Title: Crowning Tristan
Author: Sedri
Rating: PG-13 / T
Summary: We've seen Tristan grow from a boy to a man, but how does that man become a king? A gapfiller between the end of the battle and the coronation. Movieverse, with elements from the book. Canon pairings. Discontinued; final chapters summarised.

Disclaimer: I do not own Stardust in any way. This is just for fun.

Chapter Ten

Tristan dreamed.

He was back in Wall, both standing nervously in the middle of the village square and watching, detached, from afar. It was daytime, but somehow also the town meeting from several nights ago. The crowd was huge, made up of far more people than actually lived in Wall, a mass of angry faces. Frank Monday, eight years old, was sitting crying on the ground by his feet, and Victoria, equally young, was showing off a massive ruby ring. Captain Oltran was saluting Mr Banks, who was shaking a formal-looking letter at a fully-grown Humphrey. Hatha stood beside them, sighing and shaking her head as Arden snatched the letter, now a crown, and sneered, "Mine! Don't you know who I AM?"

Una was there, in her new red dress and a crown, arms folded as she surveyed the shouting crowd. She refused to talk to them. "It's your job now, Tristan."

His father added, "But only if you earn their respect."

Tristan tried to speak, tried to tell them all that he did have blue blood, but found himself mute. He was dressed in his old brown clothes, hair cut short again. The crowd closed in, some talking him down, others begging for help.

Their faces blurred, turning into the strangers from Market Town, but they were still shouting. Septimus was there, with Tristan's sword stuck right through his chest. He frowned. "You can't be king. You're pathetic. You don't even have a tattoo." He showed hand, on which was stamped a large green "K".

Then they weren't in Wall anymore; they were on the parapets of a grey stone castle, just like the ones in English fairytales. The crowd was on all sides, on the ground and in the windows. Primus was there, throat cut and dripping blue. Very serious, he looked Tristan in the eye and sang, "How many miles to Babylon?"

A lit black candle was thrust before his eyes. Yvaine held it out to him. "You can get there by candlelight."

"The first was made by Red Riding Hood," Frank, now and adult, lectured pleasantly. "She's a witch. She built the wall."

Mr Edwards, the guard, waved his hands frantically. "Seal it! Seal the wall! No more candles!"

The crowd closed in.

"You're a shopboy, Tristan," said Victoria, wearing Una's dress.

"You were never meant to be a shopboy," Yvaine scolded, folding her arms at him.

"Are you happy?" asked Dunstan.

"Sir!" cried Oltran, pushing through the crowd. "What do we do with the shopboys, sir?"

"Toss 'em overboard!" shouted a pirate.

The faces blurred and swirled, engulfing him. He was drowned by their voices. Bodies pressed close on all sides, cutting off his air–

"It's your job."

"You're pathetic."

"Are you happy?"

"You should help me..."

–and they turned into a massive gold crown, pinning his arms, squeezing him down, there was no air no air no air...

"Shopboy."

"Pathetic."

"–your job!"

"Help me!"

"...happy?"

"Tristan!"

"Tristan!"

"TRISTAN!"

He woke.

It was morning, at the inn on the moors, and the room was peaceful and still. Tristan looked around, eyes darting back and forth across the ceiling as he remembered where and when he was. He breathed hard, in slow gasps, heartbeat thumping in his ears as his hands clenched the blankets. Sweat dampened his hair and palms, and he pushed long strands from his face, slowly sitting up.

The dream had been vivid, powerful. He rarely dreamed like that.

For long minutes he sat alone in the empty room, sorting out his thoughts. He wasn't seriously reconsidering his decision to be king, but in some ways it seemed crazy not to. He knew it had been only a dream, but the feelings were real – fear still had a tight grasp on his chest, squeezing his insides and freezing him with panic. Deep, steady breaths did nothing to loosen the knot, and though his pulse slowed to normal, the feelings did not go away.

Eventually he shook his head, hard, and forced himself to get up. His father was already gone, and judging by the sunlight it was rather late; they'd be expecting him. He dressed mechanically, washing his face with icy water and then, when that failed to properly wake him, scrubbed his arms and neck as well, shivering.

That didn't help either. He dried off and walked away.

His family was eating breakfast, not exactly waiting but pleased that they didn't need to fetch him. There was some brief teasing from all of them about sleeping in, to which Tristan smiled dimly but did not retort. He ate without tasting, drifting in and out of the conversation, staring off into space.

Had he been more awake, he would have noticed Yvaine's constant, uneasy glances at him, or his mother's slight frown of worry every time she saw this. He might have even noticed the quiet fretting of the innkeepers or Oltran's impatience to get going. As it was, he was completely preoccupied by the dream.

By the time they climbed into the carriage, however, Tristan had shaken off his lingering bad feelings and was making a great effort to forget them. As he talked to his family, it became easier, and after a while everything was fine again.

For him, at least. For Yvaine, his alertness had come much too late. When he finally realised that she was being oddly quiet and withdrawn, it was when the party had stopped to eat and rest at around midday. They were sitting at the side of a small hill on the moor, sharing Hatha's basket of food and stretching their legs. He asked if anything was wrong.

Yvaine glanced around at the soldiers, talking amongst themselves, and to Una and Dunstan, who were sitting well within earshot. She forced a smile. "I'm fine."

As they drove, Una continued her history lessons. She was, much to Yvaine's discomfort, describing the thousand-year reign of the first true rulers of their as-yet-unnamed magical land – the Lilim witches.

To make a long and complex story short, the witches rose to power by inviting all magically talented people to their home in Carnadine – no one was sure if it had once been a city; only the manor in the canyon was left – and, after forcing each apprentice to take a magically binding oath, taught them how to use their powers. In this way they formed the sister- and brotherhoods of witches and warlocks, all of whom were their servants. By controlling the practice of magic, which had become (largely by their own doing) essential to the lives of the people, they were effectively in command of the entire nation. This was formalised some time later, and the sisters ruled for a millennium as the rightful queens.

They were not, Una stressed, tyrants. At least not at first. The people they ruled did in fact lead better lives thanks to them; controlled use of magic made their work easier and sickness rarer. There were no wars to fight because, thanks to Selena's barriers, there were no enemies to threaten them. Being led by the world's most powerful witches must have seemed natural to those people; some ancient writings, still surviving in Stormhold's deepest archives, referred to them as goddesses, for they were all exceptionally wise, beautiful and immortal.

Yvaine flinched and turned away.

Their rule ended, however, when their youth finally began to slip away. "Or so we believe," cautioned Una. "Most of what we really know comes from the songs of victory and folktales that were written afterwards, and knowing my family, a lot of it was glorified." Nonetheless, the basic facts seemed to have evidence enough: the oldest and longest ballad in Stormhold literature described three witch-queens who tried to steal the youth of children, which Una tactfully reinterpreted as seeking a way to stay young by experimenting with potions and spells – quite likely with human test subjects, for the epic poem spent nearly a hundred lines describing the horror of friends and family who went missing or turned up mutilated.

Of course, the people did not meekly submit to this. Despite the increasingly cruel force used by the sisters to control their subjects, a rebellion was organised under the leadership of a man named Galdon, who eventually overthrew the Lilim and was crowned Primus, the First King of the land he named Stormhold. Were the legend to be believed, he was nine feet tall and wore boots of pure gold, but even if not, he had clearly been a very good leader. By cunning, not force, he smuggled prisoners out of Carnadine, destroyed their "foul brews" – probably the experiments – and freed the witches and warlocks who were being worked to death to find "the Elixir of Life".

"My father liked to think Galdon destroyed the Lilim, too," said Una, "but obviously he didn't. The ballad never actually says what happened to them, so a lot of people assumed they were killed in the process. From what we know now," she nodded to Tristan and Yvaine, who was still being very quiet, "I'm guessing that they locked themselves away – for shame, maybe – and just kept waiting for a way to reclaim their youth and power."

Tristan's brow furrowed. "Then why didn't they try to take over four hundred years ago? We know that they–" he paused, looking at Yvaine, and continued more gently, "that they were young again then."

"You can say it, Tristan," Yvaine said tiredly. "They killed my sister and ate her heart. But it didn't last very long." She looked up, across the three faces with her in the carriage, and suddenly decided to tell them. Even if she couldn't bring herself to confess Tristan's chance at immortality, she could talk about Lilith. She had to tell someone; the grief was gnawing at her, almost equal to the guilt and fear she felt whenever she looked at Tristan.

"It didn't last because Cirra didn't love them. Their first youth lasted a thousand years because the heart that they ate... the one that made them immortal in the first place..." It was absurdly hard for her to say it. "It was their mother's heart. Lilith, my sister."

Three pairs of eyes widened and they glanced quickly at each other as they realised the significance of this. Yvaine pressed on, voice curiously blank as she gazed out the window again.

"She loved them. Love is what made them young again, not magic, but they stole it. They took what should have been given freely. They murdered her for it. They murdered both of them."

For a long moment there was silence in the carriage. From outside they could hear hoof beats and the snapping whip. Soldiers were talking, soft murmurs in the background. Yvaine looked from Tristan to Dunstan to Una, face blank as she watched them move from shock to outrage to sympathy. She said nothing.

Then Tristan gently put an arm around her, drawing her away from the cold window, and she slumped against his chest. She didn't cry, but Tristan shushed her nonetheless, tucking her into the curve of his neck and murmuring quiet words as she trembled, ever so slightly, in his arms. He glanced at his parents, who looked stricken.

"Oh, Yvaine..." Una reached for her hand, moving off her seat to kneel awkwardly in the foot space between the benches. She touched the girl's cheek, wiping away the only tear that had managed escape. "Why didn't you say something sooner? If I'd known, I wouldn't have..."

"We can't avoid the subject," she replied, accepting the handkerchief Dunstan offered and nodding thanks for it. "I didn't know myself until last night. I talked to Selena," she explained, "and she told me all these things that our mother didn't want us to know. They were afraid it would happen again." She gave a hollow laugh. "It happened anyway."

There was nothing the others could say to help her, no way to make it all better, so they repeated how sorry and sympathetic they were, murmuring genuine but largely useless consolation. Yvaine appreciated it, but had no wish to be an object of pity in their eyes so she started a new conversation entirely. It lasted for the rest of the ride, carefully avoiding the delicate issues, and if Yvaine listened more than she talked, no one blamed her.

For Yvaine's sake, it would have been nice if Tristan had realised there was more bothering her than the needless death of her sister. In his defence, the story of Lilith was quite enough to upset anyone, and as he had no idea of what else Selena had said, it was perfectly reasonable to attribute all of Yvaine's melancholy to grief.

That, of course, didn't make it any easier for her to bring up the subject.

It was evening, at yet another isolated inn. This one was larger than the last and had a few other guests, all of whom deferred to the royal family and generally made themselves scarce. Yvaine ignored them. She had gone through the rest of the carriage ride and all of dinner without a single chance to talk to Tristan alone, and was fast becoming desperate. All she'd been able to think about was Selena's horrible decree – "He's not going to stay happily in love with you forever" – and it was driving her mad. She had to talk to him, now. She didn't think she could last another day like this.

When dinner was finished and the plates cleared away, Yvaine took sharp hold of Tristan's sleeve, tugging him back before he could stand up. He turned to her, surprised, and she said, "We have to talk. Now."

To his credit, Tristan blinked only once before nodding and taking her hand. They stood up together and to Dunstan, who had heard her words, he said, "Excuse us, Father."

Dunstan just nodded.

If anyone found it awkward that Yvaine led him straight to one of the bedrooms, she didn't notice or care. She strode right in, pulling Tristan by the hand, then stopped dead as she found that this goal, at least, had been accomplished. She suddenly lost her determination and hesitated, absently rubbing her elbow as she turned back to look at him.

Tristan, closing the door, now knew that something was very wrong. Yvaine was rarely nervous, never shy, but she looked at him now with blue eyes that were undeniably afraid. She was fidgeting, biting her lip. Something was very, very wrong.

"Yvaine?" he said. She looked up and tried to smile. He reached out to her, an open gesture of comfort, and said, "Come here."

It was like she'd been waiting for permission. With one step she'd reached him, and he hugged her tight. After a moment he led them both to sit on the bed and, holding her hands, Tristan looked straight into her eyes. "What's wrong?"

Yvaine swallowed, hard, and spoke with a slight tremor, but firmly resolved to say it all. "Do you remember, when we were travelling, you said you thought immortality would be lonely."

His brow furrowed. Of all things he might have expected, that was not it. "Yes, I do."

"Well, it's not," she said frankly. "I was never lonely up there. I always had my sisters, and Mother. I could go off on my own if I wanted, but I could always find them back."

Thinking he understood, Tristan nodded and said, "But now you can't. Your family won't talk to you."

She shook her head. "That's not it."

There was a long pause. Tristan waited patiently.

"You said you might like immortality, didn't you? If you had someone to share it with?"

This was making no sense at all, but still he nodded. "I should have said it differently," he apologised. "I didn't realise how it would sound to you."

"But did you mean it?"

"I meant it," he said, fingers sliding over the silver metal of her ring. "I don't want to live my life without you."

"But living forever, that doesn't... repulse you?"

"I never really thought about it," he replied. Firmly, he assured, "Yvaine, I'm not going to steal your heart."

He didn't get it! The frustration was maddening – she almost laughed.

"You already have," she said lightly, then shook her head. "I know. I'm not afraid that you'll kill me like the Lilim did; I know you better than that." She paused, her gaze drifting over the floorboards. "But Selena doesn't. There's more that she told me, Tristan. A lot more. She was trying to scare me into coming home."

Tristan was quiet for a moment. "Did she manage?"

Yvaine's eyes snapped back to him. "No."

Letting out a breath, he relaxed a bit. "So what did she say?"

"She..." Yvaine fiercely bit down on her reluctance, forcing herself to say it all, now, before she lost her nerve entirely. "She said that while she lived down here, she married a human man, and as long as they loved each other he didn't age and didn't die."

Tristan's eyes widened. His lips were slightly parted. "And... we...?"

"If you love me, and if you want to, you can live forever."

...Blink.

He stared at her, mouth open, and Yvaine's heart froze in panic.

Blink.

His jaw moved soundlessly, trying to form words.

Blink.

One lip twitched, one corner quirked up, and it changed his expression entirely. He was delighted. Stunned, overwhelmed, and incredulous, but delighted. A smile broke out, filling his entire face, and the tension drained from Yvaine like water. "You... you'd like that?"

Tristan stared again, speechless, amazed that she would even ask. He kept searching, trying to find words. He gave up. He kissed her.

As they clung together, arms wrapped tightly and fingers running through hair, something wet touched his nose. She was actually crying.

Breaking apart, Tristan kept his hands lightly on either side of her face, smearing away the tears as she laughed and cried all at once, hands covering her mouth. He gave a laugh, incredulous. "You seriously thought I wouldn't want this?"

"Selena's husband didn't. He wanted to die, like his brothers; he broke her heart and she's sure you'll do the same to me."

He shook his head. "I love you," said Tristan. "I'll always love you. Living with you forever... that's wonderful."

"But what if you change your mind?" she pressed. "What if someday, centuries from now–"

"That's not going to happen," he swore. "It's not. I love you, Yvaine, and nothing's going to change that. Ever." Still smiling, he leaned forward until their foreheads touched. "Trust me, your sister's wrong. I love you. I'll always love you. This is perfect."

And she nodded, smiling helplessly, feeling her heart swell and the tears rise again. "I trust you, Tristan," she said. "I trust you."