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It was late. The stars were hidden by rumbling, dark clouds. Only the occasional, distant blinks of lightning served to light up King’s Landing, its accompanying rain just short of a storm.
A few dim candles kept the prince’s chamber alight. It was barely visible within the high walls of the Red Keep, so low it merely peaked above the moat. It was quiet beyond the persistent drizzle of rain. And it was delightfully private, in its own corner of the Holdfast, far away from the other royal apartments and any other common room.
Prince Joffrey sat on the floor on a pile of pillows, across a low table from his sworn shield, similarly comfortable. There was simple food and drinks on the table.
Three dice clattered across the wooden surface. They fell in front of Joffrey, and he frowned as he looked across the faces, littered with dots. He tried to read them as fast as possible. The markings muddled together as his mind rushed to take it all in.
“Eleven,” the Hound concluded before Joff had the chance to finish counting.
Joffrey pouted and glared at him.
“I’m not a lackwit, I can count the dice!”
The Hound snorted. He took a handful of warm pork rinds from the ceramic pot on the table, fresh from the kitchens, chewing them loudly as he watched Joff’s face twist with offense. He had to stop himself from laughing as Joffrey grumbled and sipped his wine.
“I’m starting to think numbers aren’t for you,” the Hound continued, bits of drool and soggy food slipping from his burnt mouth and down his chin.
Joff slammed his chalice onto the table. “They are! You don’t get to call me stupid!”
“Calm down, brat.” The Hound reached under the table for his bag, rattling through it. Joff’s frown fell and was replaced by curiosity. He lifted himself and leaned over the table, trying to catch a glance until the Hound put a hand to his face and shoved him away. “Gods, you’re insufferable.”
Joffrey sat back on his pillows. “Yet you agreed to spend the night with me, dog.”
A crash of thunder sounded outside the window, and the rain grew heavier. Joff forced himself not to react. He hated storms. It was why he had invited the Hound to his chamber in the first place.
The Hound snorted again and finally pulled something from his bag. He cast it across the table. Bones, Joff recognized. A knuckle from a deer or boar or cow or… “Sheep?”
“See, you’re not entirely hopeless,” the Hound smiled, as well as he could. It was more of a twitch to the healthy side of his mouth. “I grew up in a kennel, practically. Easier and cheaper to scavenge from a sheep than to wait for some fancy dice you’d lose anyways. My father would have killed me if I lost his fancy dice instead of all my home-picked bones.”
Joffrey nodded in partial agreement, though it was often hard to tell how much he truly understood.
“And it only has four sides, ones you can recognize at a glance instead of having to slowly count dots. Sound good?”
Joffrey nodded, more determined this time.
The Hound laid down more bones until there were four distinct sides facing up.
“I called them something else, but for your sake, we can call them dog, lion, prince and Stranger, in order of worth. The one who gets the highest wins, and wins the other’s bone.”
To his light surprise, Joffrey seemed to understand and even be excited about it. The Hound fetched another handful of the bones, leaving them with ten each. That should last them a while.
It took a couple rounds for Joff to connect sides to names and value, but it made the game much smoother and more fun than counting dice had been. They drank more and more as the rounds went by.
Joffrey stopped at one point to take in how many bones he had.
“Fourteen,” he muttered with a smile.
The Hound reached past the table to ruffle his hair.
“Can I kiss you if I win?” Joff blurted out.
The Hound froze. He stared for a moment before blinking and pulling away. He shrugged it off with a laugh and sat down. “That wine is getting to you, boy.”
“Come on, Sandor ,” Joff teased. He leaned over the table to follow, nearly knocking over his wine. “Humor me. You can’t tell me you’ve never considered it.”
Sandor did look aside, and Joffrey could’ve sworn his cheeks darkened a hint. It could be hard to see with his tan skin, but Joff saw him every day and could quickly tell the difference.
“You get to kiss royalty, and I get to kiss the most handsome not-knight in the Seven Kingdoms.”
“Only if you win,” Sandor countered.
Joff smiled, resting his chin in his hand. “I take that as a yes.”
“Sure. But you'll have to beat me first.”
***
Only twelve rolls later - Joffrey counted - Sandor was left with no more dice.
He smiled like a fool as his loyal dog went quiet. The bones were swept into a triumphant pile, mocking Sandor through implication alone.
Joffrey was about to say something. Sandor interrupted him by lifting himself, reaching across the table and grabbing Joff by the collar of his sleeping gown. He pulled him in for a quick kiss. It tasted like wine and sour saliva.
It wasn’t exactly tasty, but it was Sandor, and that was enough.
The kiss was over too quickly for Joff’s liking. He still fell back into his pillows and further onto the floor, loopy with glee.
“Not often I get a willing kiss,” Sandor muttered.
“I think that was my first,” Joff responded with a soft laugh. “I wouldn’t mind another, or five.”
He heard the soft rattle of bones being parted on the table. The gentle thudding of the rain outside. A chalice being re-filled with wine.
“Better hope your luck stays good, in that case.”