Tristan glanced around the barren room, noting the plain walls and simple furniture. He wondered who it had belonged to before they’d arrived from the forest, and where they were now. Had they packed up quickly? Or had they just been really really dull?

“No wonder you’re miserable,” he said reasonably, leaning forwards to scratch Era behind her ear. “This room is in need of...well, pretty much anything.” Sitting back again, he crossed one left over the other and sunk back into the cushions. “Although,” he sighed, running his fingers through his hair, “you should come and see the tapestry hanging in my room. It’s hideous. I only left it up because of the boobs.”

The Grayson-shaped mound on the bed moved, but whether it was prompted by his yammering or the mention of boobs, Tristan was unsure. He waited patiently, and when his friend finally decided to talk, he listened, considering, his attention shifting between Grayson and his familiar, reading both. Once Grayson had talked himself out, Tristan climbed to his feet and crossed to the curtains, opening them just enough to let in enough light to see by. After weeks of sleeping in a cave, he was tired of the gloom.

“Do you honestly think for one moment I ever thought you did it on purpose?” Tristan asked, turning back into the room. He didn’t sit down again, instead he approached the foot of Grayson’s bed and leaned against one of the columns of the four poster, his arms folded across his chest.

“I didn’t shut you up in the henge to punish you or because I was angry with you, I just didn’t know what else to do. I had no way of knowing what Mordred had done to you.” Sighing, Tristan climbed up onto the wooden trunk at the foot of the bed and perched himself on the bed frame.

“I know what it’s like, Gray, and it feels like shit, believing that you betrayed someone you care about. Only here’s the thing...’ He paused, offering his cousin a smile. “You didn’t betray me. I know you would never do that.” Swinging his legs around so that his feet were on top of Grayson’s blankets, making the duvet sink, he rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands.

“Tell me something,” he said, “at any point, from you getting captured, to me locking you inside the henge, did you actually get the opportunity to make a choice?” Tristan angled his head to one side, holding his cousin’s eye.

“If you were never offered a choice, and you never made a decision, then what happened was not your fault, Gray. My father always said that the type of person we are is determined by our choices.”

Tristan dropped onto the mattress, and crossed his legs, sitting opposite Grayson like they had when they were boys.

“Don’t let Mordred do to you what I let him to do me. Don’t let his choices make you feel like shit when he was the one who decided to hurt you.”

put all your faults to bed

TristaN

you can be king again