“I didn’t have a choice,” Tristan shrugged, “right up until I did.” He smiled, half-laughing at the ridiculousness of it.

“I didn’t have a choice in what happened to my father, or what happened to me,” he clarified as Celidon trotted over to the bed and set his great head on the mattress. Tristan scratched him affectionately behind his ear. “But I did have a choice in how I dealt with it afterwards. And believe me, Gray, I didn’t always make the right choices, and I’m still paying for a few of those, but you make a choice to go on, and choose what matters to you – and that’s how you get your power back.”

He laughed again, and the tightness in his chest eased a little. The castle walls exerted some of the comfort they had promised in his dreams in the forest. The world was finally slipping back onto its proper axis.

“Not sure anyone should promise not to be stupid,” he teased, his smile growing into a grin.
“That’s the kind of oath that comes back to bite you in the arse.” Tristan’s eyes adopted a mischievous glint. “And people like me get to remind you of it at their leisure.”

He fought back the hot press of tears at the back of his eyes, dropping his gaze to the blankets as he reached for his composure.

“I never realised how much I enjoyed talking to him until he wasn’t there anymore. And I keep thinking of things I should have asked him – about his life before I knew him, about his life before Shaman. I think I was so wrapped up in him being my father, I forgot he was this fascinating person too”

Tristan looked up at his friend, a single tear escaping and running down the length of his nose. He batted away, and tried for another smile, smaller, more modest.

“But thank you,” he nodded, before seizing eagerly on the change of subject.

“You can have mine when I move back into my old rooms,” he joked, lounging back against the bedpost, his arms folded across his chest. Tristan sunk down into the cushions, reflecting that maybe he didn’t miss the tree roots of the forest as much as his nocturnal mind had suggested in the early hours of the morning.

“You sly bastard,” he grinned, “you kept that fucking quiet.”

Tristan grabbed a spare cushion and threw it at Grayson’s face.

“Spill,” he beamed, “how far have you got?”

He stretched out his leg, crossed one ankle over the other and waited.

“And hey, you never know. I think Elina’s rather going to like them. I don't judge”

put all your faults to bed

TristaN

you can be king again