The city rises around him, as familiar and unforgiving as always. Dunk’s boots echo against the cobbles, heavy with months of dust, sweat, and the ache of the road. He had thought he would stop at the inn first, or see a familiar face from the market, but the thought of you pushes everything else aside.

He finds you near the gate and for a moment, he stops, chest heaving from the campaign’s march, eyes taking in the sight he had longed for across every battle and every night under the stars. You look exactly the same, just how he dreamed you'd be.

Without thinking, he moves, closing the distance between you in a few long strides. Words fail him, as they always do, there's nothing adequate for months spent apart, nothing that could convey the relief and the longing wrapped up tight in his chest. He drops his arms around you in a sudden, unrestrained embrace, head resting briefly against yours, eyes closing as the tension drains from him.

“I'm- I’m back,” he murmurs, voice thick. His hands squeeze gently at your sides to make sure he isn't dreaming again. Dunk, always so tall, so solid, seems suddenly smaller in his need for you.

He leans back just enough to look at you, breath catching, blue eyes soft and unsteady. “I’ve missed this. Missed you,” he admits quietly, the words almost lost in the city’s hum but not in the way they feel, raw and true. “Missed you...”