Title: Dare You To Move
Author: Myr
Summary: (Tristan/OFC) Short, pre-KA. Tristan restores meaning to life.
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Myr's comments: This took a really long time (9 months), many additions, and many phrase re-writes before I was satisfied with it. Thanks to Ange and Steph. This was initially inspired by the refrain of the song Dare You To Move by Switchfoot, though not a songfic at all.
I had lain myself down three days ago. Down on the grass not far from the road, not far from my village. I now stared desolately at a sky no longer suffused with smoke. It had rained the previous night and doused the embers of my home.
I hadn't moved. I had hid in the trees. I had stayed hidden during the screaming. I had stayed hidden during the scrambling. And I had stayed hidden during the burning. They came and left in the space of hours, and destroyed what amounted to lifetimes.
I hadn't moved in three days. At first I hadn't moved for my grief was too heavy. Then I hadn't moved for my will to do so was gone. And then I couldn't move for my body had lost its memory of what movement felt like.
I moved no longer, but my eyes still saw. Saw the clouds pushed along by the breeze. Saw the sun set and rise and change the color of the sky. Saw the heavens tread from horizon to horizon undaunted by the occurrences down on earth. And then saw a bird followed by a man followed by a cavalry.
"Is she alive?" One. Black iron and flowing red identified him as Roman.
"She's breathing." Two. A keen eye for detail.
"Lady, are you hurt?" Three. Pretty words said with such pretty lips.
I couldn't think of a truthful answer to give, so I gave none.
"Can you understand what I'm saying?" Four. Boisterous. Playful tone yet serious in meaning.
I nodded, barely.
"Are you wounded?" Five. Almost angelic were it not for armor and grime.
"No." I winced as the walls of my throat rubbed together raw.
Six. Beauty defined by a frightful scar. He dismounted and cradled my head as he poured water into my mouth. "There, that should help."
"They didn't see me… I couldn't do anything." I lacked the words to describe the horror of what I had seen, of what I felt, but my tears seemed testament enough. "They left… and I waited."
"Waited for what? Did you know we'd be coming?" Seven asked, confused.
"She waited for death." I immediately knew that Two understood what it was like to find oneself suddenly utterly alone.
"You just gave up?" Seven's shock betrayed his youth. Had to wonder how he'd kept his innocence safe through his knightly life thus far.
"And where was I to go? Did they not destroy the next village as well?" He didn't answer, but I needn't one; I already knew.
"How long have you been here?" Five asked.
"Three days."
"Can you move?" Inquiry with an undertone of command from One.
"I don't think so." Six hefted me up, and I was a symphony of cracking cartilage.
We traveled for 6 days and found 4 other survivors. A brother and sister that had floated away in a stream of water as thick as the blood shared in their veins. A widow in a web of ribbons left pinned to a tree through the flesh of a thigh and a hand. And a man who had been left burning in a nightmare and had rolled down a hill of morning dew.
Like me, though for various reasons, they did not move. The siblings sat soundly in an embrace that could not be severed. The shattered woman, for the exception of slow blinking eyes and occasional tears, had lost all semblance of vitality. And for the charred man whose flesh smarted with simple exposition to wind, movement was a dream that wouldn't come true for months to come.
I was not unmoved as I sat and watched them on the morning of our third day of travel. And I realized I had no such excuse to be so unmoving. I suspected another had come to the same conclusion when I found myself observed by a pair of sharp hazel eyes that often looked down the length of a piercing arrow.
"Come." Tristan held his hand out for me to take. Getting up was a slow process; I would not have guessed that muscles could ache from lack of use.
"Where are we going?"
"Nowhere. You need to stretch your legs." He led the way, and we walked till I needed the help of a tree to stay upright. He paced a few steps back to face me and asked, "You still wish to die?"
I thought on it and eventually nodded affirmatively. "I have nothing left to live for."
"Those you loved may be gone, but you are not; you have yourself to live for."
"To what purpose?"
"You choose your purpose, you choose how you will spend the time you are granted."
Three days of contemplating his words. Three days of watching him as he watched the trees. One night of worrying, and one morning of waiting for him to return when he was asked to ride ahead. And one drawn out moment shared in a gaze, me looking at him looking back at me, when our destination had finally been reached.
Everyone and everything was in motion at the outpost of Hadrian's Wall. My fellow survivors were carted to the infirmary while I stood watching, scared of starting a new life so soon after the blazing funeral pyre of the last. I stood rooted till Tristan placed a firm hand on my back and ordered me forward. I followed his manual commands until I found myself settled next to him on a bench in the courtyard. I couldn't bring myself to face him yet, with my fear too close to the surface, so I observed my surroundings for a few moments. Though the sun had not yet set, there were already several regular patrons raising their glasses of mead to the evening.
I felt Tristan's eyes on me, and knew that he'd let me ignore him for as long as he was going to; the time had come for me to make a decision. But before I could turn to him, much less figure out something to say, he leaned in to my ear and whispered, "I dare you to move."
I considered him; his pronounced bone structure, his deep set eyes, his thin nose and generous lips, his lengthy unmanaged hair, and his beard that was splotching early with gray. I looked back to his eyes, took my courage in hand and slowly reached to touch his cheek, and graze the back of my fingers over the dark marks that accentuated his cheekbone.
However, he wasn't convinced my choice had been made firmly enough, "I dare you to stay still." So I sat motionless for him as he took his time contemplating me. I felt his gaze upon my skin like a caress, and closed my eyes to feel it all the more. Eventually, he touched his hand to my cheek, before leaning in to deliver gentle kisses on a path from my cheekbone to my lips.
A moment passed and he shifted slightly to disengage, but I moved my hands to the back of his neck and shoulders and held him to me. He sent me a questioning look to which I couldn't help but grin, and explained, "It would seem that I cannot stay completely still anymore."
We moved for three days, though the location never changed. We laid in Tristan's bed, a cocoon of limbs and cotton sheets. I memorized his scarred body with my fingers and eyes, this shuttered man now so uncovered and open to me. It had rained the previous night and thunder, an encouraging witness, roared back our murmured words of passion.
We moved and rested. We lingered through the moaning. We lingered through the straining muscles. And we lingered through the feverish heat. Our bliss came and left, and came to life again.
We moved for three days. At first he moved his hands upon me gently for fear of scaring me. Then I moved my mouth upon his skin to show him the truth of my desires. And then he moved within me in a motion of emotion my body would never forget.
And all the days after, with my eyes opened or closed, I saw him. Saw a stray breath blow his hair away from his eyes. Saw his eyes darken with desire to a shade of night. Saw a satisfied smile slowly broaden on his face like a new dawn. Saw him thank the spirits of creation for having made us of such pleasurable flesh. And saw him ride off following his aerial companion and kinsmen in the continued pursuit of his purpose.