Chapter Text
Dunk isn’t surprised when the guards come for him.
Not after everything.
Not after Baelor.
He wonders if Ser Arlan ever felt this way, left wondering if a mistake of his had killed a good man.
A good prince.
A prince who might have changed their world.
Prince Valarr had asked him why the gods chose him. Dunk knows he’ll be asking himself that question for the rest of his life.
How was his life worth more than a dragon’s?
He can manage no more than a slow shuffle towards the keep. Every step sends pain through the wounds left from the trial, the injury from the lance pulling tight below his bandages. The world feels distant, muffled, as though wrapped in wool.
That’s when he notices her.
A small, hooded woman standing ahead, still as a stone. He can’t see her eyes, but he can feel them, fixed on him, watching him.
It takes him a moment to place her.
The fortune-teller. The one who had told him he’d have great success. That he would have great riches.
Did getting the heir to the Iron Throne killed count as success to her? Dunk snorts softly at the thought, moving past her slowly.
“You could change it, ser.”
Her voice is soft, almost soothing. Dunk ignores it. Prince Maekar will not like being kept waiting.
“Would you,” she continues, having fallen into step beside him, “if you could?”
“I do not know what you mean, ma’am,” Dunk rasps, “nor do I wish to. Leave me be.”
The woman’s hand catches his wrist.
Dunk tries to jerk away, but whilst her fingers are small, her grip is like iron.
“You could change it, ser,” she says again, urgency sharpening her tone.
“I told you-”
Her hood slips back then, just enough for him to see her eyes. They are not like anything Dunk has seen before.
Red-rimmed.
Ancient.
Inhuman.
“You let the dragon fall.”
A chill knifes through him. His heart hammers. He sees Baelor falling again, hears Egg yelling, hears steel ringing through the air.
His wounds throb, stealing the breath from him.
“I did not mean to,” he whispers. Gods if he could go back and change it. If he could take the blow himself.
“No,” she says, her voice gentle, almost pitying. “But he fell all the same.”
She leans closer, breath as cold as winter.
“And the world will burn for it. A dragon lost too soon leaves only ashes behind.”
Dunk frowns, swallowing hard. “Prince Baelor was a good man, aye, bu-”
“Good men matter.” Her grip tightens. “Good dragons even more.”
Her gaze burns into him.
“Would you change it, ser, if you could?”
He opens his mouth to tell her that the past is the past. That hedge knights don’t get to change the fate of princes. No matter how much they wish. But isn’t that what he’s already done?
He sees Baelor fall again.
Hears Egg’s cries.
Feels the weight of a dying prince in his arms.
“… Aye,” Dunk breathes finally. “If I could.”
The woman smiles, a sharp cruel thing.
“Then dream, ser.”
Dunk only has a moment to stare at her in confusion, before the world goes dark.
**
The world lurches.
The ground drops away beneath him. The sound of steel-on-steel rings through the air, then stretches, warping, until it becomes the cry of distant birds.
“Ser, do you plan to sleep the morning away? I thought you had to find someone to vouch for you to be able to enter the lists?”
Dunk jerks up at the voice.
Egg stands before him. Bald head, dirt smudged face, cheeky grin. Just an orphan boy again.
“Egg?”
Egg blinks. “Who else would it be, ser?”
Dunk tries to speak. Tries to explain the dream. The trial. The prince. The death. But the words feel foolish even in his own head.
In what world would a prince die for a simple hedge knight?
The idea is laughable.
“Are you okay, ser?” Egg asks, frowning, concern filling his young face.
“Aye,” Dunk mutters, rubbing a hand over his face. The ache of the trial clings to him like a ghost before he pushes it away.
“Let’s get going. Those lords aren’t going to speak to themselves.”
As he stands, he tries to ignore the chill that runs down his spine.
But the feeling only grows as they go about their day.
The Targaryens come.
Prince Aerion dismisses him with a long glance.
Prince Baelor helps him to be able to enter the lists.
Prince Maekar looks at him with a cold stare.
Egg runs to him to save Tanselle.
And the dread grows.
It isn’t until he’s sitting in a cell, watching Egg walk into the room in garments finer than Dunk has ever seen, that he realizes that his dream was no dream.
“I just wanted to be a squire,” he hears Egg say, looking over at where the boy sits, knees pulled up to his chest.
The exact same words.
The exact same tone.
Dunk feels the blood drain from his face.
The fortune teller hadn’t been lying. The day was unfolding exactly as it had before.
He’s lived this day before.
He knows how this tourney will end.
His chest tightens as he recalls the Prince standing over him, telling him that the world needed good men, accepting Dunk, a simple hedge knight of no renown, into his service when Dunk had offered to be his man.
He couldn’t let that happen again.
He wouldn’t.
If Prince Baelor never fought beside him …
Then he could never die for him.
**
“And so, I ask you again, Ser Duncan the Tall, how good a knight are you, truly?”
Baelor’s voice is calm and steady, the same as before. Dunk feels the words settle over him like a shroud.
“I can fight, your grace,” Dunk answers, because he must. Because this is how the day goes. “Given a chance.”
Baelor studies him, dark eyes thoughtful.
Searching.
Weighing.
“Then you will ask for a trial by combat.”
Dunks’ throat tightens. “Milord?”
“A trial must be had, ser,” Baelor says, turning away, fingers going to his family ring, turning it. “As a knight, you have the right to a trial by combat.”
The rods fall exactly as they had before and Dunk feels the world narrowing around him, the walls pressing in, the future seeming inevitable. He tries to think of another path, any path, that doesn’t risk the man in front of him. But the day is already sliding toward the next morning.
He nods.
Baelor smiles faintly at that, approving, and gestures for him to go. Dunk turns towards the door, dread clawing at his ribs. He won’t get another chance to be alone with the prince, to warn him. He must speak now.
“Your grace,” he blurts, turning back. Baelor pauses mid-step, head tilting as he turns back to Dunk
“If … if this becomes more than a trial by combat … your grace shouldn’t fight.”
A small, puzzled smile crosses Baelor’s lips.
“Fight, Ser Duncan?”
“Just …” Dunk swallows hard. The truth sounds mad even in his own skull. “If you … somehow … don’t fight-”
Before Dunk can continue Baelor lifts his hand, silencing him.
“Why do you say that ser?”
Dunk’s mouth goes dry at the question. He can’t tell him. He can’t say you died for me once already. He can’t say I saw your skull crushed like an eggshell..
“It would not be your fight, milord,” he manages.
Baelor’s gaze sharpens at that, cutting through him like a blade. Dunk feels stripped bare beneath it.
“Justice is always my fight,” Baelor replies, voice quiet but unyielding.
Dunk feels the words echo in his memory, a refrain he has heard before, and his breath stutters. The day continues to be the same. And Baelor is walking the same path. The one that will lead straight to his death.
“That’s not what I meant, your grace. I just-”
He stops himself before he can say don’t want you to die.
Baelor steps closer, expression softening. “You look troubled, ser.”
“I just think the realm would be poorer if something happened to you,” Dunk says quietly. “And if … if anything more should happen when I ask for this trial, I would hope … you’d not risk your life for a simple hedge knight.”
Baelor’s hand settles on his shoulder, warm and steady.
“That is kind of you to say.”
He gives Dunk’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.
“But a prince who will not defend the innocent is no prince at all.”
Dunk’s heart sinks like a stone.
“Do not fear, Ser Duncan,” Baelor continues, turning away. “We will see justice done.”
Dunk closes his eyes.
He’s heard those words before.
He knows where they lead.
**
Dunk wishes it was a surprise when Baelor rides out. When he says he will fight with him.
“Your grace,” he tries, voice cracking. “You can’t-”
“Can’t, Ser Duncan?” Baelor’s gaze is warm, amused.
“I mean no disrespect, milord, but when last we spoke …”
Dunk trails off, seeing the determined look on the prince’s face, the way Baelor sits tall, calm and perfectly still. Every inch the prince, every inch the knight Dunk would swear himself to. A man who would fight for the innocent without hesitation.
A man who will die for it.
Dunk forces himself to breathe. He has to keep Baelor safe. He has to change something. Anything.
But the chaos of the melee swallows him whole.
Steel crashes. Horses scream.
Dunk tries to stay close to Baelor, but Aerion is on him like a viper; fast, vicious, relentless. Dunk barely blocks a blow that would have gutted him. Aerion’s eyes gleam with something wild, something hungry.
No matter how Dunk tries to watch over Baelor, the fight drags his attention away. Every heartbeat feels like a choice between his own survival and the prince’s.
And just like last time, Dunk finds himself sitting in the keep again.
Baelor in front of him.
Raymun and Steely Pate moving to lift the prince’s helm.
Dunk already knows what will happen next.
He rises too late.
Baelor sways.
“Your grace-”
And just like before, Baelor collapses into him, weight heavy, armour cold. Dunk catches him.
“Not again,” Dunk chokes, voice breaking. “Please … not again.”
Baelor’s blood stains his hands.
His breath rattles.
His strength fades.
And Dunk holds him, a dragon fallen too soon, and cries, as fate tightens around him like a noose, pulling.