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"By the Seven, Dunk, you’re souring the ale just by looking at it," Lyonel boomed, his laughter echoing off the stone walls of Storm’s End. "I invited the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard to bring some glory to my hall, not to sit there brooding like a gargoyle with a bellyache."
Dunk managed an obligatory smile that looked more like a grimace. "Pardon me, Lyonel. The hospitality is unmatched. It is only my own mind playing host to foul weather."
"Foul weather? In the Stormlands? Fork found in kitchen," Lyonel slapped the table, making the platters rattle. "You are not a weeping widow. Drink!"
"I am drinking, my Lord," Dunk muttered, wrapping a hand around a tankard of water. He couldn't find the stomach for wine. Not tonight.
Nor any night, recently.
"Water!" Lyonel threw his hands up. "He drinks water at a feast! By the gods, Egg—pardon me, His Grace King Aegon, the fifth of his name—must be working you into an early grave. Or is it still the Brightflame that dims your spark?"
Dunk’s jaw tightened. "Do not jest like that."
He pressed a hand flat to his chest, right over his heart.
Beneath the pristine tunic, crisp parchment crinkled faintly against his skin.
The world is small, Duncan, the ink read, but the sky is infinite.
It had been three years since the whispers crept back from Essos.
Three years since they said Aerion had finally succumbed to his own madness, chasing ghosts and old Valyrian shadows into the smoking wastes of the East.
The King had wept for his brother. Dunk had simply stopped living.
"He is dead, Lyonel," Dunk murmured. "They say he lost his wits entirely. That he wandered into the ruins and never returned."
Lyonel sighed, his joviality fading into a rough sort of sympathy. "Aerion was a tempest. A royal terror on his best days, and a demon on his worst. He made your life a misery, Dunk. Why you mourn the flame that burned you, I will never understand. And besides, you cannot mourn a ghost forever."
"He isn't just any ghost," Dunk replied. "He was brilliant. Insane in the membrane, yes, but brilliant. No one truly knew him. Not… not in the way I did. The fire in him wasn't just destruction."
"He drank a cup of wildfire in a fever dream!" Lyonel pointed out, leaning forward. "Brilliance and madness are cousins, Dunk, but Aerion invited madness to move in and take the lord's chambers. You have to accept he is gone."
He raised his drinking horn.
"Drink to his shade if you must, but live in the present. If I have to endure one more sigh from you, I'll strip off my finery and challenge you to a trial by combat right here on the rugs!"
“Very well—“
The doors of the Great Hall suddenly blasted open.
The lutes and drums ceased abruptly. A guardsman stumbled into the light of the torches, his helmet askew, his face completely drained of blood.
"Lord—My Lord!" the man stammered, shakily gesturing a mail-clad arm towards the courtyard. "The sky… the… the shadow! It’s… by the Mother, it’s…"
Lyonel stood up, planting his fists on his hips. "Spit it out, lad! Has the Dornish wine run dry, or are the clouds raining squids?"
"Wings!" the guard shrieked, finally finding his voice. "Fire and wings!"
Dunk’s blood froze in his veins.
He vaulted over the bench, his long legs eating up the distance to the doors, leaving a startled Lyonel shouting a barrage of colorful Baratheon curses in his wake.
He burst out into the biting winds of the courtyard. Above Shipbreaker Bay, the sky was churning, the sun blotted out by an unnatural darkness.
Then, the clouds tore open.
A roar ripped through the firmament, a sound so ancient and deafening it vibrated through the stones of Storm’s End and rattled Dunk’s very soul.
Dragon…?
Dragon!
Massive and awe-inspiring, it soared through the tempest, its scales shimmering like molten gold and spilled blood in the intermittent sunlight. The beast banked against the violent winds, its leathery wings snapping with the force of a hurricane.
Dunk stood paralyzed, the breath robbed from his lungs.
As the magnificent horror descended, sweeping low over the battlements in a wave of heat, a figure became visible at the base of its sweeping neck.
Sitting tall and proud, with silver-gold hair whipping wildly in the storm.
The beast banked sharply, hovering for a suspended, breathless second above the courtyard. The rider turned his head, looking down into the chaos of screaming men and fleeing horses.
Through the expanse of swirling wind and impossible reality, their eyes locked.
Violet met blue.
Aerion.
The beast hit the flagstones of Storm’s End with a world-shattering impact. Talons the size of greatswords gouged deep into the ancient rock, and a wave of sulfur washed over the courtyard. The dragon folded its wings and released a rumbling hiss.
Guards fell over themselves, dropping poleaxes and shields in sheer terror. Lyonel was rooted to the spot, his mouth hanging open.
The shock paralyzing the castle wasn't just born of the beast—it was the realization of the rider.
“Seven,” Lyonel murmured, “With all due disrespect… why the fuck?”
Of all the Targaryens, of all the blood of Old Valyria—it was him. Not Aegon the King. Not Aemon.
It just had to be Aerion. The terror. The mad cunt.
Aerion slid from the dragon’s shoulder, landing with a sharp, arrogant crack against the stones. He wore leathers of midnight black and deep crimson, smelling of ozone and brimstone.
He drew himself up, spine perfectly straight, and surveyed the terrified mortals with a victorious smirk.
"Well? Have the Stormlords lost their tongues? Did you truly believe a few ruins and some Essosi sand could claim me? Behold! The dragon has been reborn. Are you all going to bow, or simply gape like a landed fish?"
Dunk stood at the base of the steps—a mountain of a man in a white cloak—utterly silent. His face was an unreadable mask of carved stone.
The Lord Commander began to walk toward the beast and its master.
Aerion’s smirk twitched. He tossed his head, folding his arms across his chest as the towering knight approached. "Don't look so stunned, Duncan. It was the only way. If I had uttered a single word to you, or to my sweet brother, the entire realm would have been weeping and clinging to my boots to stop me."
Dunk took another step. The distance was halving. He still said nothing.
Aerion’s posture grew rigid, his chin tilting up defensively. The arrogance began to fracture, revealing the frantic mind beneath.
"It had to be a solitary endeavor,” Aerion hissed. “The magic of Old Valyria doesn't wait for raven scrolls. I had to remain untraceable. If the magisters of Volantis had known what I was up to, they would have sent assassins. I had to embark on this alone. Absolute secrecy, Duncan. Not even you could know."
Step. Step. Step.
Dunk’s expression remained utterly blank, his eyes burning with an intense, unyielding focus.
"Stop looking at me like that!" Aerion snapped, the defensive edge sharpening into anger. "By the Seven, Duncan, did you even bother to look for me? Or did you just accept the whispers? Aegon likely told you I was a lost cause, and you—obedient, thick-headed Duncan—just nodded and forgot about me the moment I was out of anyone’s sight!"
Step. Step.
"Cease this!" Aerion growled. He took a half-step back, though he quickly forced himself to stand his ground. "What, did you think I was out whoring in Lys? Or whoring myself in Lys? Tsk. I brought fire back to the world. I am a legend!"
Dunk was mere feet away now, a monolith blocking out the chaos around them.
The dragon rumbled a warning in its throat, a sound like grinding boulders, but Aerion held up a hand to silence the beast.
The fear of rejection, the frantic need for validation that had always haunted Aerion, boiled over into fury.
"Damn you, Duncan!" Aerion yelled, laced with frustration and insecurity. "Hurt me! Scream at me! Just… say something!"
Dunk finally stopped.
He stood close enough to see the scar marring Aerion’s cheek, close enough to see the fine lines of exhaustion etched around those fierce violet eyes.
In that moment, the entire world vanished—the dragon, Lyonel, the terrified guards, the storm above.
He stood there for a heartbeat, looking down at the beautiful, cruel, brilliant disaster of a man he had mourned in the deepest hollows of his soul.
Slowly, shakily, Dunk lifted his hand. Aerion flinched instinctively, bracing himself.
But the strike never came.
Dunk cupped Aerion’s jaw. His thumb, rough as sandpaper, brushed gently over the prince's sharp cheekbone, tracing the familiar curve of his face as if terrified he was only touching smoke and shadows.
Aerion’s breath hitched, his eyes widening as the mania evaporated into the chasm between them.
Beneath Dunk's tunic, the crinkled parchment of Aerion's last letter pressed against his wildly beating heart.
The immovable Lord Commander finally broke.
"You're as beautiful," Dunk whispered, his voice thick and broken, tears spilling down his face, "as the day I last saw you."
Aerion’s eyes widened. “You—“
Lyonel’s sudden guffaw shattered the fragile quiet of the courtyard.
Had this been a decade past, when he and the towering knight had first crossed paths at Ashford Meadow, Lyonel would have felt a lightning of territorial pride—or, more accurately, a storm of jealousy.
But time, and the very specific, crisp taste of a certain knight from the Reach whose sigil bore a rather appealing green apple, had sweetened his disposition considerably.
He had his own orchards to tend to now.
"Right then!" Lyonel bellowed, clapping his hands together. The sound startled the nearest guards out of their stupor. "The show is over! Clear the yard! Back to the hall, the lot of you!"
As the bewildered men-at-arms scrambled to obey, fleeing the heat of the dragon, Lyonel caught Dunk’s eye. He gave a scandalous wink, then turned on his heel. "The King's brother and the Lord Commander require the courtyard for… diplomatic relations. Don't burn my castle down, Brightflame!"
Dunk's palm was still resting against Aerion’s jaw, radiating a grounding heat. For a fleeting second, the mad prince looked vulnerable, stripped of his monstrous mount and his sharp cruelty.
Then, the armor slammed shut.
Aerion pulled back abruptly, his lips curling into a defensive sneer. He swiped a hand over his skin as if Dunk’s brief touch had soiled it.
"A touching performance, Duncan," Aerion sneered. He threw a disdainful glance toward the doors where Lyonel had just disappeared. "Though I have to wonder what exactly you are doing in the Stormlands. Don't tell me my brother sent his loyal hound to fetch a stick. Has the Laughing Storm been keeping your bed warm while I was busy conquering the skies?"
Dunk’s expression hardened. The open wound of his grief snapped shut.
"Lyonel is just a friend, Aerion. A friend who was trying to keep me from drinking myself to death because I thought you were a corpse rotting in the shadow lands."
Aerion scoffed. "A friend. How quaint. You survived Flea Bottom. You would have survived my tragic demise."
The quip, unempathetic and carelessly cruel, snapped something deep inside Dunk's chest.
Three years.
Three years of waking up in a cold sweat, three years of watching Egg mourn, three years of carrying a crumpled, silent letter next to his heart.
"Three years," Dunk growled, a dangerous rumble that caused the great beast behind Aerion to shift uneasily. He closed the remaining gap between them, forcing the prince to crane his neck sharply to maintain eye contact. "Thirty-six moons of nothing. You disappeared in the East and left me to drown in the silence!"
"I told you," Aerion snapped, his chin lifting haughtily, "the magic required absolute secrecy. The Valyrian texts I unearthed in Volantis—"
"You couldn't risk a single raven?!" Dunk roared, echoing louder than the storm over Shipbreaker Bay. "A single, unmarked scrap of parchment just to say 'I breathe'? You arrogant, selfish, cruel—"
He stopped. His hands balled into tight fists.
"I learned my letters for you!"
Aerion blinked, caught off guard.
“What?”
"I learned my letters, Aerion," Dunk whispered, the thunderous anger collapsing into a hollow ache.
He struck his chest, hitting right over his heart where the folded parchment sat hidden beneath his tunic.
"I sat in the Red Keep with the maesters. A grown man, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, sitting at a tiny desk, feeling like an absolute lackwit," Dunk spat, tears blurring his vision. "I traced shapes until my hands cramped. I memorized every miserable vowel and verb. I learned to read. I learned to write. Just for you."
Aerion stared up at him, entirely speechless, the wind whipping his hair across his face.
"Just so when your letters came from Volantis, from Lys, from wherever your madness took you… I wouldn't have to ask a maester to read your words to me," Dunk continued. "Just so I could write you back with my own hand."
He took another step, towering over the prince, all his built-up agony bleeding into the air.
"And you gave me nothing! You disappeared! For three years, I woke up every morning wondering if my heart would break from the silence, or if news of your corpse would do it first. I thought you were dead, Aerion. I mourned you!"
His voice cracked, thick with a jagged, furious grief.
"You have a dragon now. You have your fire. But you could have sent one word! One single word to tell me you were breathing!"
He reached into his tunic, pulling out the frayed, sweat-stained parchment he had carried every single day. He pressed it flat against Aerion's chest, right over the prince's wildly beating heart.
"I no longer had anything to read,” Dunk croaked out.
Aerion looked down.
The realization of what Dunk had done—folding his pride, sitting at a tiny desk like a child, fighting through the humiliation just to bridge the vast, empty sea between them—struck Aerion like a mace to the head. Guilt flooded his veins, a strange and foreign poison.
But guilt demanded a humility which he could never possess.
He slapped Dunk’s hand away.
"And what then?" Aerion spat. "Tell me, Duncan! What if I had sent a raven? What if I had penned you a beautiful, tragic sonnet detailing my grand design in the ashes of Old Volantis?"
Dunk stared at him, bewildered by the sudden whiplash. "I would have known you were alive! I would have—"
"You would have what?" Aerion interrupted. "Would you have saddled your great, clumsy horse? Would you have stripped off that pristine white cloak you hold so dear? Would you have abandoned your post beside my perfect, dutiful brother? Tell me, Lord Commander—would you have chosen me over Aegon?"
The wind howled around them, snapping the white cloak in question against Dunk’s boots.
"You know my vows, Aerion. You know I could not simply leave the Kingsguard. But I could have spoken to the King. Egg wept for you—"
"Do not lie to me!"
The dragon behind him echoed Aerion’s roar with a territorial hiss, its colossal head snapping. Aerion waved the beast back without looking, his burning eyes locked on Dunk.
"You think I am deaf as well as mad? You think I haven't heard the whispers slithering through the darkened corridors of the Red Keep?"
He began to pace, his boots clicking sharply against the stone.
"When Father was crushed on the Marches. When Daeron finally drank himself into a stupor and succumbed to the pox," Aerion listed, ticking the tragedies off on his fingers. "Suddenly, the Crown was dangling precariously close to my head, wasn't it? The realm panicked. Bloodraven panicked. You think I was entirely clueless about the knives being sharpened in the shadows? The quiet, desperate little plans to get rid of the 'mad prince' so the realm wouldn't have to suffer me, so the throne could fall safely into Aegon's lap?!"
"No one plotted to murder you! You fled from shadows of your own making! You drank wildfire!"
"A necessary illusion to escape a very real blade!"
"I would never have allowed anyone to harm you!" Dunk bellowed.
The heaving of their chests mingled with the howling of the wind.
Then, the furious fire in Aerion’s eyes dissolved into something cold and unspeakably tragic.
"If I had written to you, Duncan," Aerion whispered. "If I had told you exactly where I was, and what my plans were… would you have sought me out with love in your heart?”
He tilted his head, the storm whipping his hair across his wet cheeks.
"Or would the Lord Commander have crossed the Narrow Sea solely to kill me, and secure my little brother's crown?"
Dunk’s face flushed a violent, furious crimson. The sheer audacity of the accusation momentarily robbed him of the very air in his lungs.
When he finally found his voice, it was a dangerous, rumbling thunderclap that rivaled the storm raging above.
"You fool," Dunk snarled, closing the remaining distance so aggressively that Aerion was forced to stumble a step backward. "You think I learned my letters to know when and where to kill you? You think I spent my nights staring at parchment until my eyes bled just to play the assassin for a King who already holds the entire realm?"
Aerion scoffed. "I think you learned your letters to keep tabs on me. To keep me on a leash, Duncan! A wild dog is infinitely easier to manage when you know exactly which corner of the yard he is digging his holes in!"
"A leash?!" Dunk bellowed. "If I wanted you on a leash, my Prince, I would have dragged you back to the Red Keep by your silver hair the moment you started raving about drinking wildfire! I loved you, you arrogant, blind wretch! I mourned you!"
"Save your mourning for the septons!" Aerion spat. "I do not require your pity, and I certainly do not need a warden! I conquered the sky, Duncan! I clawed my way through the ashes of Valyria and forged my own destiny while you stood like a glorified statue guarding an uncomfortable chair! I am fire made flesh, and I will not stand in this freezing downpour and be lectured by a Kingsguard who still smells like a hedge knight!"
Aerion spun on his heel, his scaled cloak whipping around his legs. The dragon rumbled, lowering its horned, majestic head as its rider approached.
"We are leaving," Aerion announced, though the faint tremor in his haughty voice ruined his grand exit. "The air in the Stormlands has grown unbearably dense."
He reached up to grasp the spiked ridges of the beast’s flank.
He never made it.
Dunk had closed the gap in massive strides. Before Aerion’s fingers could even brush the dragonscales, Dunk’s arms wrapped firmly around the prince’s waist.
Aerion gasped as his boots were abruptly lifted off the wet flagstones. "What in the Seven Hells—!"
With a grunt of exertion, Dunk hoisted the prince effortlessly into the air, hoisting him over one broad shoulder like a sack of prize-winning turnips.
"Unhand me!" Aerion shrieked, thrashing violently. He hammered his fists uselessly against Dunk’s back. "Put me down this instant, Duncan! I am a prince of the blood! I will have you beheaded! I will have you roasted alive!"
"You are going to sit by a hearth, drink a cup of hot wine, and listen to me until you stop acting like a spoiled child," Dunk stated flatly. He adjusted his grip on the back of Aerion's thighs to secure the flailing prince.
Dunk cast a brief glance at the dragon. The terrifying beast merely blinked its eyes at the display, seemingly unbothered by its master's spectacularly undignified abduction. It let out a soft huff of sulfurous smoke, tucked its tail around its talons, and laid down its head to nap.
Dunk kicked the door open. The scene inside the Great Hall froze instantly.
A dozen Baratheon guards, who had been huddled near the hearth nervously clutching their poleaxes and waiting for dragonfire to consume them, turned to stare. Several servants carrying trays of roasted fowl and trenchers of bread halted mid-step, their mouths hanging wide open in synchronized disbelief.
"Release me, you overgrown ox!" Aerion roared. "I command you to halt! Guards! Slay this traitor! Slay him immediately!"
The Baratheon guards looked at the screaming, upside-down dragon prince, and then looked up at the stone-faced Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
Not a single man moved a muscle.
"Good morrow, lads," Dunk said tightly, marching straight through the center of the hall.
"Lord Commander," a captain squeaked out, respectfully pressing his back against the wall to give Dunk a wide berth.
"Duncan, I swear by the old gods and the new, I will scorch this miserable, drafty castle to the bedrock!" Aerion ranted, kicking his legs. "I am Aerion Brightflame! I ride the only terror of the skies! Release your grip!"
"Mind your heads," Dunk calmly advised a pair of stunned serving girls as he turned a corner, Aerion’s flailing arms nearly knocking a sconce from the wall. "He's throwing a tantrum."
"A tantrum?!" The prince's voice cracked. "I am the blood of the dragon! I am the—ugh, Duncan, your pauldron is digging directly into my ribs."
Dunk didn't miss a single beat, taking the stairs toward the guest chambers two at a time. "Then stop squirming, my Prince. I've waited thirty-six moons to scold you, and we have a very long night ahead."
Aerion beat his fists against the immovable expanse of Dunk’s back, a staccato of pure, unadulterated Targaryen fury. "Release me! Release me instantly, Duncan! I am not some tavern wench to be hauled up the stairs! Unhand me!"
Dunk didn't even flinch. He absorbed the blows as if they were nothing but the patter of spring rain upon the roof. He finally kicked open the door to his assigned guest chamber.
With a fluid, surprisingly careful motion, he swung Aerion down from his shoulder. He set the prince on his feet gently, his hands lingering on Aerion's waist just a fraction of a second longer than necessary to ensure he was steady.
Then, Dunk strode to the door, slammed it shut, and threw the bolt across the timber.
"Have you lost whatever meager wits the gods saw fit to give you?” Aerion grumbled, swatting fiercely at his tunic to straighten it. "You think you can keep me chained with a locked door? I command the sky. I could whistle right now, and my dragon would tear this pathetic stone tower apart brick by brick."
"Then we will burn together," Dunk said simply.
Aerion stared at him, the energy draining from his limbs as he met Dunk's unwavering gaze.
"You are insufferable.”
"And you are alive," Dunk replied, closing the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps. He stopped just an arm's length away. "For three years, I woke up every morning and had to remind myself that you were gone. I had to watch Egg bear the weight of the crown, knowing that his brother was lost to madness and ash. And I had to carry it. All of it."
Aerion looked away, his jaw working as he stared into the hearth flames. "I did what was required. I claimed the power my bloodline deserved."
"You abandoned the people who cared for you," Dunk corrected sharply, refusing to let the prince hide behind his delusions of grandeur. "You went silent and left me to rot in my own grief."
"Because someone would have eventually had me killed to secure the realm!" Aerion snapped. "When Daeron drank and whored himself into an early grave, suddenly I was like the Spring Sickness—a disease waiting to spread. Everyone wanted me gone, Duncan!"
Dunk sighed. He reached out, ignoring Aerion's instinctual flinch, and placed his hands firmly on the prince's shoulders.
"Aegon loved—loves—you," Dunk said softly, his thumbs brushing the edges of Aerion's collar. "And I… I learned to read for you. Do you understand what that means? The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, holding a quill like a frightened novice, tracing letters until my hands cramped. Just to devour your words with my own eyes. Just to feel tethered to you."
Aerion’s throat worked frantically. He stared at the center of Dunk’s white breastplate, unable to meet those piercing blue eyes.
"I could not write to you again," Aerion breathed, thick with a vulnerability he so deeply despised. "If I had written to you… if I had read your clumsy, misspelled replies…”
He swallowed hard, his arms uncrossing to grip Dunk's wrists.
"I would have turned back," Aerion confessed. "I would have abandoned the dragon. I would have chosen the cage, Duncan, just to be near you."
The words hung in the air, laid bare and bleeding, drowning out the howl of the storm. He had offered up the most mortal, most terrified piece of his soul, expecting the disgust he had always received from the world.
But Dunk wasn’t like the rest of them.
Slowly—terrified that the illusion would turn to smoke and scatter—Dunk leaned down. He slid his hands from Aerion’s shoulders up to his face, his palms cradling the prince’s jaw.
Aerion’s eyes fluttered shut as Dunk’s lips finally pressed against his.
It was a ghost of a touch. Hesitant. A tentative, trembling question asked after thirty-six moons of absolute silence.
Dunk’s mouth barely brushed over Aerion’s, tasting the salt of his own tears and the sharp bite of sea wind.
He kissed him in the same way he approached his vows—solemn, reverent, the only thing that ever mattered.
Then, the fragile restraint snapped.
Aerion surged upward on his toes, tangling his elegant hands into Dunk’s hair and pulling him down. Dunk groaned, his arms wrapping around the prince’s waist to crush him against his breastplate.
The kiss was no longer a question but a desperate, starved collision. Teeth clashed, tongues tangled, breaths mingled in a hot, frantic rush—years of grief poured into the bruising press of their mouths.
Dunk backed Aerion up, their boots tangling in a clumsy, hurried dance until the prince’s back hit the door with a dull thud. Aerion gasped into the kiss, his mouth opening willingly to Dunk's demanding tongue. He tasted of smoke, Dornish wine, and the wild heat of the East.
The impact knocked a gasp from Aerion, but Dunk swallowed the sound instantly, kissing him harder, deeper, his tongue sweeping the prince's mouth with a claiming heat.
"Duncan," Aerion breathed, tearing his mouth away just far enough to gasp for air. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the violet. "By the Seven, you took your sweet time."
"And every second was agony," Dunk rasped. He ducked his head, pressing his mouth against Aerion’s neck, his teeth grazing the pulse. “But it was all worth it.”
Aerion let out a wrecked moan, his head tossing back against the timber. But even drowning in sensation, the prince’s arrogance remained miraculously intact.
"Clumsy," Aerion panted, his hands scrambling at the buckles of Dunk’s white cloak. "You are swathed in iron like a nervous maiden, Lord Commander. Take off this ridiculous armor."
Dunk lifted his head, his blue eyes dark with a hunger that would have terrified a lesser man. "Impatient as ever, my Prince."
"I was alone for three years in the ashes of Valyria," Aerion snarled, finally yanking the clasp of the cloak free and letting the fabric pool on the floorboards. "I will not waste another second in the Stormlands."
Dunk didn't argue. He made quick work of his own buckles, the breastplate clattering loudly on the floor, followed by his arming doublet. In return, his hands sought the lacings of Aerion’s leathers. Dunk’s fingers fumbled slightly with the intricate knots, earning a frustrated huff from the prince.
"Here, you great ox," Aerion snapped affectionately, swatting Dunk's hands away to tear at the laces himself.
Dunk’s breath caught. He mapped the lines of Aerion’s body—the sharp planes, the faint, silvered scars born of dragonfire and madness that marked his collarbones. He crowded back in, his thigh pressing between Aerion's legs, pinning him flush against the timber and then slid his hands up the prince's ribs, feeling the heartbeat beneath his palms.
Aerion shivered at the skin-to-skin contact. His hands mapped the broad expanse of Dunk’s chest, fingers tracing the scars that he had probably caused. He pulled Dunk down for another desperate kiss, their bodies pressing together to erase the empty years between them.
"I hope this isn’t a cruel dream," Dunk breathed harshly against Aerion's jaw. His lips trailed open-mouthed kisses down the elegant line of the prince's throat, feeling the frantic, racing pulse beneath the pale skin. “Gods, Aerion…”
Every touch was an urgent, bruising confirmation—he is here, he is real.
"Mine," Aerion whispered fiercely between clashing kisses. "Do you hear me? You are mine."
Dunk swept his hands down to cup the back of Aerion’s thighs, hoisting the prince up against the timber. Aerion’s legs wrapped tightly around Dunk’s waist as Dunk moved towards the center of the chamber, their mouths still fused in a vicious, starving battle of teeth and tongue.
They collided violently with the edge of the featherbed. Aerion’s eyes darkened as his fingers slipped lower, gripping the waistband of Dunk’s breeches.
But then, he froze.
Three years was a vast, empty canyon of time, and Duncan the Tall was a man who commanded attention.
"Tell me," Aerion commanded, dropping to a lethal register. "Have you lain with a man? While I was lost to the East?"
Dunk blinked. Once, twice.
Then he let out a disbelieving laugh.
“Don’t laugh!”
“My apologies! I-I didn’t expect that—“
Aerion’s eyes narrowed. “You have, haven’t you?”
Dunk’s laughter faded into a lopsided, lovesick grin. He leaned over Aerion, planting his hands on either side of his hips. "You truly think another man could catch my heart?"
The very idea sounded absurd on his tongue.
"I am not speaking of your heart, Duncan," Aerion hissed, his grip on Dunk’s waistband tightening. "I am speaking of your cock. Did you take another for lust? Some pretty, eager squire? Some knight who didn't threaten to burn the world to ash in every letter?"
Dunk grabbed Aerion’s wrists, his eyes locking onto the prince's frantic, insecure stare.
"No," Dunk swore. "Gods no. You own me, Aerion. Mind, heart, soul…”
He crashed their lips together, letting Aerion taste his devotion before whispering roughly against his mouth, “…and cock."
Aerion hummed, triumphant. “Splendid. You do keep your oaths, Ser Duncan.”
Aerion reached blindly toward the bedside table, his fingers knocking aside an unlit candle before bumping against a small clay flask.
Lamp oil, meant to fuel the iron sconces on the walls.
He grabbed it, ripping the cork out with his teeth and spitting it across the room.
"Aerion—" Dunk breathed, his chest heaving as he tracked the movement.
"Quiet," the prince commanded, his eyes completely blown out, dark and bottomless with desire.
He poured a careless measure into his palm, tossing the flask heedlessly onto the floorboards. Aerion tore at the laces of Dunk’s breeches, dragging the fabric down the knight's muscular thighs.
Not wasting a moment more, Aerion wrapped his oiled hand firmly around Dunk’s throbbing cock as the other hand massaged his balls.
Dunk’s knees nearly buckled at the contact. An animalistic groan ripped from his chest at the slick, blinding friction. “W-Wait… my Prince—ah!”
Aerion’s pace was explosive, frantic to reclaim what was his. Every stroke, every slide, was a searing branding iron. He set a brutal, relentless rhythm, drawing closer to drag open-mouthed, biting kisses across Dunk’s muscular chest and stomach.
Dunk’s hands tangled desperately in Aerion’s hair. He thrust his hips into the prince's punishing, beautiful grip, his breath coming in harsh, tearing gasps as the explosive intensity of three years of repressed agony and starvation seared through his nerves.
“F-Fuck, wait!” Dunk’s hand shot out, his fingers wrapping securely around Aerion’s slippery wrists.
"Duncan!" Aerion snapped, eyes flashing with petulant outrage. "What are you doing? Release my hands!"
"Not yet," Dunk gasped, his chest heaving as he forced Aerion’s hands away, pinning the prince to the mattress. "By the gods, Aerion, not yet. You will finish me before I even begin."
Aerion let out a frustrated noise. "I am not known for my patience, Duncan."
"I know," Dunk rumbled, a fond smile breaking across his flushed face. He reached for the flask, pouring the oil into his palm. "But you shall learn."
Dunk shifted his weight, wedging his knees firmly between Aerion's legs. The prince’s breath hitched, his hips automatically bucking upward in a silent demand.
With deliberate slowness, Dunk’s oil-slicked fingers found Aerion’s ass. He pressed his thumb against the tight ring of muscle, slicking the entrance before pressing his first finger inside.
Aerion’s nails instantly dug into the meat of Dunk’s shoulders, his back bowing off the bed. "Gods! Duncan…"
"I have you," Dunk murmured against Aerion's throat. He added a second finger, stretching the prince with careful, steady pressure, pulling a shuddering whine from Aerion’s lips. "Are you well, my Prince? Tell me if I am hurting you."
"By the Seven Hells, enough coddling!” Aerion snarled. "We tore each other in the Ashford mud. I rode a dragon through the smoking, boiling seas of Valyria. I can take a hedge knight from Flea Bottom!"
Dunk huffed a laugh, burying a kiss into the hollow of Aerion's collarbone. He set a gentle rhythm with his hand, curling his fingers over the prince's sweet spot.
"You are perfect," Dunk praised, the words tumbling out of him like desperate prayers. "So beautiful, Aerion. So strong. But I just want to be careful—"
"I do not want careful!" Aerion shouted. He grabbed fistfuls of Dunk’s sweat-damp hair, yanking the massive knight's head up so their eyes locked. Violet fire clashed with ocean blue. “Stop being so agonizingly noble and just—"
"I need you entirely ready," Dunk insisted, his thumb rubbing circles into Aerion's balls as he worked his fingers deep in his ass. "I am not a small man, Aerion. Tell me how you fare. Truly."
"Duncan, I swear it," Aerion snarled, his nails digging in like talons. "If you ask me how I am one more time, I will command my dragon to roast your miserable horse! Get on with it!"
Dunk planted a chaste kiss on Aerion’s nose. “As my Prince commands.”
He withdrew his fingers, the squelch echoing in the chamber. Then he shifted forward, aligning his cock to Aerion’s tight hole as he looked down at the beautiful prince.
"Tell me to stop," Dunk commanded softly, his blue eyes swallowed black with lust, "and I will."
"If you stop," Aerion hissed, wrapping his legs tightly around Dunk’s waist and locking his ankles, "I will gut you."
With a guttural groan, Dunk finally drove his hips forward, burying himself deep in one ruthless, fluid thrust.
Aerion screamed—a shattered sound that was instantly swallowed by Dunk’s mouth as their lips crashed together. It was an explosive, brutal collision of heat and mass. The bedframe groaned violently in protest as Dunk began to move, setting a brutal, relentless pace that shattered the quiet of the room.
"Aerion," Dunk rasped. "Talk to me. Is it too—?"
"Don't you dare stop," Aerion hissed, his voice strained but ferocious. "Don't you dare pull away from me."
Dunk let out a shuddering breath, burying a kiss against the prince's temple. "My Prince… fuck! You feel perfect…”
His gentle praises continued into a litany of broken, breathless worship murmured directly against Aerion’s skin.
"Beautiful," Dunk panted, pressing another kiss, his thrusts unyielding. "You are breathtaking, Aerion. Every part of you."
"Shut up," Aerion gasped, though his hands were desperately pulling Dunk closer, refusing to allow even a fraction of space between them. "Just—just fuck me, Duncan!"
The storm outside hurled itself against the tower walls, but inside the chamber, the tempest was completely dwarfed by the explosive clash of their bodies.
Dunk anchored his hands on Aerion’s hips, burying himself to the hilt over and over again. Every kiss, every scrape of Aerion's nails, was an undeniable testament that the silence was finally broken.
They were alive, they were burning, and the emptiness of the past three years was being obliterated by the blistering fire of the present.
"Mine," Dunk chanted, thrusting deep. "Only mine. No one else."
"Yes," Aerion sobbed out. "Yours. Only yours. Faster, Duncan! Faster!"
"Look at me," Dunk commanded, barely audible above the frantic slap of their bodies. He caught Aerion’s jaw with one hand, his thumb pressing firmly into the prince’s cheekbone. "Look at me, Aerion."
Aerion’s eyes fluttered open, dark and blown wide with a blinding, euphoric haze. The untouchable dragonrider was gone, stripped down to the starving man beneath.
"Say it," Dunk breathed fiercely, plunging impossibly deep, anchoring Aerion to the furs. "Every breath. Every fire you set. You belong to me."
"Y-Yes," Aerion gasped. "Duncan—please. Do it. Break me open."
And who was Dunk to disobey his prince?
He hooked his arms under Aerion’s knees, folding the prince back, and drove into him harder, deeper, faster.
Aerion cried out. It felt like his guts were being rearranged. His fingers scrambled blindly for purchase, finally tangling in the sweat-damp hair at Dunk’s nape.
"That’s it!” Dunk roared. "Take it. My brilliant, magnificent dragon."
He felt the fluttering clench of Aerion’s ass around his cock, the unmistakable precipice of the prince's climax starting to pull him relentlessly over the edge.
He reached down and grabbed Aerion’s cock, stroking once. Twice.
Aerion shattered.
"Duncan!" Aerion shouted, as he broke into a thousand pieces, his body seizing violently around the knight, spilling his seed all over Dunk’s fingers.
Dunk let out a guttural roar, burying his face into the crook of Aerion’s neck as his own climax hit him, filling Aerion’s ass with white-hot spurts. He thrusted one final time and held it there, his entire body trembling as he poured everything he had into the man he thought he had lost forever.
For a long time, the only sounds in the room were their ragged gasps and the howling wind rattling the shutters.
Dunk slowly collapsed forward, his chest pressing flush against Aerion’s, careful to take the brunt of his own weight on his forearms. He pressed his lips to the frantically beating pulse beneath the prince’s jaw, breathing in the scent of him like a drowning man breaking the surface of the sea.
"If you ever disappear into the East again," Dunk rumbled, "I will not bother with a letter. I will simply swim across the Narrow Sea and drag you back."
Aerion snorted. "I suppose I can refrain from crossing the sea for a while. Westeros has proven itself… mildly entertaining. Now get off me, you oaf, unless you want my brother to reunite with a corpse.
Dunk chuckled, reluctantly pulling out and then rolling to the side. His arm immediately locked around Aerion’s waist, hauling the prince flush and tangling their legs together in the furs.
Aerion let him. He rested his head against Dunk’s chest, listening to the steady beat of the knight's heart. He stared into the hearth fire, his features remarkably soft for once.
"So," Aerion murmured, tracing a lazy pattern over Dunk’s collarbone. "You claim you sat with the maesters and learned your letters."
"I did," Dunk replied. He pressed a kiss into the crown of Aerion’s hair.
"I suppose I will require proof," Aerion mused, his old haughtiness attempting a feeble return, though it lacked any real sting. "I refuse to believe a man whose head is composed entirely of thick muscle and stubborn pride can compose a coherent sentence. What words did you master first, Lord Commander?"
Dunk smiled softly. "I learned how to write Aerion."
The tracing finger on Dunk’s chest stilled.
"And after that?" Aerion asked, his voice suddenly very small.
Dunk’s smile twisted into a smirk.
"Then I learned how to write is a miserable, arrogant fool.”
Aerion let out a sharp, genuine laugh—a sound so rare and startlingly bright that Dunk was positive that Aerion fucked him to death and this was the afterlife. The prince tilted his head up, his violet eyes glittering with a dangerous, familiar spark.
"You will pay for that treason on the morrow, Ser," Aerion promised, a wicked smile curving his lips.
"I look forward to it," Dunk whispered, pulling him in for another long, slow kiss. "Welcome home, my Prince."