A Burning Sky
The first thing that happened when we reached the wall happened a few moments after I got off of Dagonet's horse. He whispered something to Bors who chuckled and walked off before coming back with a pretty woman with red-brown hair and mabye a dozen children around her. He then whispered something to her, reaching down to grab her backside, before pushing her towards me. She looked me over as if I was an animal about to be scared away and moved slowly towards me.
"I'm Vanora. I'm with Bors." She offered her arm and I linked mine with her's, not really knowing what else I could do.
"It's nice to have another female around here." We made our way through the people towards what I assumed to be Bors and Vanora's living quarters. There was a medium sized cot set up in the first room, what I assumed to be where they slept. In the further rooms there seemed to be a neverending supply of cots.
"How many children do you have?" She glanced at me, seemingly shocked that I had spoken. I suppose Bors had probably told her that I don't say much, which was true. However I felt comfortable talking around Vanora.
"Ten. Though I'm sure that won't be all, before the fifteen years are over." She was laughing, seeming not to mind very much that she was not married and had ten bastard children.
She was rooting through her wardrobe, mumbling to herself as she did so. The woman was beautiful, if in an almost natural way. She handed me a dress which I simply held in my hands, not knowing what else I could actually do with it. She rolled her eyes and moved behind me, helping me undo my gray dress.
"It'll be a little loose on you, since you're so small." I ran my hands over my sides self consciously when she finally had my gray dress off. She helped me into her dress, doing the ties in the back and the buttons as well. Once finished, she looked me over and then glanced at my hair.
"I figure we should have gotten you to bathe first. Well, it's not like getting you into that dress was difficult. Let's get you out of it."
So Vanora lead me to a bathing area where she helped me undress, though let me keep myself covered for the most part, and helped me scrub off the dirt and grime that seemed to become like a thin second skin. She was careful around various cuts and bruises that adorned my back and legs, as well as the one on my cheek, and then told me to dunk my head so she could rub some of the oils into my hair to wash it and have it smelling nicely. When we were done, she had brought in a small mirror that was a lot better to use than my little fragment back at Grent's. I looked so small and fragile, the dark green of the dress making me look sickly pale.
"Now, let's get some food in your stomach, see if we can give you some shape." She ushered me out of the washing room, with me acting like either a lost dog or perhaps one of her children and following her without question, and towards the tavern area.
She told me that it would be fairly quiet at the moment, which I was grateful for, but I was shocked to recognize two faces in the few people there. They were knights. I looked over the first one, the long braided hair with a more red tint, and decided that that must have been Gawain. The other one with the facial hair, curly hair, and still almost boyish features had to be Galahad. My guesses were only based on Dagonet's descriptions, so I had no plan on joining them to figure out if I was right or not. That is until Vanora ushered me in that direction.
"These are some of the more tame knights." She had whispered in my ear moments before we reached their side and by the smirk that Gawain had, I assumed that he had probably heard.
"Now you two, watch over her while I get her some food won't you?" She didn't even wait for any of us to answer before she disappeared.
"I'm Gawain. This miserable lump is Galahad." I nodded, inwardly celebrating that I had been right, before introducing myself. Though I was sure that they knew who I was.
"Irissa." They nodded before slowly returining to their conversation. They were talking about a recent ride, before the one that brought them to Grent's, where Lancelot had flirted with the wrong female more than once. I went through my mental images of the knights until I remembered that Lancelot was the one with Arthur the day that I found my brother. I tried to remember how long ago that was, but it felt like months. It was only yesterday.
Gawain soon stood up, downing the rest of his ale. He looked at me and then to Galahad and then back to me, slightly blearily, before smiling.
"Let me know if he gives you any trouble." Then with a nod of the head, he too disappeared the way Vanora went. She still wasn't back and I had a feeling that Galahad probably wouldn't wait too much longer here with me before disappearing himself. What would I do when I was alone?
I glanced over to the knight sitting beside me now and noticed that he was watching me with his head cocked slightly to the side. He reminded me of the times that Grent's other Roman lords would visit and stare at me, noticing that something was different but not really knowing what that was.
"Is something wrong?" He shook his head, taking another large sip of the ale infront of him.
"I'm trying to see something of Dagonet in you." I pulled on my hair lightly before tucking it behind my ear. My own image was faded in my mind, though I had some idea of what I looked like. However I too had trouble finding any resemblence to the man that I discovered as my brother. There was a connection that I couldn't deny that sprung up the moment our names were said, one that I knew meant we actually were siblings, but there was almost no way to physically distinguish that we were related.
"I suppose he takes after our father, while I take after our mother." Galahad continued to look at me, head lightly to the side. Vanora was making her way towards me with a smile, holding a tray with food and a wooden cup on it.
"I don't see it though. You're just so small, probably can't handle yourself. Dagonet is so-" He never finished his sentence because I snatched the knife that Vanora had laid out infront of me with my food and pointed it at the slightly inebriated knight, level with his throat. It wasn't the same shape as the dagger I learned with when I was younger, but it was about the same size. My hand was only shaking a little bit. I wondered if Galahad would be offended, would attack me. My answer came with a voice behind me.
"Irissa, what are you doing?" The knife fell from my hand and I turend around to face my brother, looking at me as if I had lost my mind. I stood up, not even bothering to look at the food that Vanora had put infront of me, and made my way out of the tavern quickly, leaving an array of fairly shocked faces.
I barely made it out of the tavern and into a sea of people before I realized that I had no idea where I was going. Trying to make my way through the maze of people was almost a violent movement and then there was a hand wrapped around my arm, pulling me out of it. My first reaction was to swing out but I saw that it was Dagonet and just moved, my arm bent upwards in his grasp, trying to get out of the swarm.
Once we were no longer surrounded by so many people, he turned me around to face him. Something in his eyes made me stand my ground, facing him head on and not flinching, though I highly doubted that he would ever raise his hand to hit me. The emotion in his eye that gave me my courage was a spark of pride. Pride in me.
"Why did you run?" I shifted from side to side, not faltering just uncomfortable in the shoes that Vanora had loaned to me.
"I thought there would be a reprimand for what I did to Galahad." Dagonet smiled, not quite a full smile but it was there.
"He was impressed. As am I. What would you say to training? Training you to take care of yourself?" I found myself nodding. He might have assumed the knife reaction was just that, a reaction. Maybe I could impress him a little more when he sees that I do have some training already. Though I'm not the best at the other weapons.
"You'll be training me?" He nodded, shrugging one shoulder and he wrapped the other around me to direct me back through the people towards the tavern.
"Me, the other knights. We all have strengths that we can help you with." I nodded and when we made our way into the tavern, the only familiar face was Vanora's. She mentioned to Dagonet that Galahad had left in a good mood and Gawain had almost passed out from laughing.
While I ate, Dagonet sipping ale slowly while watching me, another familiar face walked in. Tristan glanced around the area before spotting us and moving towards where we were sitting. He nodded towards Dagonet and then towards me, pulling out a wooden chair infront of us. Vanora brought him an ale and an apple, not even having to be asked. He nodded his thanks, pulling out a small knife to cut it with. He seemed to notice that I was staring at the dagger for he kept looking at it and then to me, but didn't say anything about it.
My eyes were drawn to the dagger as hit slid it through the apple before pulling it away and towards his mouth so that he could eat the slice straight from the blade. He did this a couple times while I was eating my own meal before he cut a slice and held it out to me. I stared at it, remembering how he had just put his mouth on the blade to pull the slice off. I moved a hand slowly from the clench that I had them in and pulled the slice off of his knife, smiling in thanks before popping it into my mouth. He was staring at me, as if it had been a challenge. I still wondered if I passed the challenge.
"-mind?" I glanced up at Dagonet, not realizing that he had been speaking. I thought back, trying to remember what he had said, but he wasn't paying much attention to me. He was watching Tristan. This, however, does not mean that his question was aimed at Tristan, he might have just been looking at him. I was saved looking like a fool by Tristan answering though.
"No, I don't." And then he stood up, nodding to Dagonet and them just staring at me as he walked away. It felt like he was beckoning me, but Dagonet offered to fill my drink for me so I assumed that he wasn't.
There is no easy way for me to approach the subject of what transpired while I was transfixed with Tristan's dagger cutting up the apple. I thought about it for a few moments, toying with how I could bring it up. So I went with the only idea I could come up with.
"What made you come up with that question?" He glanced at me oddly, but raised his own drink before answering.
"Tristan's the best at it. I knew that he could take care of you." He partially answered my question and there was no way I could continue questioning it so I smiled, nodding as if I understood, and finished my meal in relative silence.
I had no idea what I may have just gotten myself into.
A/N: Okay, so the Tristan/Irissa part in this one was short and teeeeechnically surrounded by Dagonet/Irissa but the fact is, she's starting to get interested. Dun dun dun.
Thank you to my lovely, lovely, lovely reviewers. All of you. I'm working on responding to reviews right now but it's 2:30 in the morning and I still need to do laundry and try to get to sleep.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Keep reviewing please, it helps me know what I need to work on and what everyone dis/likes about the story so far. So thank you for reading! I'll try to update later today, at the latest, early on Friday.