A Burning Sky
The man that stood infront of me resembled the blurred images that I recalled in my poisoned dreams before. He had a few scars, his jaw was set in a frown, but his eyes seemed caring and not as touched by his harsh life as everything else about him. He was tall, so much taller than I expected, and his shoulders were wide. I suspect that he probably resembled our father, though our father's hair was never cut so short.
My brother stared down at me, as I had not gotten up from the floor yet, repeating his question for the third time. Though the words didn't register, his voice did. My brother's voice carried down to me and swept into my ears, swimming in my memories. He slowly bent down on one knee to be closer to my level, him still being taller than me in this position. He raised a hand and touched my chin, shaking me from my memories and trance.
"Girl. Are you well?" I heard Lancelot murmur to someone that maybe the poison had damaged me, but one of the other knights that had gathered around us, a shorter and more hefiter man with a boisterous laugh, had said that the other survivors were well enough.
"What's her name?" Dagonet had glanced up at the knights around us, as if expecting any of them to know the name of a slave girl in the Roman household that none of them wanted to be in. After the initial silence, Arthur spoke.
"The cook called her Mute." Lancelot gave a sigh, throwing his hands up and turning away.
"Great, we're expecting a response from a mute!" He seemed to have forgotten that I had uttered one word, the name of the knight still kneeling infront of me. I glanced at the other knights around us. Arthur was the only one that I had spoken to before that was present. It seemed that Tristan was presently absent. I lowered my eyes back to the eyes of my brother. He didn't recognize me, even without the cloth that had been on my hair. The brown curls fell in a matted heap on my back, creating an almost pillowed sensation as I leaned back against the wall.
"D-Dagonet?" Everyone seemed to snap focus back to me except for Dagonet, who had still be staring at me when I had spoken. His eyes widened only a little at my word, his name. My voice was harsh, still. In the back of my mind, as I formed a sentence, I wondered if my voice would ever be normal again.
"Yes. That's my name." I nodded, my eyes searching his face for any sign of him remembering me. Or anything that seemed familiar. He was so distant from what I remembered. What was he now, but a memory? What if he didn't remember me at all, or want any connection to me? How would he react to hearing that our family was killed, that it was just him and I now. I bent my neck so that I was looking down at his hands which were now perched on his knees, waiting for me to either speak or make some sort of action. He was waiting.
"My... my name is Irissa." My voice was shaking so hard that I must have sounded like I was frozen, the words choppy and low. However the words seemed to resonate in the hallway and there was silence as the other knights watched their healer pale and almost topple over himself. Then the knight with the boisterous laughter bent down, putting an arm on his friend's shoulder and staring at me in wonder. Had my brother mentioned his family to the knights? Did my name mean anything to any of them besides a name?
"Irissa?" Dagonet had moved forward, as if wary of frightening me with his closeness. I nodded, my body starting to feel weak, and we fell into one another. My hands clutched onto my brother's shirt, my face pressed against his chest. I cried, for the first time in a long while, my silent sobs shaking the body I was grasping so tightly to. My brother's arms were around me, holding onto me as if he was afraid of losing me again. The boisterous man's voice reached my ears as he mumbled an explanation to the other knights, the word "sister" being uttered by each knight as if the word was more foreign than it should have been. It had been thirteen years since any of them had seen home, it might have been a very foreign concept.
How long we stayed on the floor, clutched to one another as if we were molded that way from clay, would never make up for how long we were apart. He slowly pulled himself away and lifted himself, plus myself, into a standing position. I was still weak, from the poison and the excitement of finding my brother at last, that I swayed a bit. He turned to face the knights, pulling me slowly infront of me, still giving me support that I didn't fall.
"This is my sister, Irissa." The knights acknowledged me with bowed heads, but seemed to understand that bombarding me with questions, stories, names, or anything right now would be the opposite of what I needed. So he opened the door behind me and lead me back to the room I had been in before. Once I was seated on the bed and no longer threatening to topple over in a faint, I was able to face my brother again.
"There is so much I wish to hear, so much time I want to be caught up on. You need your rest first." I nodded, pulling my legs up to my chest and running my fingers over the bite mark on my knee, from when I had bitten down earlier when I had been beaten. Had that really only been this morning? It felt like years ago.
"Grent-" Dagonet shook his head, putting a rough finger to my mouth to quiet me.
"Do not worry about him. He will be dealt with." I shook my head and then feeling a rush of dizziness, I leaned back onto the bed. I was comfortable, I was safe, I was with my brother. Could this be happening, or was this some dream? Was this a continuation of the distorted dream I had been having earlier? Would I wake from this? Or did the poison kill me, and this is some sort of heaven?
"Go to sleep, sister. I will be back when you wake." If I had any sort of protest, it was taken away from me as my long lost brother kissed my forehead and turned to leave the room. I curled in on myself, ignoring the ache in my back and the dull burn in the pit of my stomach, the soreness of my throat. The dreams that I had while I slept would never come close to the dream I was living, with my brother.
Dagonet stood facing Arthur in the hallway. The other knights had left, saving Bors who stood behind his closest friend, his face still stretched in awe.
"He beat her, probably often. I don't know how long she's been here, but the cook said that she was broken more than a healer could fix. You must understand that she may not be the sister you remember." Dagonet looked down at his hands, blood caking the sleeves of his shirt just like every other knight he fought beside.
"I am not the brother she remembers either. We will have to work on knowing each other again." Arthur nodded, turning to face the door that the girl slept behind. Dagonet faced it too, but then turned back to his commander.
"I will not leave her here." Arthur nodded again, showing both his understanding and approval, before turning and making his way out of the hallway. Bors turned to his friend who stared at the door.
"She'll be fine, Dag. She just needs time." Time was something they still had plenty of.
A/N: Sorry for the short chapter but I've been hanging out with friends that I haven't seen since I went off to college. To my American readers, hope you had a good 4th of July!
Thank you everyone for the reviews/favorites/alerts. I'm enjoying watching my email blow up because of you all!
Hope you enjoyed this chapter. It's still kind of slow right now, but it'll pick up in a few chapters. There is a brief Tristan/Irissa interaction in the next chapter, but I'm building it. Thanks for reading.