A/N: I know I don't have any stories for Raja's third year in Britain. I wrote a few of these out of order. This part comes from a novella I wrote. That novella prompted me to write the short stories for Raja and Tristan. In the novella, when she was 11, Raja was out picking flowers and a Roman had followed her and tried to rape her. That's the gist of it. I've also copied and pasted part of the excerpt from the novella here.

Warning: Graphic Content

Raja was humming to herself, collecting berries and apples that spring had seen fit to provide this year. She had been on the island of Britain for four years now; now eleven, and Tristan twenty-one. They met frequently at the stone creek, it was simply understood that this was their place since that dark night they had met. She was glad to have a friend that understood her and treated her like an equal. Neither of them seemed to feel the age difference, it was as if they had known each other all of their lives, they were connected.

Still humming, Raja did not hear the twigs snap behind her. The hairs rose on the back of her neck when a shadow loomed over her, a shadow that was not Tristan's. In a split second she cursed herself for forgetting to be alert. Always alert, a scout's way. She sprang to her feet, but not fast enough for the man grabbed her hair, and no matter how hard she struggled, he outweighed her. She reached for her dagger, tied to her waist, but his big hand grasped her wrist, bending it backwards until she had to let go.

"Pretty little thing, you are," he said. The Roman had her back against a tree now, leering at her. "I've been watching you."

Images of that day in Egypt when her parents died made her shudder. Those men...those men that had raped her mother and killed her father...those men that had looked at her...the way this Roman was looking at her now.

"Don't get many..." he cocked his head to the side, stroking her body from head to toe with his eyes. He paused at her breasts that were budding. She had never so detested her body as she did at this time. "...women like you around here." Abruptly, he pushed her to the ground, she once again tried to get away, but his weight crushed her as he held her wrists above her head. She felt his erection against her thigh, throbbing menacingly.

One thing she had never done to a man, something she knew was completely fruitless, yet she did it at this time. She spit in his face. Raja knew a hand across the face was coming, which meant that a hand would have to leave her wrist. When she felt that hand let go, she tried to move to the side, but the Roman just grabbed her throat and delivered a blow to her face with the other hand.

"Bitch!" He spit in her face and his two massive hands grabbed her head and banged it against the ground. Though it was on the grass, it was enough to make her head swim.

Fear paralyzed her, the one thing she dreaded the most, happening again. She still had nightmares of that night in Egypt; she could still feel those men inside of her in the worst of her dreams.

She felt another fist connect with her face. Raja was tired from struggling; she was no match for this man. He cupped her breasts, squeezing them until they ached. She averted her face when he attempted to kiss her on the lips, he licked her neck as he gyrated against her. The Roman muttered, and slipped his hands under her dress, which made her make one last attempt to get away.

"Let's see if you're ready," his voice was muffled in her neck.

Raja screamed when she felt his finger penetrate her roughly. He used his forearm and pressed it against her neck, also making it impossible for her to squirm. She was dizzy from the violence done to her head. His hot breath blew on her face, he was untying his breeches, Raja could feel his penis, even harder now, poking on her thigh, aiming higher, for a mere second she felt his prick on her sex before it was pulled away and his body pulled from atop her.

She rolled on to her side, and with her blurry vision saw who could only be Tristan attacking the Roman with the look of the worst kind of hell in his golden eyes. His dagger slashed the Roman, his chest, his gut, his face, his throat, blood spewing and pouring, covering Tristan's face and his clothes. Raja still lay on the ground, vision clearing, head aching, continuing to watch the killing of her attacker. She moved her lips to call Tristan's name, trying to get air out of her lungs. She coughed.

"Tristan." She coughed again. "Tristan!" she said more loudly this time. "Tristan!" She began to sob. Not because of what she was seeing, she could have cared less that the Roman was dead, but she was scared, and only wanted Tristan to hold her. She could feel the Roman's finger inside of her, the dirt, the filth.

Tristan stopped, his name breaking through the haze of red he was seeing. He turned towards Raja and saw the anguish in her eyes and ran towards her. He sat her up gently and cradled her, stroking the massive bruises on her swollen face, leaving streaks of blood. Raja held on tightly, arms around his neck.

"Not again," she cried. "Not again."

He comforted her, hugged her tightly, his heart hurt with every one of her sobs that wracked her body; the person that meant the most to him in the world, hurting. As her cries died down, he wrapped her cloak and his snugly around her and carried her out of the woods. He took a back way to the fort; trying to spare her the spectacle that would be created if one too many people saw her bruised face and his bloody one. As he rounded the corner to her room, he saw Vanora heading towards the tavern.

"Vanora!" he called.

She turned and saw his face, covered in blood, and the figure of Raja in his arms. A look of alarm masked her face. "What happened?" She pulled back the hood and saw Raja's broken face and gasped.

"Get her uncle," Tristan said. It did not bear repeating.

He swiftly hurried to the keep, took her through the back door, and headed to her room on the second floor. Tristan entered her room and laid her gently on the bed. He retrieved the basin of water near her bed and a washcloth and dabbed at her face, trying to clean it of blood. He felt helpless, he was no healer.

Whimpers still escaped her swollen lips. "Trissy? Is he...gone?" she slurred.

"He's gone, Raja. He's gone. I promise." He continued to dab at her face with the cool water, concerned, yet raging at what had happened.

To his relief, the door opened and Dagonet, Arthur and her Uncle Ardeth stepped through. Arthur's and Dagonet's faces were shocked seeing the small figure of Raja, mangled from a brutal beating.

Ardeth kneeled down and whispered in Arabic to Raja.

"Dagonet? Could you get me some salve, cloths. She has a few bruised ribs." Ardeth asked. "Send for a bath, as well."

"I'll get everything she needs," Dagonet said, leaving the room.

Ardeth talked quietly to Raja for a moment, quelling her sobs and then faced Tristan with a hard look on his face. "What happened?"

Tristan had to take a few deep breaths to speak through his rage. "She was attacked," he said, fists clenched.

"You need to tell me what happened. And who the attacker was."

"Roman," Tristan nearly spat. "Came up behind her and tried to rape her."

"Did he?" Ardeth was an imposing figure, a man not to be crossed.

"No," Tristan huffed. The fate of the Roman was contained in that one word.

"Where's the body?" Arthur asked. If it was a Roman soldier that had attacked Raja, and a Sarmatian knight that had killed him, ramifications would be dire. "You will have to come with us, we must dispose of it. When someone notices he has gone missing, inquiries will be made." With a worried look in Raja's direction Arthur left the room...

Deliver Me

Deliver me, out of my sadness.
Deliver me, from all of the madness.
Deliver me, courage to guide me.
Deliver me, strength from inside me.

Chronology: Tristan is 21. Raja is 11.

The Egyptian girl sat crossed legged on a bail of hay in the stables, waiting for Tristan to arrive so they could go to the cemetery to bury Linus the Mouse. It was simply the little creature's time to go. Normally, she would have gone off by herself, the cemetery was the only place her uncle allowed her to visit by herself that was further than the territory she was permitted to pass by her lonesome. Despite that, Tristan had said he would go with her. All of her brothers had become increasingly protective of her since she was attacked by a Roman a month ago while she was in the woods. Raja put up a brave front even though, at times, she was frightened to the core, images invading her mind unbidden. She could still feel the man's one calloused finger penetrating her. The nightmares that had receded since being raped at the age of six came back in full force. That was the way of it.

Odin nickered impatiently. He was already saddled and ready to go, as was Dyne, Tristan's mount. Raja had taken the liberty of preparing the gray horse so when Tristan arrived they could depart immediately. At the gentle steps of Tristan's feet entering the stables, Raja stood up from her seat.

"About time," she said. "I was getting ready to leave without you."

Tristan grunted in response, mounting his horse as Raja followed suit.

They rode in silence through the forest, the wind was soft, the sky was cloudless. The horses slowed a half mile away from the gravesite so that now the rustling of leaves was audible.

Tristan took the moment to glance sideways at Raja through his mussed tresses. She had lost weight; the sparkling luster was gone from her silver eyes, turning her irises to a simple gray. He admired her for trying to be strong, for she was strong, but he knew his friend was far more strained than her face showed. More than likely, it was he who was tenser, along with the other men. Tristan would never forget the way he had found Raja that day in the woods – held down by that Roman piece of shit, his hand up her dress. Her face had been a mask of bruises; her wrists were imprinted with the man's tight grasp. He remembered that his entire vision went red, and the satisfaction he felt when his dagger had repeatedly gouged the man's neck, chest, and face, until he was unrecognizable. But the glee was short-lived when Raja began to call his name, then he was holding her broken body in his arms as she wept uncontrollably. And the cold rush that went through his body when she uttered two words: not again.

Tristan had long suspected that she had suffered the abuse of some man before she came to Britain. The things she would say, words that she probably did not even remember uttering, for she was shocked when he told her that he had considered the fact she'd been violated. Then there was the horror and shame that flooded her face when she had asked him if the others knew, the pause he gave was all the answer she needed. Of course, the others had come to the same conclusion he had a long time ago.

Raja did not come out of her room for weeks, she was held down by her demons that had resurrected themselves with the help of the Roman soldier. After a week of little to no sleep, her uncle gave her a sleeping concoction that she had adamantly refused to the point of physical combativeness. She was frightened senseless at falling asleep, and it was only until her uncle promised her that no one would leave her alone when she slept that she drank the tonic, her pupils large and empty. Ardeth was true to his word, putting a cot in her room so he could be right there with her. By a reluctant request, for Tristan did not want to make Ardeth seem as if he were trying to usurp his role as caretaker, he had asked if he could stay with Raja, sleeping on the cot to watch over her.

When she was finally strong enough to emerge from her room, she was rarely left alone, more by the men's worry than her own fears. It was natural that all Romans were now seen as a threat, the Sarmatian's ire stirred by the attack on their sister. Tristan, who had fewer social preoccupations than the other knights, took to sticking to Raja like a shadow. Because of his constant presence, he was around her most often when she floated in the past, retelling him what had happened to her in Egypt and in the woods. The first time he had heard every detail, he could not even look at her, but he sat there and listened, even though he could have left the room, and she wouldn't have blinked an eye.

Despite her trauma, his respect and admiration for the little Egyptian grew, and a part of his heart was even greater touched by how she had reached out to him all those years ago, when by all rights and purposes, she probably should have feared him. Yet, Raja had befriended him, and it wasn't until then that he had realized how lonely he was.

Tristan and Raja dismounted after they entered the cemetery through the wall of brush and trees. There was a high erection of stone that was climbable that acted as another wall. Small hills heightened the otherwise flat, green copse of land. Some of the bigger animals had been buried on different hills where the sun would shine as it made its travel across the sky. Many Egyptian symbols were carved into the trees – this cemetery seemed a much more peaceful one than the graves that held Tristan's fallen comrades-in-arms.

Tristan dug a small hole with a hand-shovel that Raja had brought along in her satchel. When that was completed, she took out a small, square box that held Linus wrapped in an immaculate white cloth. She placed him in the hole, and Tristan replaced the earth that rose in a small mound over Linus's grave. Raja said a prayer in Sarmatian - so that Tristan would understand – with genuine compassion, as she always did for every farewell. It had amazed Tristan the first time he had accompanied her to one of these funerals, and by then there were already other animals buried here and there. She remembered each animal's name, and which grave belonged to which. Tristan could not even remember the names of most of the men he had fought along side with, nor their faces, for that matter.

Raja continued to bow her head in silence after her words, letting them sink into the ground and find their way to the animal spirits. Tristan stood silently as well, not wanting to interrupt her reverie. Not long after, she let out a breath of air and looked up at him. The memory of him with the Roman's blood splattered over his face flashed in her mind for a second, and left as quickly as it had come. She had seen him with the blood of war on his person before, but had never seen him kill so savagely. It did not frighten her, nor did she think less of him, but a question always niggled in the back of her mind.

"Thank you for coming with me, even though I know it wasn't for Linus." Raja led them to an unhallowed area of ground so the two of them could sit underneath a tall oak tree.

"Yeah, well, you can't go out alone."

"Yes, I can. You just don't want me to."

He shrugged, not denying her claim.

"You really don't, Tristan." Her words were said somberly, and the use of his entire name had him raising his eyebrows, as she usually called him Trissy when she would speak solemnly. "Don't you tire of it?"

"Of what?"

"Protecting me all the time. Looking out for me."

"Why would you ask that?"

"I don't want to be a burden to you, or the others. Isn't it bad enough you all must risk your lives out there," – she gestured towards open land – "and that the Romans give you all a hard enough time without having to constantly worry about me? When you come home from arduous patrols, the last thing you should need to do-"

"Need?" Tristan stressed the word with something akin to disdain. "Who says I need to? You've never been a burden to me, or the others."

Raja scoffed, and shook her head tiredly. "I know some of you leave your rooms to sleep in the barracks because my screaming keeps you awake."

Tristan couldn't deny that. "That doesn't mean we resent you for it." He bit his lip, wanting to word these next thoughts carefully. "I can't speak for the other men, but I do not protect you out of obligation, I do it because I care about you. You do a lot for me, more than anyone has ever done for me in my life, and if I can keep you from being hurt, then I will."

"Even if it means killing another person?" Her eyes met his in a bald stare.

"Yes."

"Did you enjoy killing him?"

He turned his head away from her as he inhaled, then he looked back. "I did. And I would do it again."

Raja pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "I would have killed him," she said reverently.

Tristan reached out, grabbing her tiny wrist with his hand. She was shocked at his sudden vehemence, which shattered the calm of the woods. He didn't say anything for a period of time, but then his hand moved to hold hers, so small, so clean.

"I don't want to see blood on your hands, Raja. If you want someone dead, you come to me."

"What about your hands, Trissy?" Through her wide eyes, Tristan saw himself. Raja took his one hand in both of hers; running the pads of her fingers over his calloused, rough skin. She kissed his knuckles softly, placing one palm over the area she had kissed, as if to keep it from escaping.

Warmth spread through him at her loving intimation. "I'll be fine, as long as you are."

All of my life I've been in hiding.
Wishing there was someone just like you.
Now that you're here, now that I've found you,
I know that you're the one to pull me through.

-Sarah Brightman

4/2/07