"Did you and your friend enjoy the biscuits, Tris?" Nimueh asked as she handed him his goblet with a smile.
"They were wonderful, Grandmother," Tristan replied brightly, "as always." She ruffled his hair as she swept past to sit on the sofa between Morgana and Mordred who were already nursing drinks. Arthur sat in the armchair closest to the fire reading a book. He turned the page slowly.
"What's this one called, Tristan?" he asked without looking up, his grey eyes scanning the next page. Tristan threw his legs over the arms of one of the chairs, using the other as a backrest. He took a sip of wine.
"I don't know what you mean, father."
Mordred grinned through the silence, and leaned in to his mother to whisper.
"Where are my biscuits?" Nimueh laughed and patted his hand fondly.
"In your room, the raspberry ones, your favourites." Arthur turned another page.
"You know exactly what I mean," he said with the smallest of smiles.
"She was very polite," Nimueh put-in helpfully, "and very pretty. I liked her Tristan, Annwyl." Tristan sighed.
"Hannah," he admitted, taking another drink, "her name's Hannah...Hey! Morgana! How's everything going in The Peaks!"

Morgana wasn't listening, her head was turned towards the door and both she and Kraar were looking out into the hallway. Mordred turned and noticed that the door, which he had closed behind him when he'd come in, had been pushed open. His eyes darted from the empty doorway to the little girl toddling across the floor.
"Ah!" he said, glancing at Morgana "I think we have a visitor." His sister was watching the child with an inscrutable expression, her dark eyes not dissimilar to the ones peering out from beneath the little girl's curls.
Tristan pushed himself up in his chair to peer over the back of the sofa just as Angie appeared around the side of it. Lounging back in his chair he grinned and waved at her. She toddled around the corner, navigating her way around the coffee table to stop in front of Arthur's chair.
"Oh goodness," Nimueh said, shifting to the edge of her seat, her hands clasped against her chest, "she's gorgeous."

Arthur peered down at the little girl over the top of his book. There was no mistaking who she belonged to. He closed his book and set it down on the table beside him and then, responding to the child's hand gestures, scooped her up onto his lap. The last child who had sat there had been Tristan, years ago now. He glanced across the room at the long-limbed young man on the opposite side of the room with a small smile. Time danced curiously. Had his boy's hands, now large and calloused by the handle of his sword really once been so soft and tiny?
"And you are Ángela," Arthur said back, his voice unusually gentle, injected with all the warmth he could manage. He was not usually the kind of figure who appealed to children. "Well met, little one."

Avalon stuck his nose out from beneath the table where he had been sleeping between Celidon's great paws. The Cu-Sith had stopped snoring; his eyes were closed but his ears twitched. The hair shuffled out into the open and set his paws on the side of Arthur's chair. His nose twitched curiously up at her, his ears lying flat along his back. He knew how grabby children could be. On the sofa Nimueh took Morgana's hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze.
"She looks a lot like I imagined you at that age," the older woman said, "different complexion of course, but the eyes, the hair..." she trailed off, concerned she might have said something upsetting. Morgana shook her head and rose to her seat, retreating to the window. Kraar followed her, landing on his mistress' shoulder with a flapping of wings.




Tristan
_{the only thing left are the stars}