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Egg had complained, rather insistently in fact, when Dunk first took up this job and even more when he realised that it might last. He had followed Dunk for adventure and chivalry and the sort of grand stories that would make his siblings, even Rhae and Daella, jealous, not for farming chickens, regardless of what jokes can be made about his name. He had stayed for loyalty and for his desire to put off returning to Summerhall for as long as possible.
He had done his best not to enjoy farming. He really had, but there was something about it, the stability maybe compared to his short tenure as a hedge knight’s squire or the soft sort of happiness he’d seen plainly on Dunk’s face. It made Egg enjoy it.
It wasn’t like the work was any more difficult than his squiring had been up to this point. He had been getting up at dawn most days anyway and running around after chickens wasn’t any worse than running around with lances, easier even considering Egg was still waiting on the growth-spurt Daeron had promised was coming to him. And he didn’t even have to wonder whether he was going to be shivering in the night anymore due to having an actual indoor bed, even if its comfort was comparable to the ground in Egg’s mind.
He could stay here, he realised one morning, and be content, possibly even happy. He could be a farmer rather than a prince, he could wander up to market and hawk the eggs and meat they’d gathered rather than handle courtly politics and laws and treatises, he could meet someone there or a traveller lost and in need of shelter and marry her after falling shockingly love rather than some noblewoman whose father has something his needs or worse, his sister.
He could stay here with Dunk and be his brother more than a squire. He could be happy in a way that never would be with his own family despite how much he would want to be.
He’s shaken from his thoughts by a peck on top of his hand by one of the hens he was trying to get an egg from beneath. Maybe he spoke too soon, maybe the chickens are too rude for him to deal with.