Dunk.” you snap.
“I do care.”
“You don’t sound like it.”
He plants the axe into the stump again.
“What do you expect from me?”
“I don’t know!” you burst out.
The frustration surprises both of you.
For a moment neither of you moves.
Then Dunk sighs.
“You asked if marrying him would make sense.” he says quietly. “And it would.”
Your chest burns.
You hate that answer more than anything.
“Fine.” you say coldly.
You turn toward the castle.
Behind you the stable yard falls silent.
You manage five steps before you hear his voice.
“Princess.”
You stop but don’t turn.
“What?”
“…Are you angry with me?”
You hesitate.
Then you shrug without looking back.
“I’m not angry.”
You begin walking again.
• ──────── ⋆⋅ 𖤓 ⋅⋆ ──────── •
DUNK’S POV:
“Damn it.” you mutter.
You drop the axe where it is and follow her.
She always runs to the same place when she is angry: the elm tree that stands at the far end of the garden wall, the one you used to climb when you were children.
She is standing beneath it now, arms folded, kicking viciously at the grass.
“Princess-”
“Do not call me that.”
You stop a few steps away.
“What should I call you then?”
“You could start by answering a question.”
“That depends on the question.”
She studies you for a moment.
Then she asks, abruptly, “Do you love me?”
“That is not a simple question.”
“Well, I don’t care. Answer it.”
“You know I’ve always cared about you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Do you love me?” she asks again.
“You’re the most important person in my life.”
She scowls.
“That’s not an answer either.”
“What do you want me to say?” you sigh.
“The truth.”
You look away for a moment before answering
“You’re a princess, it does not matter if I love you.”
“You already said that!”
“And it is still true.”
“That has nothing to do with the question!”
“It has everything to do with it.”
She takes a step closer.
“Fine.” she says quickly. “Then answer something else.”
You already know you won’t like the next question.
“Do you think I’m beautiful?”
You don’t hesitate.
“The most beautiful girl in the seven kingdoms.”
Her expression softens slightly.
“See? That wasn’t difficult.”
“You are impossible.”
“I’ve been told.”
She begins pacing.
“You know what I might do?” she says suddenly.
You already regret asking, but you do anyway.
“What?”
“I might go visit him.”
“Who?”
“The Baratheon boy.”
You raise an eyebrow.
“You mean Ser Ormund Baratheon?”
She stops pacing.
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“I might go to his chambers tonight, to welcome him of course.” she says, watching you carefully. “Just to see what happens.”
You shrug.
“That’s your choice.”
Her eyes flash with fury.
“That’s all you have to say?”
“What else should I say?”
“I don’t know!” she snaps. “Maybe that it’s a terrible idea!”
“It isn’t my place to say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you want to marry him, you should get to know him.”
She stares at you like you’ve just insulted her.
“You are the most infuriating man alive.”
“That’s possible.”
She glares at you another second.
Then she turns sharply and storms back toward the castle.
You watch her go.
You have the unpleasant feeling that you have made a mistake. You act like you don’t care, but deep inside you know that your heart wouldn’t survive seeing her marry another man.
• ──────── ⋆⋅ 𖤓 ⋅⋆ ──────── •
That night you return to your hut exhausted.
You push the door open and drop onto the bed without thinking.
Something wet cracks beneath you.
The blanket is soaked.
Egg yolk spreads across the sheets as you stare at it in disbelief.
“…Oh.”
For a moment you consider several possibilities.
Then you sigh.
“Stupid girl.”
You spend the next half hour scrubbing the sheets in a basin while muttering to yourself.
When you finally lie down again, the bed still smells faintly like eggs.
• ──────── ⋆⋅ 𖤓 ⋅⋆ ──────── •
The next morning you find her in the courtyard.
She is speaking with two ladies.
You walk straight up to her.
“Princess?”
She looks at you innocently.
“Yes?”
“You believe yourself amusing?”
Her expression is flawless.
“I do not know what you speak of.”
“You put fresh eggs under my blanket.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You did.”
“Did someone see me?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know it was me?”
“Because no one else in this castle is childish enough.”
She smiles sweetly.
“That is not proof.”
You lean closer.
“Do not fret, I will get my payback.”
Her smile widens.
“Will you?”
“I swear it.”
She tilts her head.
“I would like to see you try.”
Her ladies-in-waiting exchange nervous glances and quickly excuse themselves.
When they are gone she laughs softly.
“You looked ridiculous, by the way.”
“Covered in egg?”
“Yes.”
You sigh.
“You are terrible.”
“I know.”
There is a brief silence.
Then she steps closer.
“So,” she says lightly, “are you still angry?”
“I could never angry with you.”
“You looked angry.”
“That was because I had egg in my bed.”
She laughs again
The sound is dangerously distracting.
“You still haven’t forgiven me for yesterday.” you say.
“There is nothing to forgive.”
“Yes there is.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She steps closer again.
You suddenly realize she is very near.
Closer than usual.
“I know that you care about me.” she says quietly.
“Yes.”
“Then prove it.”
“How?”
She does not answer.
Instead she leans forward and presses her lips briefly against yours.
It is barely a kiss.
Just a quick, soft touch.
Then she steps back.
You stare at her.
She looks just as surprised as you feel.
Then she clears her throat. “Well.”
You are still trying to remember how breathing works.
“I should go.” she says quickly.
And then she leaves.
You stand in the courtyard like an idiot for several minutes afterward.
You spend the rest of the afternoon working like a man possessed.
But none of it helps.
You can still feel the brief warmth of her lips against yours.
You keep replaying it in your mind like a fool.
By evening the small wooden carving you have been working on for days is finally finished.
It is not very good.
The horse’s legs are uneven and the ears are crooked.
But you made it for her.
You hold it in your hand for a moment, staring at it.
Then you sigh and head toward the castle.
You know the way to her chambers well enough to walk it in the dark.
You are almost at the door when you hear voices inside.
“…you cannot truly mean to accept him.” one of the princess’s ladies-in-waiting says.
You freeze.
Your hand tightens slightly around the wooden horse.
The princess answers quietly.
“I already have.”
“You accepted Ser Ormund’s marriage proposal?”
“Yes.”
Your stomach drops.
You remain perfectly still outside the door.
“It is a good match.” the lady continues carefully. “Your father will be pleased.”
Then the princess speaks again.
“You do not understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
There is a pause.
“I do not love him. My heart belongs to someone else.” she pauses, “But If I married Dunk-”
The lady interrupts immediately.
“That would be impossible, princess.”
The princess does not answer.
The lady continues, her voice lowering.
“He is a stable boy.”
Your fingers tighten around the carving.
“You are a princess of the blood of the dragon.”
“If you married him,” the lady says gently, “you would dishonor yourself.”
You do not hear the rest.
You cannot.
The words echo inside your mind.
‘You would dishonor yourself.’
Slowly, silently, you turn away from the door.
You walk back down the corridor without making a sound.
The small wooden horse is still in your hand.
You stare at it for a moment when you reach the courtyard.
Before dawn breaks over Summerhall, you leave.
You take nothing with you but the horse she had gifted you when you were eleven and a small knife.
You leave the wooden horse behind on the table.
And you do not look back.
• ──────── ⋆⋅ 𖤓 ⋅⋆ ──────── •
YOUR POV
The next morning, you wake with a strange, light feeling in your chest.
“Seven hells.” you mutter to yourself.
Your maid looks up from where she is brushing out a gown.
“Princess?”
“Nothing.”
But it is not nothing.
You swing your feet off the bed.
Because now you understand something you did not understand yesterday.
You love him.
The way girls in songs love knights and princes.
You pace across the room.
Your lady-in-waiting watches you carefully.
“You look troubled.”
“I am not troubled.” you lied to her.
“You are pacing.”
“I always pace.”
“You do not.”
You stop.
“Fine,” you snap. “I am troubled.”
“Why?”
You hesitate.
Then you sigh.
“Because fear I have made a mistake.”
Her eyebrows lift.
“You accepted Ser Ormund’s proposal yesterday, how is that a mistake?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“And why do you regret it?”
You look toward the window.
“I can just feel it in my heart. It is not right.” you say quietly.
“You cannot simply withdraw now.” she says gently.
“Watch me.”
You grab your cloak.
“Where are you going?”
“To fix it.”
“To see Ser Ormund?”
“No.”
You push open the door.
“To see Dunk.”
You hurry through the corridors and down into the courtyard.
Your heart is beating faster with every step.
You reach the stables.
“Dunk?” you call.
No answer.
You frown and head toward the small hut beside the stalls.
The door is slightly open.
You push it wider.
“Dunk?”
The hut is empty, the bed is made.
For a moment you simply stand there.
Then you notice something on the table.
A small wooden horse.
“Where is he?” you ask the stable boy outside.
The boy shrugs.
“He left before dawn.”
Your stomach drops.
“Left?”
“Yes, princess.”
“Where did he go?”
The boy shakes his head.
“He did not say.”
You just stand there in the doorway of the empty hut, with the wooden horse clenched in your hand.
And for the first time in years, you feel truly alone.
