Chapter Text
“I dreamed of you.”
The barkeep falls silent.
He turns on his stool, gaze easily finding the lordling tucked away in the corner who has been deep in his cups since before he’d arrived. The lordling – more man than boy, they’re probably of an age or nearabouts – has made a token effort to hide himself, throwing a ragged old cloak over a doublet with intricate stitching that probably costs more than his horse.
Still, this isn’t the oddest thing someone has said to him. “Oh?” He asks, genuinely curious. He isn’t much of a man to be dreamt about, now.
He had been, once. A very long time ago.
“I dreamed of you,” the lordling whispers again, pale eyes bloodshot and his cheeks flushed against pale hair. In his hands, a goblet clatters against the wooden table. “What are you?”
…Ah.
Well.
If that isn’t a question he’s been asking himself since he was a boy, staring at the bloodied body of his only friend – his only family in the world – as the gold cloaks had strode away without a care and he’d-
No! he’d thought, frozen, unable to do anything as Rafe had died in the streets of Flea Bottom. As they’d killed her. You get away from him her!
And something inside of him had snapped.
His entire life, he’d been looking for something. He’d been searching for someone. Rafe would mutter under her breath about parents who didn’t deserve him when he’d wake up reaching, but both of them had always known it had fuck-all to do with people who’d never been in his life. But there’d always been something missing and he’d always been different for reasons that had nothing to do with how, even a boy of about 10, he’d towered over some grown men.
Jill, he’d thought, watching as Rafe’s blood spread across dirt and filth.
Joshua.
The dark space in his chest – the gaping hole that’d always sat in his chest – had burned. It still does, even now.
It’s empty.
(These… these are our terms)
Rafe bleeds to death on the streets that are their home and he watches it and he knows, he knows, that it should have been him. It should have been him.
He’s already dead; it should have been him.
What are you? The lordling had asked him.
(bearer, bastard. prince, peasant. shield, knight)
(alive, dead)
He’d would really like to know the answer to that himself.
(dead, alive)
“I-”
“No,” the lordling shaking his head, lank hair whipping around him. The shaking of his hands has nothing to do with how deep in his cups he is. “Stay away from me!”
He closes his mouth.
“Stay away from me!” He says again, stumbling away with his wide-bloodshot eyes and shaking hands.
Great.
He’s terrified a lordling by existing in the same room as him for a handful of moments.
“Don’t worry about him,” the barkeep says quietly, watching him disappear. “He’s a drunk, but harmless.”
I wonder what he dreamed about me, Dunk thinks but doesn’t say. He just shakes his head, turning back around and letting her distract him with questions about the tourney.
Unless the lordling changes his mind and decides to tell him, he’ll never know. He can’t even guess, either. Him being terrified doesn’t help him to know.
After all, Clive remembers it all.