For your Dunk & Egg prompts -- Daeron the Drunken, interacting with Daemon II Blackfyre when the latter is a hostage in the Red Keep (subject: dreams, naturally; Dunk can be mentioned too if it feels right to you). And thanks so much!
FIC: Dreamers
For the prompt: Daeron the Drunken interacting with Daemon II Blackfyre when the latter is a hostage in the Red Keep, on the subject of dreams (and Dunk).
Daeron began, “My father … well, my father wishes me to –”
“To interrogate the hostage on his behalf? Or does he wish you to ascertain that this Blackfyre pretender is being guarded adequately? Perhaps Prince Maekar should have condescended to come himself,” the Hand of the King said, his lips curled into an amused smile, “instead of sending his son as his spy.”
Daeron flushed. His father had not sent him, not exactly. Prince Maekar already had his coterie of spies in court, just like Lord Bloodraven had his own spies at Summerhall, no doubt. His father had scoffed, in fact, when Daeron told him that he would go to court on his behalf.
“I will find out more about this second Daemon for you, Father.” The Daemon he had already dubbed Daemon the Doomed, for the ones who dreamed, Daeron sometimes thought, were doomed to a hell on earth worse than anything that the cruelest of gods could have conjured up in the afterlife.
“Rhaelle, Egg’s little girl, she was how they came by it... their father’s mother... she used to call me Uncle Maester when she was a little girl.” (A Feast for Crows)
“How far is the Wall, Uncle Maester?”
“Very far, child.”
“As far as Dragonstone?”
“More.”
“Is it … is it as far away as Summerhall?”
“Farther than that.”
Rhaelle furrowed her brow, trying to imagine a place farther than Summerhall. She had never travelled farther than the distance between the Red Keep and Summerhall, up to now.
“You should have gone to see the Wall when you were a boy, like Father did,” she said, arms crossed over her chest. “Then you won’t have to go now. You’re too old to be going so far away,” she scolded. “People should go and have adventures when they’re young, like Father and Ser Dunk did.”
Maester Aemon smiled. “I was at Oldtown then, learning to be a maester. And besides, Ser Duncan might not have wished to take two stone-cold stubborn boys with him to the Wall. One was more than enough, I’m sure.”
Rhaelle giggled. “Father told Ser Dunk I am as stubborn as he was. Ser Dunk said no one else could be as stubborn as that, not even your own daughter.” She tried her best to make her face look stern again. “Father came back, after he went to see the Wall,” she said, pointedly. “Ser Dunk came back too.”
“I am not going to the Wall for a visit, child.”
“You’re going there to stay, Father said. Does that mean stay for always? Or just for a little while? How long is your little while, Uncle Maester? Shaera always says I only have to wait a little while, but Shaera’s little while is a loooooong while.”
“For always,” Maester Aemon replied, softly. He feared his niece’s next question. Will I ever see you again? she might ask, and the truthful answer would be too bleak for a child this young.
Or perhaps she would ask, Why do you have to go, Uncle Maester?, and he could not say to her, not yet, Because unscrupulous men will see fit to use me against your father, Rhaelle, even without my consent. Because I love your father, dear child, and I do not wish to be a constant thorn by his side.
Rhaelle did not ask either of those questions, to Maester Aemon’s relief. “I’ll come and visit you at the Wall, when I’m old enough,” she told him. “It will be a grand adventure, my grand adventure.”
His eyes twinkling, Maester Aemon teased, “Old enough? I thought only the young should go and have adventures.”
Rhaelle rolled her eyes, looking very much like her mother. “Not old old. Just old enough.”
No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair. (A Storm of Swords)
"I often sent away [Sansa’s] maid so I could brush her hair myself." (A Clash of Kings)
She did not know how long her husband had been standing by the door. Ned had not made any sound to indicate his presence. He was watching Catelyn, or rather, watching her maid brushing her hair. His grey eyes did not have that faraway look they too often did, as if he was seeing events that took place years and years in the past and could not find his way back to the present.
Their eyes met. Ned was the first to look away. He glanced at the maid, pointedly. He wanted her to send the maid away, Catelyn surmised. She grew alarmed. Had a raven arrived from Riverrun, carrying words of some calamity that had befallen the Tullys? Had Ned been silently watching her because he was preparing himself to break the news to her?
Catelyn sent her maid away. “Tell me, Ned. Tell me now, whatever it is,” she urged him. “Is it my father, or Edmure?” Or perhaps the raven was from King’s Landing. Lysa. Her poor sister. Had something happened to Lysa?
Her apprehension surprised him. “Everything is well, my lady. Forgive me if I have alarmed you unduly, Catelyn.”
“Then why did you want me to send my maid away, Ned?”
He could not quite meet her gaze. He took a deep breath, as if preparing himself for some great ordeal. To her surprise, his next move was picking up the hair brush that her maid had set down.
His voice sounded formal and somewhat distant, though his words were anything but. “I saw you brushing Sansa’s hair last night,” he said, “and I have been wondering what it would be like, to brush your hair.”
Catelyn could not believe her ears, or her eyes for that matter. Ned would often stroke her hair in bed after their lovemaking, true enough, but she could not remember any previous occasion when he had touched her hair outside of bed.
His strokes with the hair brush were awkward and uneven, though he tried to be as gentle as he could. “I remember the first time I set eyes on you. You had your hair done in a thick braid. I could not stop thinking about how it would look without the braid. The red in your hair would shine more brightly, I imagined.”
She had no clue he had been thinking that. She had no clue he had been thinking of her at all. Jon Arryn had done most of the talking, while Ned remained quite silent. For all she knew, he had been as disappointed of his first sight of her as she was of her first sight of him. He had looked too solemn to her, too quiet, too reserved and too uninviting. He did not seem like a man who would be willing to open his heart – and perhaps more importantly, his mind – to the woman who would be sharing his life. He would keep her at a distance always, she had feared.
“Shall I count to a hundred?” Ned asked, shyly, as he continued brushing her hair.
“Storms were sacred on the Sisters before the Andals came. Our gods of old were the Lady of the Waves and the Lord of the Skies. They made storms every time they mated.” (A Dance with Dragons)
“The gods remember,” Orys muttered darkly, as he stared at the darkening sky and the gathering clouds, portents of yet another storm coming to batter Storm’s End endlessly.
Argella threw a questioning glance at her husband. “What do the gods remember?”
“They remember Durran Godsgrief’s transgression against them, and still seek to punish his descendants for it. But they seem to have conveniently forgotten that Durran’s descendants are also the descendants of their daughter Elenei, and thus, their descendants as well.”
“Oh, you mean the sea god and the goddess of the wind?”
Orys nodded.
“Then you have no reason to worry in that regard, surely? You are not a descendant of Durran Godsgrief after all. The gods are discerning enough to know that. They would not mistake you for a Durrandon, despite the position you currently occupy.”
“You are a descendant of Durran Godsgrief, my lady.”
“So your concern is for me, then? Oh, how very touching, my lord. But are you certain that your real concern is not about any children we may have together? They, after all, would also be the descendants of Durran Godsgrief, despite bearing your Baratheon name.”
Orys flushed and said, angrily, “You are determined to doubt my intention at every turn, it seems.”
“What of it? I believe I have earned the right to do so, after everything you have stolen from me.”
“And will you hold that against me for the rest of our married life?”
“There is another legend about how storms are supposedly created,” said Argella, pointedly ignoring Orys’ question. “A happier and less grim tale that would appeal more to your delicate sensibilities than the tale of everlasting retribution, I expect. A tale from the islands of the Three Sisters. Do you know it?”
“I have heard of it, yes. Before the Andals came and brought the Faith of the Seven to Westeros, the old gods worshipped by the people in the islands of the Three Sisters were the Lady of the Waves and the Lord of the Skies. Storms were supposedly the children conceived every time the Lady and the Lord mated.”
Argella scoffed. “Not their children, surely. No couple could conceive a child on every occasion they mated. The seed is never that strong, not even the seed of a god.”
“Then what were the storms, if not their children?” questioned Orys.
“The cries and sighs of pleasure at the height of ecstasy from a couple who truly loved one another, I expect.”
It was Orys’ turn to scoff. “No couple could … on every occasion … surely not.”
“They were gods, my lord, not mere mortals. And they loved one another.”
Prompt - Egg mourns his grandfather and Set Duncan tries to comfort him.
For the prompt: Egg mourns his grandfather and Ser Duncan tries to comfort him.
“When Ser Arlan died, did you … did you cry for him, ser?”
Dunk had cried in the rain while digging the old man’s grave, and then pretended to himself that his tears were not tears at all, merely raindrops falling down his cheeks. I never wept. I might have wanted to, but I never did, he kept telling himself afterwards. Most of the time, he was half-way into believing it.
He didn’t pretend this time, though. He knew why Egg was asking. “I cried for him, aye,” Dunk replied, truthfully. You can cry too, Egg, for your grandfather, he thought, but had he said those words out loud, he suspected the boy would force himself not to cry, would try his very best to stifle his tears.
Sometimes telling people to do something was the same as telling them not to do it, the old man used to say. Sometimes the best thing you could do was wait people out, wait for them to reach a conclusion in their own time.
“I cried for Ser Arlan when he died, but I was crying for myself too,” Dunk added, watching Egg’s face.
Egg looked thoughtful. “For yourself, ser? Was that because you were afraid you wouldn’t have anywhere to go, with Ser Arlan gone?”
Dunk shook his head. “No, I knew I’d find my way somehow. The old man taught me well enough for that. He didn’t leave me to starve.”
“Then were you crying because … because you missed him, ser?” Egg asked, turning his head away so Dunk could no longer see the expression on his face.
Dunk nodded. “I already missed him, and he’d only been gone for a short time. And I knew I would miss him even more later. I would miss him when bad things happen to me, and I’m in need of his counsel and his comfort. But I would miss him even more when good things happen to me, and I wish I could share them with him.”
Egg’s breath hitched. The boy was very close to sobbing. He turned his head to look at Dunk again, his eyes shiny with pooling tears. “What do you do, ser, when you miss him?” he asked.
“I think of him, lad. I think of all the things he loved best. That way, I can keep him alive, here,” Dunk replied, pointing at his heart, or where he thought his heart would be.
“Wouldn’t that make you miss him more?”
“It would be worse, if I start to forget. Then he would really be gone.”
Egg buried his face in Dunk’s arm. They boy was sobbing, really sobbing now. “I don’t … don’t want … to forget … my grandfather,” he managed, between gasps.
“And you won’t, I’m sure.” Dunk patted Egg’s back, awkwardly. “There, there. Now, now. It will be better on the morrow.”
Later, Egg said, “I wish I had known you, ser, when Ser Arlan died.”
“Why? So you could see me cry, lad?”
“So I could be with you when you cried, ser. No one should have to cry alone, without anyone to comfort them.”
The first act of Aegon’s reign was the arrest of Brynden Rivers, the King’s Hand, for the murder of Aenys Blackfyre. Bloodraven did not deny that he had lured the pretender into his power by the offer of a safe conduct, but contended that he had sacrificed his own personal honor for the good of the realm. (The World of Ice and Fire)
When Ser Duncan the Tall came to arrest Lord Bloodraven for the murder of Aenys Blackfyre, Bloodraven reminded Dunk of a question posed to him by Maynard Plumm at Whitewalls: if the life at stake is not your own, what then?
For the prompt: Maekar’s POV when he finds out he’s a kinslayer.
He stared at his bloodless hands. How could his hands be as steady and unwavering as they were? Their very steadiness was a reproach. He had prized rigid self-control above all else, had ruthlessly and mercilessly trained his younger, undisciplined self to be worthy of the task of being his father’s sword, to make up for the ancestral sword his father had been unjustly robbed of.
His father’s sword. What a cruel mockery those words seemed to be now. With his sword hand, he had struck the blow that robbed his father of his oldest son and heir. The blow Maekar could not remember. How could he not remember?
D&E prompt -- Egg's sisters wonder what kind of man Ser Duncan the Tall is.
FIC: A True Knight Among Us
For the prompt: Egg’s sisters wonder what kind of man Ser Duncan the Tall is.
"Perhaps he was fond of her, this Ser Duncan,” Rhae speculated.
“Her?”
“The puppet girl he saved from Aerion.”
“She’s not really a girl, Rhae, not like us,” Daella said. “She’s older. It’s rude of us to call her a girl.”
“The puppet woman, then.”
“Puppeteer. And her name is Tanselle, Daeron said.”
“How would he know? Daeron wasn’t even there when Aerion hurt her. He was hiding at an inn.” Rhae sighed. “Our brothers –”
“Are a grave disappointment to Father?”
Rhae pursed her lips. “I don’t care about that. But Daeron and Aerion are knights too, like Ser Duncan. Yet they behaved very differently from Ser Duncan.”
