I don't own King Arthur. I hope you enjoy.
Dragging his feet into the dimly lighted tavern, Bors pulled a chair from under the table an collapsed onto it. Today was supposed to be a happy day. It was to be the birth of his sixth bastard. The little boy however did not even make a sound when he came into this world. He would never learn to fight, play with his siblings, find a woman to love, he never got the chance to live. His poor Vanora had cried her poor heart out, defeated by the loss of her child. Slipping further into his depressing thoughts Bors didn't even notice someone had sat down beside him until a drink was placed in front of him. Turning to look at the person Bors only just registered the surprise at who it was.
"What do you want?" Bors grunted out.
"Take the drink it'll help you forget and dull the pain for a bit." The silent scout told him.
"What do you know about forgetting? What do you know about the pain? What do you know about the loss of a child?" Bors roared getting louder with each word. This however didn't faze the scout he just sat calmly before he spoke again.
"I had a daughter once." Tristan said. "She was beautiful and more aware than any other babe I had met before."
Bors turned in surprise at this. None of the knights even knew he had, had a child.
"What happened?" Bors asked.
"Her mother died giving birth and she had no one else to take her in" he began "I was to be taken by the Romans and I didn't know what to do. I asked the Romans if I could take her with us promising she would be no trouble, she hardly ever cried or made a fuss and I could store enough goats milk with me for the journey, but the Romans..." he trailed of laughing bitterly obviously lost in memory. "The Romans ripped her from my arms and slit her throat stating that 'now there was no trouble at all.' I was so distraught. First my wife than my daughter, then the anger set in I attacked the Romans, killed the one that took my daughter from me. In return they burnt the village and threatened that if I didn't behave they would burn every other Sarmatian tribe that we went past after taking the sons and then they would leave the rest for dead. I hated them so much but I couldn't let others lose there families when they didn't have to, so I put my head down and kept quiet."
Bors looked at Tristan and and watched as the scout slowly lost his mask. He watched as a tear trailed down his face and he continued to watch as the scout became defeated.
"I'm sorry." Bors told him. He never thought the scout had lost someone he deeply loved but he realised that there were more layers to the scout than cold-hearted killer that he seemed to portray.
"It was a long time ago now." Tristan said "but the pain of a lost child never leaves you."
With that Tristan downed his drink and pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket. Taking the piece of paper from his hand Bors carefully opened it. The paper was worn, yellowing with age, it had obviously been opened and refolded many times. Inside the the paper was a drawing of a babe. Although fading it was still easy to make out the features. The babe had tiffs of hair which Bors imagined were dark like her fathers. Big doe-like eyes which had a sense of awareness even in a drawing. She had a buttoned nose and small lips that were turned up into a smile as if she was laughing. Bors couldn't tear his eyes from the page. She was a beautiful babe that would of turned into an even more beautiful woman, but she would never get the chance all because of a stupid Roman.
"What is her name?" Bors asked carefully handing the page back to the scout.
"Alys." And with that Tristan stood and left Bors with his thoughts so he could also sort out his own.
The talk he had with Tristan didn't take away any of the pain Bors felt but as he walked back to the home he shared with Vanora and the rest of his bastards he hoped to any god that would listen he would not lose another child. Through the pain life still goes on and Bors hoped Tristan could find some love in the world again because every man deserves a family and he was going to protect his even if it killed him.
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