Author's note:

You wailed, I listened. Lots of angst!

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Tristan swam through an envelope of fog up into consciousness. Breathing hurt. It took a while to understand the reason – he was alive. His body lay inert and unmoving, some parts numb, some screaming for attention. Bleary eyed he peered into a world of white – linen, bed sheets, curtains, bandaged bodies. A faint smell of mistletoe, familiar and reassuring somehow, permeated the air.

The next time he came to, more of his senses were working. His entire body now demanded attention. Breathing still hurt. He could focus more clearly, his throat was parched and his nostrils flared under assault of smells – pungent healing salves and tinctures, a burning incense someone had lit in prayer, steam from boiling water. There were other less wholesome odors. He coughed weakly and a child leaned over him. He recognized her as Two.

The third time he opened his eyes, a woman, slim and olive skinned, sat next to him darning a linen smock. After a moment he remembered she was Dani, his wife. Her eyes flew to him when he croaked her name.

It took several more days for the fog to lift completely and for him to identify each individual pain from a screaming cacophony. Blessedly it died down to a dulling ache as long as he did not move. He was the only patient left in the infirmary. His bed had been moved next to a sunny window. Percy came to check him often, and Arthur a few times, but others were not allowed to yet. Dani told him he was too weak. Sometimes she wept but he did not know why.

When finally he was allowed to sit up, he trembled with effort. His arms hurt with the slightest movement, both having been pierced with blades. His neck hurt from a near fatal cut and an insistent pain under one arm announced a deep slow healing wound. The Saxon dagger had nicked a lung, as far as Percy could tell. Fortunately, multiple layers of leather had prevented his chest from being laid open, but the tip of Cerdic's sword had slashed one of his cheeks. Thus he must lie still for as long as it took to heal. He had more visitors except for someone he could not remember. Dani bathed his body to cool the pain and his tongue started cooperating again.

'Why you cry?' he asked her. 'I did not die.'

'You did die, Tristan,' she said and left it at that. 'Later' was the response to any more questions. At a maddeningly slow pace he mended. Two sat by sometimes with her mending, looking sad and older by far than he remembered, until one day he remembered Eric falling.

'Eric?' he asked hopefully of Dani.

'I asked him to watch you,' she answered dully. That was the last anyone ever mentioned the boy.

One day, Merlin came to visit him, filling the small space with a faint smell of mistletoe. Dani said a few words to him about how the scout was recovering while the old man held his gaze with that steady, piercing look. Finally she left the room with an uncertain smile to her husband. The scout focused his attention on the old man. At least his mind was working again, more or less. For a long time the two stared at each other, taking measure.

'You know what has been happening to you,' the old man answered the unasked question.

'You speak in riddles, old man,' said Tristan defensively, annoyed at Dani for leaving and everyone for not answering questions. His logical mind attempted to assert itself. Once again he was bedridden and being lectured by the old charlatan. No doubt someone would find it amusing. Galahad perhaps.

'And you still refuse to listen,' Merlin replied calmly, sitting upright and unbowed by his years. Tristan looked coldly at his visitor.

'She said I died,' he finally broke the oppressive silence.

'You did,' the old man agreed. Somewhere between the two intense pairs of eyes, a connection was made.

'Yes, I know,' he said wonderingly. Awareness of an inner knowledge flooded Tristan's mind. Wispy bits of memory clung to him – an intricate system of immense objects locked in perpetual motion, but slow as to appear still, bound together in an eternal dance by a force unseen; music without sound; wind that made him shiver but never ruffled a hair; surreal landscapes he did not recognize. But even the wispy bits had the power to overwhelm his mind if he tried to examine them closely, so he shut it away. 'How…?'

'There are forces we do not understand,' Merlin replied.

'But you brought me back,' he said, 'I remember you.'

'I prayed so your mind could find its way back, but it was not up to me alone.'

'Why me? Why not Eric?' Thinking of the boy brought a lump to his throat too big to swallow.

'You were willing to die for Arthur,' Merlin said.

'Every one of us was,' Tristan replied defensively.

'You are different from them, you always have been.' Merlin looked at him steadily. 'The others would die for friendship's sake, you because of more: Arthur has not yet fulfilled his purpose.' The scout had the jarring feeling of being in two places at once, looking at Merlin and back at himself, followed by the uncanny knowledge that the old druid knew it too.

'Why is this happening, now, after all this time?' Tristan asked, angry and a little desperate. He did not want to be more different than he already was. He was too old for any more change, or so he thought.

'For sometime now you have been questioning your beliefs, and seeing with eyes not your own,' Merlin reminded him.

'How do you know?' asked the scout, suspicious. Merlin's gaze shifted to a corner where the hawk sat silently on the back of a chair. She must have come in while he slept.

'She's your familiar,' Tristan spat out, shaking, furious at being spied on and glared at the bird. His mending body protested. The bird stared back at him with intelligent eyes.

'Not mine,' said Merlin, shaking his head. 'Yours.' Tristan set his jaw. He did not want to listen to any more. Merlin sighed and rose slowly, joints creaking.

'She knew you belonged to this land long before you did, Tristan,' Merlin said, pausing at the doorway. 'The land knew it too, and so returned you. The line must bend. Rest and heal. We have much to discuss, you and I.'

'Wait,' the scout said, 'why couldn't you save Eric?'

'What do you think I do? Grant wishes?' Merlin asked testily, suddenly sounding like an ordinary, irritated old man. A sad old man, the knight realized, who had buried many of his own. He said no more.

It was another month before the scout could make his way on unsteady legs to a freshly dug mound on the hillside beyond the fort. He knew which one he was bound for despite the blanket of late winter snow. This one had a lance sticking out of it from which flew pennant-like a checkered red scarf. Near one end of the mound a freshly planted rosebush, bare of leaves, waited patiently for Spring. The other end had a broken clay tile with an assortment of curious offerings - a wooden horse, two ceramic beakers, a spray of herbs, a few locks of hair, a mug of stale ale, a poem on a wax tablet, a dagger – all offerings to the one who had been a little brother to all.

In silence, Tristan added a tribute of his own – a painstakingly restored composite bow and a sheath of arrows fletched with hawk's feathers.

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Author's note:

There is nothing like a touch of magic to enliven a King Arthur story, right? About Eric – someone has to die, and if you are reading this story, I am guessing you don't want it to be Tristan.