Chapter Text
Dunk - Your Darkness And Mine
Consciousness came to him slowly, ebbing in and out like the sea right in the middle of changing tides.
First came his sense of touch. He felt his body resting on something soft and giving, entirely unlike the ground he was used to sleeping on. It moulded to the shape of his body, condensed under his weight and made enough room for him to sink into it. Dunk's head- thrumming with a dull sort of pain he only now realised was there -lay slightly elevated on something equally as soft as whatever it was below him. Keeping his head comfortably above his body in a position fit for sleeping.
The second thing that returned to him, right alongside the pain, was his sense of touch. Someone was grasping his hand, lax fingers lying on his overlarge arm as if to make sure that Dunk wouldn’t vanish. He groaned in discomfort as he attempted to turn towards it. The brush of the pillow (?) rustling against the side of his face felt muted, and he realised he had a bandage wrapped tightly around his head.
His sense of sight and smell came back together as the third. The light of the midday sun shining through some window blinded him, and a mixture of iron and herbs stung in his nose, but the man managed nonetheless. Dunk was lying in a bed; that explained the softness all around him, within a room far more luxurious than he had ever seen. A dark wood bed with a canopy made from satin framed the mattress he was lying upon; to his side sat a figure. That’s where the feeling of touch on his arm came from, too.
The omega squinted, then he frowned. Could it be? But no. How could the lad…
Long, silver strands of hair fell from a head whose forehead leaned on his arms. His skin was clammy; the position could not have been chosen for anything close to comfort. A scent of smoke, spices and oud filled the air. It was tinged with open distress.
“Egg?” Dunk croaked out, trying his best to keep his voice steady. “Egg, is that you?”
He did not know what made him call out. The man- no, the boy -at his bedside did not look like his squire. He was too old, four-and-ten where he should have been just nine, with a head full of hair when he should be bald and a body far too tall for Prince Maekar’s youngest child.
And yet.
Yet.
It had to be his squire. The scent alone should have been proof enough, but something in his clouded mind just screamed it at him as well. Dunk was sure, against all reason, that this was Egg. Aegon. Prince Aegon, the lad. His squire. Egg. Egg. Egg. Egg.
A migraine shot through his skull, harsh enough to make his eyes water. He winced, tears coming to bead at the rim without finding the strength to fall. He was so distracted by the mess in his own head that he hadn’t even noticed the way his squire shot up, frazzled face framed by a mess of hair. If Dunk had the ability, he’d comment on the eye bags below his eyes or just how red their edges were, as though he’d been crying.
“Ser Duncan!” The lad gasped, scrambling up and away from his side as though he’d been burned. Dunk wondered why. He’d never been too shy about clinging on before. It made some part of him, perhaps foolishly, want to pull him back in closer and reassure him of his safety. The scent in the air was invaded by a disgusting sense of fear-uncertainty-terror that made him want to gag.
He whined low in his throat instead, chest rumbling as he struggled to lift his arm.
“What— what happened?” The knight struggled to form the words. He must have been given milk of the poppy, and that in no small amounts, for him to struggle so much with the simplest of tasks. His memory was painfully blank of anything that could have caused this, most of himself was smothered under a heavy blanket of drowsiness.
Egg looked at him with utter confusion. “...I- Ser Duncan?” He asked him, voice small as though he was speaking to some kind of unpredictable animal. Like the man was not a man but a horse that had gotten spooked, and his squire been put in charge of calming the poor steed down without quite knowing what the issue in the first place was. “Ser Duncan, is…Are you alright?”
No, no he wasn’t. He could tell the boy a thousand ways in which he wasn’t all right.
All Dunk managed to form was a cut-off, “Hurts, my head-”
“Your head? You- You fell from your horse, Ser. They’d said that the wound— ”
“Egg,” Dunk breathed, “Egg, why do you- why do you look like that?”
“Look like what?”
“H-Hair. Why do you- when did you grow? When did your hair grow? When did any of this,,”
“.....Ser Duncan?”
A confused kind of worry replaced the fear that had been present in his squire’s scent just moments ago; both were equally as unpleasant to his nose as they were ugly seeing upon the other’s face. Once more, he tried to search his mind. Rummaging through clouds of memories and strings of thought that left before they properly came to him. His last memory- what was the last thing he could remember? The last action he took?
A trial, Dunk came to think, there was a trial. Against who? A Trial of Seven. Initiated by Aerion. Prince Aerion, Egg’s brother. He hurt Tanselle; Dunk defended her. There was blood; his shield broke. Had he won? He must have, he lived. Why was everything in his mind so blurry? There was fighting and crying and screaming. Baelor was– Prince Baelor; he swore himself to him. The realm needs good men, Ser. But Dunk did not get injured too horribly. Not on his head. He survived. But the memory wasn’t fresh- something told him it was anything but. More had happened after the trial and after that day too. But he could not remember. Why could he not remember? Why did Egg look at him like that? There was a trial. The last he could remember was a trial.
He had fought in a trial.
A hot trickle of blood ran down from his nose and dripped onto the white shirt he wore. He tasted the iron on his lips. Egg saw it too.
“Maester Yormwell!” The lad called out, “I- I need you, Ser Duncan- he’s—”
The knight hadn’t even noticed the presence of another person in the room. A flicker of dark robes and a chain grazed his periphery.
“Stay still, my lord.” My lord? He hadn’t even noticed…something pressed to his lips. A brew; it tasted bitter. Dunk blinked.
He was in a trial. His last memory was of a trial.
The world turned dark around him.
—
The next time he awoke, Dunk did so significantly calmer.
His head no longer felt like rolling off his shoulders; his limbs moved when he willed them to do so, and he could actually string together more than two or three coherent thoughts without already beginning to lose the first one.
The maesters around him must have brought him back to consciousness somewhat on purpose this time. For when the omega opened his eyes, he was not met with a hunched-over boy at his bedside, but instead with a litany of robed men standing around him. All watching him with rapt attention and hands ready to spring into action, almost like they were afraid of this or that going wrong once more.
“My lord,” One of them intoned, “How are you feeling?”
That title again.
“‘S fine,” Dunk decided to mumble, finding his voice hoarse from disuse. He had worse for certain. Wounds and bruises he walked or rode off while travelling with Ser Arlan so he could learn to push through the pain like a true knight out. Or so he had said, at the very least. Still, he must have gotten hit on the head pretty badly for it to take him out like that. Being thick as a castle wall usually made you sturdier.
“Why are you…Why are you calling me a lord?”
Whatever chatter the maesters had shared amongst them moments ago subsided as though they had been shot with an arrow. A dozen pairs of eyes stared at him suddenly, all with various levels of concern. Where had so many learned men even come from? That Dunk could not say. And what was this room he found himself in? Where was it? Who did it belong to? At best the likes of him should have awoken in some grimy mattress with a septon or wandering maester doing his best; how did he–
“It’s your title, my lord.” A maester explained to him in slow words. As if he couldn’t be sure whether or not he spoke the same language as the man lying in the bed before him. “As the mated consort of his grace, the king, you ought to be owed at least that much in courtesy. Even if you are lowborn.”
Dunk blinked.
Once, twice, thrice. The men were still there, still looking at him seriously, not a hint of guile or jest in their expression. He blinked a fourth, fifth, sixth time. Still nothing changed.
“I- I am what?”
“His grace, King Baelor the second of his Name. The two of you have been mated and married before the seven for nearly four years now, my lord. Ever since he ascended the throne. Do you not remember?”
No, Dunk thought, panic slowly rising in his gut. He did not remember. He did not remember anything like that. If it had been anyone else telling him so, he’d have threatened them with a clout for lying to him so obviously. He, a hedge knight, the mate of a king? Of Baelor Breakspear? It seemed impossible. Even if it weren’t for his lowly upbringing in Fleabottom, or for the bastardy that had probably birthed him, or for the fact that he could not even read or write- he was not fit to be a monarch’s mate. He wasn’t fit to be anyone’s mate, in fact. Which alpha could possibly want some overlarge, clumsy, ditzy omega such as him? He couldn’t even cook or care for a household well. The closest he’d ever gotten to raising a pup was the lad. He was lucky enough to be allowed to serve Baelor as a knight; how could he ever be his mate?
“No,” Dunk shook his head. “No, there must be a mistake. I could not possibly be- you are jesting. You must be. You are trying to make a fool of a poor, lone hedge knight. I would not dare even imagine…”
A maester- another one, who stood to his left and made the omega turn his head to look upon him -sucked in a breath as if he could not believe what he saw either. “My companion has the truth of it, my lord. Feel for yourself if you won’t believe us, you bear the mark of his grace. Right atop your gland, as only alpha would do to omega.”
His hand ghosted over the raised scar tissue over his gland almost on his own. Sure enough, a bite mark. Properly set during a shared heat and rut, probably in a matching set with his supposed husband.
“I have a mate.” The knight could not believe his own words, “and that mate is the prince.”
“The king now, my lord. Your husband has followed his father onto the throne; may the gods keep the old king Daeron well.”
He still recalled how the mud felt under his knee when he knelt that day in Ashford. Uncomfortable and wet, seeping into every little opening it could find until it drenched through his armour entirely. It was a small price to pay for the comfort of Baelor’s hand on his cheek and his smooth voice.
Mayhaps it was a dream. In a few moments, he will wake up, probably jolted awake by the bald face of Egg urging them to keep moving or the rain falling through the branches of his elm. He would laugh, utter a curse if the situation demanded it, and then feel embarrassed about even imagining a thing so silly as him mating a Targaryen. Dunk would forget about the affair soon enough, and if he didn’t, he’d keep it tucked away as a fantasy for quiet nights.
“I will inform his grace,” Maester Yormwell, whom he’d only just noticed was also present, informed them rather quickly. “It will be better for a familiar face to deliver these kinds of news.”
Before Dunk could open his mouth to say a single word, the old man had already left the circle of his peers and rushed out of the room, his spot quickly filled by an assistant carrying a book and parchment as if he was reading himself to make notes for something.
“What is the last thing you remember, my lord? Please, be specific.”
The last thing he remembered was the trial. He told them as much.
“I was injured. Aeri- Prince Aerion, he had broken Tanselle's, that is, the puppeteer girl’s, finger. He would have killed her had I not intervened. He challenged me to a trial of seven; his grace took my side, we fought..I- I won, I think.”
You and your fool mouth, the omega winced, of course you won! You’re alive, aren’t you?
“I did win; the prince yielded.” Dunk amended in a poor attempt at sounding sure of himself. “But I- uhm- I got injured a few times. I had to…I was stabbed, and then some. It hurt. His Grace, Prince Baelor- I mean, King Baelor- he came to see me after. He rode for me, and he vouched for me, and he was always good. I swore myself to him after; I’m his man, his. His knight. I remember he accepted. Then…”
The room, his squire, the strange feeling in the back of his mind that he was missing everything he ought to know. “I woke up before. My squire,,,”
“Your squire is safe, my lord.” Someone assured him almost immediately, “he has been very worried for you ever since your accident. He would not dare leave your side; we had to force him away to take proper care of you.”
“My accident?”
“A riding accident,” another, once more foreign man jumped in. His mind was swimming with their voices and faces by now. The tale sounded familiar. “F-Fell from my horse?” Dunk croaked out. The maester nodded his head enthusiastically. “Yes, my lord! Exactly! It happened a sennight ago; you were out in the city when your mare spooked. It threw you off in such a way that you were unable to break your fall, ending up landing head first on the stone pavement below. You have slept since, right until today. Do you remember that?”
He shook his head. “Egg told me; when I first awoke, he mentioned it.”
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, the mood dropped. He felt bad enough to want to apologise. He did not get the chance, for not a second later the door burst open in an echoing thud as it hammered against the wall, allowing the new arrival to push past the conglomerate in the room in their shock and up to Dunk’s side.
He smelled the agitated mix of smoke, cinnamon and cedar before he even spotted the dual-coloured eyes or the glinting golden crown atop his head. Baelor must have been close to whatever apartments they’d settled Dunk down in to rest, for he arrived in an absurdly short amount of time for a king.
“Duncan, how are you—”
“Your Grace,” the knight gasped, stumbling and wincing to get out of bed and kneel to pay the proper respects to his liege. He’d been grateful, then, that his good Ser Arlan had beaten the proper etiquette into his head the way he had when he was but a boy. “Forgive me my state, my prince, I don’t know…These men, they’re saying…”
Baelor looked down at him in a mix of horror and devastation.
“--Amnesia.” Maester Yormwell, closely following behind his ruler, announced to the room. As if he had not gotten to finish his sentence before the other stormed off “Lord Duncan, mated consort to his grace the King, is suffering from amnesia.”
—
Between Baelor’s heartbroken stare, the chatter of the men around him and the constant examinations of everything about his person, there was very little time for Dunk to continue doubting the truth of the reality he found himself in.
He supposed that it only made sense.
It would have been utterly unbecoming of a simple hedge knight to have such rooms and be tended to by so many people. But for the mated consort of a king? That was something different entirely, most certainly. By the time the maesters in the room seemed satisfied with their work and with his state, Dunk felt like he had fought a whole battle all over again.
“Your Grace, my lord…” one of them nodded. “We are happy to announce that Ser Duncan is in a stable state and should fear no direct danger to his life. The head wound has stopped bleeding and does not look to be festering. The rest he took from his sleep has aided him in his recovery, just like we’d hoped. He may need to be careful not to overexert himself too much for the next moon or so; after that, however, he should be fully capable of all he usually did.”
“His memories are a different matter,” Maester Yormwell took over, “We will have to see how it develops. The mind is a fickle thing, I fear. Sometimes people begin to remember what they’ve forgotten all on their own. Other times, they may never regain them. I have written to the citadel to ask them to scour their own archives for a possible cure; until then the best we can do is wait. Wait and pray, that is.”
The words settled heavier over the room than they did on Dunk. Which did not mean that it made it any easier for him.
Baelor nodded grimly. “Thank you, maester. I assume that means we shall need to arrange ourselves?”
“Someone ought to tell your mate all he has missed,” the older man agreed. “You or Prince Aegon have held vigil at Ser Duncan’s bedside for nearly the entire duration of his slumber; if you wish to rest, it would be easy for me to bring him up to date with all that has happened.”
He had expected Egg to stay by his side. Seven knew that the boy was clingy, even in the bit of time they’d known (the bit of time he could remember?) eachother since the start of the tourney. He was a loyal lad, who was fierce even when he was still little more than a pup himself.
Or, well, had been a pup. The boy was four-and-ten now, most likely presented already if his scent was anything to go by. It had lost the milky notes a pup ought to smell like. Instead, the hints of his true scent were at their full strength now, overpowering any leftover sign of youth. It made Dunk’s stomach cramp in ways he had no real explanation for.
Either way- regardless of his age -the omega had expected his squire. He had not expected Baelor. Especially not if he was king now, for surely he must have had duties more pressing than standing vigil at some sickbed. It should have been the other way around, if nothing else. Him guarding his felled liege when he is at his weakest. Reliable and strong, just like his good Ser Arlan had always taught him to be.
“It is well within my capabilities to do so myself,” the alpha told his maester, looking ever as composed. He had more grey in his beard, Dunk thought. It made him look even more handsome, some traitorous part of him whispered in his ear. “I suspect that he’ll have questions I should best answer myself.”
“As you wish, Your Grace.”
“Some privacy, if you would.”
Maester Yormwell nodded. “Of course, Your Grace. I shall be in my study.” The man looked towards Dunk. “Please, feel free to send for me should anything arise. Any pain, discomfort, loss of senses…one can never be too sure with these kinds of things.”
“I understand” Dunk affirmed. “Thank you, maester.”
Baelor waved his hand as if he cast a spell. The maesters began to file out of the room in an orderly fashion, not even a minute later. They made haste to gather all of their countless instruments and medicines strewn about the room, shoving this or that in some assistant's hands or stacking one book atop the other. Before he knew it, the room had nearly emptied of all those previously inside. The heavy wooden door was pulled behind them all by the last man to leave.
He let out a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding. Glad for the gathering of foreign scents and the countless eyes turned towards him to be gone. It left him sitting in heavy silence, a pregnant pause between him and Baelor still at his side.
“Your Grace, I-”
“Please, Duncan,” The king cut him off with a strained expression, “Please, not that. Don’t use my title with me, not now. We are mates; we ought to be able to address eachother as such.”
Whatever the omega had wanted to say, he swallowed it down alongside the spit pooling uncomfortably under his tongue. “R-Right, of course…” He nodded. “I…I’m sorry, B-Baelor.”
The name felt wrong on his tongue. He ought to put a title, prince or king, before it. The bite mark on his neck throbbed in turn with his heartbeat. Not so much as to make it painful, but enough to have him notice. For some reason, he wanted to preen and puke at the scent of Baelor starting to invade his nose.
Baelor sighed heavily. “No, you shouldn’t apologise either. Nothing of what happened is your fault. It must be confusing for you. Waking up, not being able to remember anything, having all these people around you... No one in their right mind would expect you to be able to get used to everything.”
Confusing, yes. That was the right word. Everything, from the room to the people to his own marked glands, was confusing to him. Five whole years of his life were a terribly long time, Dunk came to discover. Those were sixty whole moons; the reasons must have changed by now for sure. A thousand questions shot through his mind like arrows fired from a crossbow.
What happened during my accident?
Why am I no longer a simple knight?
Why did you choose me, out of all the comely noble omega ladies you could have had otherwise, to be your mate?
What did the realm say?
What did Egg say?
What happened after the tourney in Ashford?
Is Tanselle safe?
Are Raymun and Lyonel and your brother and your cousin and all the other men who fought in that trial alive?
Are they well?
Are you well?
Has your injury healed?
He wanted to say everything and anything at the same time. Instead, Dunk saw himself forced to settle on a single query to ask first. Words barely able to contain all that he ought to have known already
“How did we... How did all of this happen? Us being mates, you being king, me having- having a title and living here?”
There was grief in Baelor’s eyes that Dunk knew not to describe. He understood his king was searching for something- anything -in his gaze. He saw how the purple and black bore into him, as if he was trying to dig up some treasure from the stolen mess of his memories with his gaze alone. If he was not certain of the truth of all that had happened before, he was so now. For he was sure that only a mate could look at him with such a devastated expression as Baelor did.
“You truly have no clue, don’t you?” He intoned, perhaps a little childishly. “The maesters said so, but… after Ashford, you truly cannot remember even one thing.”
“No, your gra- I mean, Baelor.”
“All of this must be terribly unsettling for you.”
“A little, yes. But…if you told me at least some of what I’ve forgotten, mayhaps then it would get better?”
That’s how Dunk found out about the kind of life he had lived for the past half-decade.
Apparently, he and Baelor had fallen in love shortly after the tourney and been…involved for at least half of a year before his ascension to the throne. Some great sickness had swept the land, taking with it countless lives as it decimated the realm. Baelor had barely managed to escape the outbreak that would end up claiming his father’s life, together with his son and heirs by staying on Dragonstone to weather the crisis. After which, once they had observed the proper mourning, he’d been swiftly crowned King of the realm, with his brother Maekar taking his side at his hand.
Dunk had spent most of said time serving at his side as his loyal guard while he trained Egg as his squire, seeing to the boy’s education almost as devotedly as he did seeing to his liege’s well-being.
Their wedding had been a quick, small affair only for the eyes of family. The council had hawked and hawed at the idea of their king marrying a lowborn knight, but the smallfolk had adored him and with the succession already secured by his sons with Jena…well. He would not have been the first widowed lord who would take to wed a low-ranked love match after his highborn political spouse had passed away.
“Though I could not crown you my queen without risking too much opposition, nor could I make them offer you a title equal to my own. Even if your station as my mate should outweigh your birth as a bastard from Fleabottom.” Baelor spoke the words with shame. “I am sorry, Duncan. I know you deserve better than that. The court hasn’t been…they’ve warmed up to you now, no matter what. Our people adore you.”
Our people, not the people or my people.
Our.
“I-It’s alright,” the omega attempted to comfort the alpha, “I don’t like that courtesy stuff much anyway. It- I would have been perfectly happy just staying a Ser, I fear I’m not fit for the kinds of fancy things the people at court call eachother.”
“You have said the same back then, too. Even when I insisted that I had disappointed you.”
“You have not disappointed me.”
“I know.” Baelor agreed. “You could never stand the court. I can’t blame you for it…”
Yes, Dunk could imagine. Even if he had not a single memory involving it, the thought alone made him grimace. Halls filled with rich alphas trying to show off or petit omegas trying to seem marriageable. Sweet ladies in pretty gowns and educated lords who would surely sneer at Dunk as they always had. Filled with some delicate web of social rules and alliances no common man could ever hope to understand, where Dunk would only manage to walk through like an ox through a spider web and make a mess of it and itself at the same time. He would have been satisfied as a silent, uninvolved guard who would only have to worry about following the orders of his prince. That, at least, would have been manageable for him to do. It was for the best that he was not queen, and instead only the king’s mated consort. It would not have done well for anyone involved.
Still, the guilt in his mate’s eye persisted. As if he was doing Dunk some great injustice by deciding to give him less than, even if it was just for the sake of keeping the realm at peace. As though it would not have been enough alone to simply be allowed to stay by his side.
Dunk’s scent was that of petrichor, forest and campfire. He knew, for Ser Arlan had told him as much when he first presented as an omega while he was travelling with him. It harmonised well with Baelor’s smoke, cinnamon and cedar. Enough to calm the alpha down and make him look up nonetheless.
“It is alright, Baelor.” He tried to assure the other man with a shaky smile, “I- I know I’m not the smartest. Or the prettiest. Or even the best omega you could have chosen. But….but I meant it when I swore that I was your man. And I am certain that I meant it when i spoke wedding vows to you, even if I can’t recall them. I’ll have you, happily, no matter the titles you are or aren’t able to give me, if you want to have me in return. I promise.”
Comforting always came easy to Dunk.
“I will make a good mate,” the omega thought with determination. “No matter what, I will be a mate Baelor deserves.”