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best of gold is worst of gold
IP: 82.19.140.112
Posted on April 12, 2013 at 04:21:11 AM by t r i s t a n

Tristan could remember nothing of what had happened before the guards had found him. He had jerked into temporary consciousness when one of the men had rested a hand upon his shoulder, but the voice that had said “highness?” in a tone of concern had sounded very far away indeed, and in volume little more than a whisper. His sleep was troubled, filled with sharp teeth, vicious claws and haunting hisses. On more than one occasion he had found that he had wanted to awaken, but had lingered reluctantly in the place in between sleep and waking for too long, unable to rouse himself. Sleep had dragged him back again, and the nightmares had begun again. There had been other voices, lingering on the edge of hearing, more familiar, soothing, and they had heralded in an easier sleep. The prince stirred finally, his awareness of himself and his surroundings coming to him slowly as he peeled his eyelids apart. The lights were low and flickering, but he recognised the familiarity of his own bedroom. The curtains on his four-poster had not been lowered, were still drawn back and tied in place with their golden plaited chords. He felt ill, sick and hot, his head throbbing, whilst the entirety of his body felt like a giant bruise. Tristan turned his head slowly as he became aware of another presence, and, finally, his eyes found his father’s. He wanted to cry, in relief, in embarrassment, but mostly because he had been afraid and now his father was there to drive the bad things away.

The door to the room swung open. Tristan tried to turn his head further to see who it was, but found that his neck was too sore to do so. He couldn’t even find the energy to move the blankets in a more comfortable position and instead, reached out to take his father’s hand. Arthur gave Tristan’s fingers a fond squeeze before turning to the figure in the doorway. “They found him in the Marsh,” the Prince heard his father say in a soft voice, “raptors, three of them.” The king fell silent and Tristan heard a floorboard creak as someone moved across the room.
“Grandfather,” Tristan managed as he finally set eyes upon Mallos’ face, and a small sad smile pulled at the edge of his mouth. A sudden wave of emotion struck him, everything he had been feeling moments before magnifying tenfold in a rush and he tried to bite back tears. A single one escaped, running down his face onto the pillow, “I’m sorry,” he muttered, trying to move and biting his lip as his chest began to sting with pain again. He had almost forgotten. “I didn’t...I wasn’t...I...” he broke off again as another tear found its way onto his pillow, and Tristan screwed his eyes closed so that he wouldn’t have to look at anyone.

“No one’s angry with you,” Arthur said in an attempt to reassure his son, glancing up at Mallos with a concerned expression, “are they Mallos?” The King’s eyes were unusually soft, almost all of their hardness stripped away even though the Spaniard was there. It was a sign of vulnerability, but for once, Arthur was not concerned enough to try and conceal it. His interests lay elsewhere. For a while, for a few horrible moments, he had believed that he was about to lose another son. The boy still did not open his eyes, but the tension in his young face told the king that Tristan was not asleep, but he didn’t know what else to say. His words were lost somewhere, wrapped up in his thoughts and he wished that Nimueh would return to fill the silence. She seemed to have an uncanny ability to detect when he needed her to speak, to ask him mundane questions and draw him back out of himself.
photography by Dominic’s pics | Mark Cutler at flickr.com






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