Honestly WHERE is my fic where instead of entering the tourney, Dunk takes Red's and Rosie's (annnnd pretend dead girl? IDK if we know her name's) advice to heart and becomes their intern/bodyguard, while also teaching THEM sword and shield, and they become the world's first hedge knight/sex worker unbeatable team.
Every prince should put himself in just a little bit of danger from time to time as enrichment for his knight. It doesn't need to be dire, unless that's what works for your dyad. Yes, the knight forgetting his station to demand, sometimes physically, that you avoid such rash and thoughtless action is part of it. You'll know he's properly enriched when you wind up with a bastard heir. Trust the process ♡
If you're wondering if this is the introduction to the scene where They Finally Do It:
lol no of course not are you new
So I finally had some time today and spent it writing this, you're welcome/I'm sorry
x
There came a knock on the door — not the familiar pattern of the servants but the businesslike rap of the Kingsguard. "Your Grace, Ser Duncan requests an audience."
Baelor lifted his hands out of the water and covered his face. He was so very tired. "Very well."
"Your— oh," said Duncan from the doorway, halting halfway through. Baelor let his hands fall back to the rim of the bath but kept his eyes firmly shut, so he only heard rather than saw the wordless argument between hedge knight and Kingsguard: shuffling feet, a door not-quite-slamming shut, and a muttered arse from Duncan.
"If you're thinking of climbing in," Baelor called, "I ought to warn you that it's hot enough to boil you alive."
"Like that, are we," Duncan sighed, and came closer. When Baelor looked up, he saw Duncan standing over him, face intriguingly inverted. "You look like shite, if it serves."
"It doesn't, particularly."
"Well, I was never going to be good at lying. He drew an armchair close and flopped down into it with a small grunt of pain. "Egg's the one with that gift. And Rhae, the pair of them," he added with no small amount of affection.
"Where are they now?" Baelor asked, thinking on Maekar and his aimless raging grief. He hoped they were not with him.
"Both asleep in Egg's room, and Aemon besides. Not like that," he added with a frown, at Baelor's raised brow. "I'm fair certain Egg's going to ask for Betha Blackwood's hand the moment he gets the courage to say more than three words to her, and Rhae's still not done cursing the name of that Manderly mermaid man she was trothed to. Although I do recall Egg once telling me as Rhae tried to make him drink a love potion."
Baelor grimaced, remembering. "Yes, there was an odd few months where Maekar's children had all convinced themselves they had to marry each other when they grew up. Some jape of Daeron's gone wrong, I've no doubt, or perhaps Valarr's. It was the start of all that ugliness between Aerion and Egg, I remember that much, though Egg never would tell me the details." He glanced at Duncan, somber in his chair. "You have had the tale, I'm sure."
"Aye, but still it's Egg's to tell, not mine." Duncan stretched his legs out toward the fire, though still a good deal further from it than Baelor himself. "Honestly, how've you not boiled yourself to death?"
There was a rap on the door, the familiar knock, knock, knock-knock-knock, and a servant came in with two pails. With a bob of his head he scooped out a bucket-full with the empty pail and poured in the fresh, the water briefly bubbling. After another bob and not so much as a glance toward a slack-jawed Duncan, he departed.
Baelor watched Duncan as he seemed to absorb what had just happened, his eyes going back and forth from the door to the bath. "You spoiled rotten—" Duncan said at last, in tones more impressed than disbelieving. "I thought it was a jape, when Egg told me about this!"
"You were asking Egg about my bathing habits?" Baelor inquired, as innocent as he was able.
"None of that," Duncan sniffed. "And it's every ten minutes?"
"Every five," Baelor corrected. "It's winter, after all."
"Oh, aye, can't have the king freezing in conditions as dire as these," Duncan snorted, but his eyes were sparkling, his dimple sweet upon his cheek. "Swear to the Seven, I don't know what it is. Pampered princeling who can stew himself alive but can't light a bloody fire. Bloody useless, you are."
