Author's Note: Just a warning before you begin, this story is an experiment in writing metafiction, so it's going to be a little different than my usual writings. Hopefully you'll still enjoy it and tell me what you think though. :)
Kit xx
Stories like these are supposed to have some sort of clever opening, where I introduce some characters or describe some amazing setting, right? And, logically, a fully fledged plot would follow; perhaps a witty dialogue here and there. And, of course, its conclusion should be happy and its characters pleased with their lot in life.
That's right, isn't it? That's what you were expecting?
Well that's not exactly how this story will be told, and I'm relatively sure that you already noticed that. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just a writer guessing at what her reader's response might be. Maybe I'm just sitting at a computer, typing out words that I think I can string into something coherent.
Who knows...
Enough rambling. To our story, at last. I'm told that I should begin with a character; a strong one around which I can build the tale that you're about to read.
His name is Tristan; and the land he lives in is not his own. It is not his choice to be there; but that decision was made in the distant past, by distant figures from a distant Empire. An empire stretched too thin by its wanton reach for power and land.
He is dubbed a Knight, but despises the term. No one's ever asked him why; no one's ever needed to. It is quite self-explanatory to say that the pact his Sarmatian ancestors had made with the Romans, the one that cursed him to be named this so-called Knight, was once again, no choice of his own.
His hair runs dark, uncombed and tangled, save for a few solitary braids that hold no meaning. While on his cheeks, stand a pair of tattoos, pricked with black ink into his skin and holding much meaning. What that meaning is, of course, can only be guessed at by me, and by you, as it has been by so many others... Who knows; he will never tell.
Others are afraid of him. The lone scout with the deadly aim. His sword parts bone and flesh from flesh and bone like the wind changes direction. Swiftly and smoothly. He does not flinch in battle, nor seemingly fear any enemy. What is death to one like he?
There is a sense of slavery to his allotted part in life; forced as he is to serve an Empire built on greed and false morals. What should he care to try and avoid the dangers or peril that he was destined to encounter before he was even born?
He is always surrounded by those who know him, but do not know him. Always alone in a crowd of people. The way he prefers it. Only one, a hawk of almost surprising docility in relation to only him, struck up a seemingly unpredictable friendship with our reluctant Knight.
Though I am certain Tristan would not admit to such a thing, I might suggest that, more than a friendship, the two developed a dependence based on a freedom that only one of them could call theirs. A sense of flight and free will that only one of them could yet claim.
Although, perhaps life for Tristan is not as bad as I imply. Perhaps life for him suits his independent and solitary nature. And, perhaps, once again, I could be wrong...
His commander, not a fat Roman, uncaring about those in his charge, is named Artorius Castus, or Arthur. Half Roman, he is also half Briton, though he chose his allegiance to the Empire that so many curse.
That single choice means more than he could ever have known when he made it as a child. It sets him and so many others, including our aloof Knight, on a path that one could barely suspect possible. Of course, I know; and you know, because we have the benefit of history behind us. But for our characters, that remains future.
As a man of morals and equality, there could not have been a better commander for our Knight and his brothers. His brothers, who are likewise as disinclined to fight for this Empire and the foreign land that they loath. Who likewise must anyway.
On arriving in Briton, having been stolen from their homes as so many had before them, there had been twenty, no thirty of them, I think. Perhaps I miscounted. Now there are only six. Seven if you include their commander as one of their number, as he would himself.
The other Knights find other ways than Tristan to deal with their enforced labour to Rome. Mostly they drink, and find solace in the company of women. And their brothers, who they know are the only others that truly understand what they have been going through. What Hell they live.
Those still alive, divide into pairs. Each with the Knight most like them; most understanding of them. Bors and Dagonet. Galahad and Gawain. Lancelot and Arthur.
Tristan.
Alone as he prefers it.
Alone, but not alone. He is a predator, avoided by others of a weaker disposition than he. Sought by only one other; the aforementioned hunter. The hawk. Together and apart, they are silent; they are deadly. And they always find their prey, no matter how bloody an occasion it might be that they meet it.
Alone, but not always.
There was a time, that Tristan loved a girl.
I'll suppose you didn't know; it came as a surprise to me too. But why shouldn't he have? Why shouldn't our Knight have tried to find solace as the others do? Why shouldn't he have tried to make what he could of the life he is forced to live?
There was a time, that Tristan loved a girl... And a time that a girl loved Tristan. In a way. But she died. And no one mentions her since then. No one dares to. Not when her death was what turned Tristan into the man that so many fear. But that is another story, and it is one that I am not inclined to tell right now.
This is a different story.
This is a story, that is not merely a story. Not nearly a story. This is a story of a man. A Knight, so misunderstood and misjudged. A man that keeps himself to himself. And himself and his hawk. A man with no fear and no feelings, or so it seems.
A man that both you and I know has long since died, killed in a battle. But one of his choosing. Killed in a battle that changed the fate of Britain.
But now, our Knight who hated to be called so; our Tristan, is free. Free to fly forever more. Alone. No, not alone; with his hawk.
As he prefers it.