The usual disclaimers apply. Tristran is a wild thing. I don't own him, or his friends.

/\/\/

Ch. 1 - Tristran.

(Seven years before Badon Hill.)

Bors relates :

It is not that Tristran is a stranger to the consumption of beverages. I shall not be the one to say that he can't hold his liquor, but the fact remains that I am roughly one and a half time his slender size, and Dagonet twice. Me sweet ma back home would have considered him frail, and would probably have insisted that he eat more.

What a battle of wills it would have been, I caught myself thinking, eyeing him with amazement as he once again drained his mug.

Indeed the stubborn ass continued hanging on, as a badger with its teeth dug into the snout of a bear, seemingly oblivious to its own more and more battered state.

We all knew he sometimes had the slightest streak of a deathwish, yet I couldn't help thinking that this was somehow unlike him. He wasn't usually going at it like that. The more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that I had really never, in the eight years I had known the man, seen him in a state like this. More than that, he usually seemed to be slightly disgusted with the rest of us when we overindulged ourselves.

Tristran liked his occasional brew, but he never indulged.

He is going to faint, I thought, If we let him go on like that. But he looked up at us through his eyelashes with just the hint of a demonic grin, his dark eyes fully unveiling the madman that all of we, his brothers-in-arms, know is in there somewhere. A rusty throat-sound that possibly could have been a laugh came from him, and then he keeled over momentarily and got up again, his movements peculiarly animalistic as always. Like a big shoddy gamebird with a broken wing, fluttering along the floor and hoisting himself into position at the table again.

Dagonet threw me a sidelong glance. What are we going to do?

Of course the damned scout saw it. Not even his present state seemed to dull those sharp hawkeyes of his, and he looked from me to Dag nastily, his gaze alone making it quite apparent. Don't even think about it!

So we didn't. I, for one, have been sparring with this guy enough times not to. I can handle myself, and usually – usually – manage not to get hurt, but then again, I am always completely wasted afterwards, while the bastard stands there looking as if the top of his activity has been scratching his bony arse. I have often even suspected him of making it too easy for me, perhaps out of consideration for Vanora – the poor gal always overreacts to the slightest nicks. But he has never even had the decency to deny or confirm my accusations.

Plus, I wasn't exactly sober meself either. And even though we weren't wearing our weapons in here, he always keeps a knife somewhere. Or two.

Or five.

He wouldn't use them? Don't be daft. He wouldn't hurt us with them. But he would definitely use them. Though if blood was spilt it would most likely be because of a stupid move into the line of danger on one's own account. You don't berate the wolf when you get yourself bitten.

Honestly, I've wracked me brain several times over as to why it was us – me and Dag – that he ended up with. Not that Tristran is 'with' anyone really, apart from that blasted bird of his. But there is, after all, only so much of your time you can avoid others.

I guess that must be it. Well, for my part. I decided not to leave him alone, at least not all the time. And somewhere along the line, he resigned to his fate. Ha!

I never knew much about his life before we were sent to Britain, save that he came from one of the easternmost tribes, all the way at the northend of the big lake the Romans call 'Caspian' (we don't call it any such nonsense – it is the Big Lake, and the biggest there is on all the Plains. Isn't that adequate description?).

They say the people of the tribes there are highly susceptible, so much so that even the males occasionally are gifted with the clear Sight that otherwise mostly women can boast, the abillity to see behind the Veil of this world and remember what they see there.

If someone told me that my brother hawkboy was one of those males, I wouldn't be the slightest surprised. It certainly would explain the way he frets over that hawk. He had it already when we set the course for Britain. A bony scarecrow he is now, and so he was then, sticking to himself and at the back of the line as we rode west and west and west, never, as I remember it, uttering a single word during the two months it took us to get to the Isles. He did have a small flute of bone which he occasionally played. It sounded like the spirits of the dead. He was quite good.

Being from the easternmost tribe he had also been the first to be collected. I'll take the liberty of guessing that he had probably not had a good time with the Roman Centurion before we were more people to take the brunt of said Centurions obvious distaste for the job he had been sent to do. Foultempered old git that one was! Ended up breaking the flute, around Lutetia I think.Tristran just sticked to the shutting-up part after that.

Presently, I looked again at my slightly influenced friend. Correction : my completely shitfaced friend.

It really wasn't like him to drown his sorrows. That was what the rest of us did. He, on the other hand, carried whatever griefs he had like a king would a crown. That is, with a kind of graceful disregard. It initially never even seemed to be clear to me whether he had any, though as Vanora once said to me upon discussing the subject, he must have. There is only one thing, she said, can close up a man like that, and that is sorrow. Old sorrow, or knowing himself very well. Or both.

Vanora has always been a clever girl.

Even now he was a man of few words. Just sat there looking at us, obviously disgusted with all this attention, and absentmindedly cutting his fingers with his knife during a supposed nailcleansing routine.

"Stop that!" And Dag reached out with brave disregard and took the knife from him. After a short skirmish, he actually managed to do so. Gods, Tristran must be pissed! I thought.

I wisely stayed out of the staring contest that ensued. No good coming between those two when they have one of their contests.

Finally, however, it got too much. "You two. You look like a pair o' Roman bloody accountant slaves 'aving to tend the books of deceased Emperor Nero, May 'is Corpse Rot In The Ground."

They turned as one and stared at me instead. Fantastic! Me and me big mouth.

However, I was happily influenced and getting tired of the whole exercise. "Tristran." I said. "Either tell us what the bloody 'ell is up, or go and have a lie-down. Otherwise it will end up with you flying your birdbrain into the Wall on your way home, which will be a shame, as we have a drill tomorrow where I promptly expect to give you a good arse-whipping."

There, that ought to provoke him a bit. Hopefully Dag would see to it that he got to bed. Or at least did not have more drink.

And with that thought, I rose and headed off home, towards Vanora and the five brats, leaving the Dumb Twins to ponder the meaning of me Pearls o' Shitfaced Wisdom, or continue their staring game at their leisure. I don't mind being the talkative entertainer, but a man can only take so much silence.

/\/\/

Dagonet relates :

Bors ended up leaving early that night. He was probably feeling uneasy about the whole thing, and I can't say I blame him. However goodhearted, Bors is not exactly the brightest of lights when it comes to finding out stuff without people telling him flat out. He likes flat out best. That is probably why he and Vanora makes such a good couple.

I, however, have had at least some training in the healing arts. Not much, but I manage. And I know hurt when I see it. It had been obvious for some time now, that something was persistently troubling him. He had always been a quiet one, and very observant, and he had always been a bit odd. Truth be told, I think the reason why Bors and I were the ones interacting with him most is because we are both strong guys, big guys, so we can hold our ground against him, at least relatively, during the drills. What I can't say that I have in grace or skill, I make up for with my size and my strength. And I trust him. He delights slightly in freaking people out, true, but he wouldn't hurt any of us (unless we hurt him first). That much I trust, though I know that not all of them see it the same way. Particularly not Lancelot, but then it never sat well with his pride to be condemned to the eternal second place.

Poor, flashy, vain Lancelot. Those two really don't see eye to eye at all. Galahad, as well, is occasionally terrified. He was the youngest, of course, and terrified of all of us when he arrived. But it seems Tristran is the only one towards whom that fear never fully evaporated.

But while Tristran has always been a loner, and a killer, the sadness in him had gotten worse. I sit watching him as he finally curls up in the corner behind the table, ignoring me completely, dragging his knees up in front of him and finally, in spite of himself, falling asleep, granting me the first experience ever of seeing him asleep from drink, in all the years I have known him.

I wonder and try to put a finger on when exactly it started to get like that. And why, even with this enhanced sadness in him, on this exact occasion our oddball has suddenly done something as totally unlike him as getting drunk.

The more I think about it, the more it strikes me that it began somwhere after Tintagel.

It is at that moment that Muirgeirn enters the place. Whatever she is doing in a tavern this time of the evening, seeing as she doesn't work here, is beyond me. For all I know she might have sensed that I wished she was here and could help me out. As a healer, I admire her. The woman knows a good deal more than your usual local Clever Woman. She is Arthurs elder sister, but their relationship is rather strange. Their mother sent her, back before she died, to be raised in the Old Ways. Much to the dismay of their Roman father. I understand that they were the dearest of siblings once, but that it is different now. It is not that they hate each other, they just seem estranged in some way.

She came back recently, now a priestess. She is a good and friendly woman.

She walks over and sits beside me at the table, ignoring the surprised glances of the rest of the clientele. They have seen a Holy Woman before, but the hour is a bit odd.

She is a tiny woman, dark and frail. The blood of the woad runs clearly in her veins, even more so than with Arthur (Entangled family that. Must be odd for him, to spend so much time killing the people of his mother, though he seems to regret it little, why I know not).

She places her small hands under her chins and together we sit, looking at the mess in the corner behind the table. She shakes her head sadly. She is perhaps the only female here that I know of, apart from Vanora, who doesn't seem particularly intimidated by Tristrans presence.

"He will kill us if we let him sit there in public until tomorrow, you know." She laughs, a soft laugh. Considering that he chose his usual corner of the place, and furthermore that it is the darkest corner, and that he has not made any spectacle of himself, except in the eyes of those who know him, we have hardly been noticed. Still, she reaches out and pokes at him.

His eyes snap open immediately. He hasn't been sleeping after all. I would like to say that i am surprised, but I am not. He looks at both of us, and for a moment I see something there, something deep and raw. But his face is adamant, inscrutable as always. He looks from one to the other. Then he unfolds himself and rises, slowly but surprisingly steadily, from his place. He looks down at us and glances at his knife, which I am still holding in my hand. Then he walks past us and leaves the tavern, going whereever it is that he goes when he does like that. He leaves the knife.

When we come out, he is gone.

"Tintagel," I say to her.

She nods in response. "I know."