It felt right, as so few things had for the longest time. She was peace and escape, soothing as the last of the birdsong of the dying day as the sun set on the other side of the glass. It was the best of evenings, as if it sensed his mood, as if he was caught up in its. With the door closed and Jay sent away, his room seemed to have taken on the guise of a fortress against the realities of everything his life had become, of what Mordred had made it. It was their own little pocket universe, where time slowed to match their breathing, and they were the only two people in the world. His nightmares couldn’t trouble him here with Alethea in his arms, a light in the impending darkness.

And she wanted to stay.

He’d only half-dared to hope that she would. For all the sense of inevitability in the moment, of every unspoken promise clinging to her words, he did not fully dare to hope that she meant what he wished she did. To stay, yes, to talk, to touch, all oaths fulfilled already, but more?

There had never been a girl like her, not for him. The girls who usually answered his smiles knew the game, everything for a night, a brief promise with no guarantee of continuation. And his only nagging doubt, in that little world of theirs, was that he didn’t think himself capable of more. The shadows reached for his heels, their long cruel fingers hunting him, he couldn’t promise himself anything about tomorrow, let alone her.

But he wanted her, he wanted her to know him, to know everything he couldn’t say, everything he needed to. No one had ever shown him how to take himself apart, to admit, to heal, but maybe she could?

“Jay won’t be back,” he reassured her. “And even if he tried,” he chuckled, “I’ve locked the door.”

His grin returned, reaching his eyes, reminiscent of the boy who might once have told her he’d sealed a couple of guards in a tower room somewhere until he’d finished breaking whichever of his father’s rules he’d felt like flouting that particular morning.

The muffled knock at the door was the universe’s final attempt at a diversion, offering them both an avenue by which they might leave the road they’d started down. He lingered a moment, reluctant to let her go, not sure if he could even if he wanted to. But if he couldn’t offer her everything she wanted, then she deserved the diversion, should she want it.

Tristan released her and turned to go, but she didn’t let him get very far. Her hand moved, catching hold of him, drawing him back. Her words were exactly what he wanted to hear, and he couldn’t restrain himself any longer.

Decisiveness was often hard won; it came after agonising length, or after a punch or a blow. Sometimes it came in the mystery of dreams, in others a slow dawning moment of truth. This time it came as a soft, welcoming hand in the dying light of a gentle day.

“Then don’t.”

Tristan turned back to her, his heart racing, his blood humming, drawing closer, closer.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her full on the mouth.

And this too was inevitable.

you were never born to quit

TristaN

you gotta stand up, you weremade for this