A/N: Here it is, the last part. Since I didn't really mean to write this, I can't say if I'll ever write more in this section. But, I'm seeing the movie again on the 30th so…maybe. Warning: Slash reference. Also, this part seemed particularly fond of producing fragments and ellipses…

Disclaimer: I still don't own it. That's a bit depressing.

With their deaths, she began her life over again. She lived with us for two years, proving herself time and again with both dagger and bow. She gradually lost her avoidance of the Roman red, although she never fully trusted Arthur and his continuous attachment to it.

In those years, we both did as we had that first night. We sat apart and watched as the intricate ties spread between the others. We watched as Bors rejoiced in the birth of his first child. We watched as Arthur and Lance turned to each other for comfort after battle, after deaths, after...everything. We watched as Dag made peace with his amazing collection of scars. We watched it all.

And when we didn't watch, we taught each other. She knew more about nature and tracking than any man I had ever met. Almost without effort she could walk up and startle any of us. This is what she taught me to do. Without her, I'd have been killed many times over by now.

The others never knew that she did this for me. They saw only that the two of us were always at the edges. As far as they know, I have always been able to find the trails and see the signs they would have passed by.

But I taught her as well. I taught her about people and life in general. Things she knew from somewhere but couldn't understand. I taught her everything I knew, from the names of my mother and father to the names of the constellations above us.

For those two years, she traveled with us. I lost count of the times she tended my wounds or I hers, both mental and physical.

It was strange, the way we relied on the other. That first night, I had awoken to find her curled by my side. The second night it was the same. Neither of us said a word about it, taking into account, of course, that we were both cold enough to long for the shared heat. But by the third night, it was warmer and neither of us got any sleep, knowing the other was across the fire, not side by side.

So I was not alone. A loner who never had reason to be lonely. And Isolde seemed to like it better that way.

She was never supposed to go out with me, when I was scouting, and so I didn't know what she did those days when the man and horse she'd gotten used to were gone, but she never seemed the worse for it. Of course she was glad when I got back, but I can't imagine that she had not spoken to the others for all that time. But, one afternoon, I found myself returning earlier than anyone ever would have expected and discovered yet another hidden facet of her personality.

We had relocated by that time to a deeply wooded hill. As I rode through the trees, I thought I heard her voice calling me. I couldn't be sure, but being on edge from my hunt and fearing, just a little, that it could be some demon, I didn't reply. Instead, I rode closer to where I now heard her voice speaking, only to catch a glimpse of her through the trees.

She sat on one of the larger boulders in the area, completely absorbed in whomever it was she was talking to. Curious, I dismounted and made my way stealthily to the edge of the clearing she had selected as meeting place. I stood there, leant against a tree, and watched a miracle.

She sat contentedly speaking to one of the fiercest animals I had ever seen. Perched on her thickly sleeved arm was a hawk, listening to her voice with an attentive cock to his head. His beak worked with little snaps though he made no move to bite her. His talons shifted against her as he walked his way closer to her head but he must have been careful about them, because she never once winced.

Just below her shoulder, he stopped and stared at her with an almost protective, appraising eye. She looked happy, and I was glad to see it. Shocked, yes, but glad. The wind came up behind her and her hair blew halo-like around her face and ruffled his feathers. With a click he captured a lock of her hair and gave her a chiding ruffle of his feathers, as though it were her fault her hair had come to attack him.

She laughed and he released her. She looked up then, to see me looking back from the tree, and she blushed as though I'd caught her writing love letters. "How long have you been there?"

"I just got here."

"But I thought you weren't going to be back for a few days."

"I thought so too. What are you doing?"

"Taming a hawk." She said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "I…I thought you might be able to use him." She was blushing again. "I'll train him to come to you."

"How? I mean, how did you ever get him to come to you?"

"They've always come to me. I mean, every time you've gone, he's come to me. He used to just sit over my head and screech, but now I've gotten him tame enough to sit on my arm. Do you want to hold him?" Her eyes were bright with hope. "I was going to give him to you when you got back anyway."

"But…" I was completely lost. "But…How?" I felt like a three year old begging to know how to get on a horse.

She smiled. "Just hold out your arm." I did. Before I knew what was happening, the hawk was standing inches from my nose, giving me the fiercest look I've ever received.

It was magic.

Over the next months She trained us both to get used to the other. I don't know how. I would go far from camp and he would fly between us, baring information faster and with more accuracy than I ever could.

He was like our child.

During the winter, two years after she'd arrived, she would leave us. Both, all three of us really, knew it was coming. That winter, she just couldn't seem to avoid illness…as though she were the new target on the archery field.

So many times I'd begged her not to go, but she couldn't promise. "It's not as bad as that." She said. "I don't mind dieing. And I know that they wont separate us." I loved her for saying it. I loved her for meaning it. I loved her.

And I wished I could be as brave as she was. I, who placed my life in danger every day, was afraid to die. If the gods had fated me to spend my life fighting for no cause I believed in, would they let me have peace in death? I didn't think so.

The night was cold and she was so frail…I sat there all night feeding the fire and holding her as the hawk swayed on my shoulder and preened her hair.

In the morning she was still warm in my arms, but there was no longer a soul there. She looked like she had fallen asleep but the hawk and I…we knew. But she was so peaceful, so insistent that we would see each other again, I wasn't afraid any longer.

So the hawk and I lived on. We carried our information and sat together on the outskirts. We worked together and we remembered Isolde. The tamer of hawks and trainer of men. Having him with me was like having her as a constant companion. As though he listened to her soul and did what he could to please her as he flew.

There were so many times he acted with human intellect and emotion; I couldn't help but believe it.

I knew I would die. And, the strange thing was, I didn't mind. I was saddened not to be allowed to go home, but I wasn't bitter. I would find peace. So I let him fly away. I told him to. I knew that she would be there and I would go to her. If her beautiful disciple could be saved, I felt it was all reward I was fit to give.

Pain doesn't matter anymore. Death is here, and still I don't mind. I rejoice. Above me, I see his wings circling and I hear his voice screaming. Rage and pain, loss and promised vengeance. A strange song of an even stranger bird. He is saying goodbye, I realize.

Goodbye.

Softer and distant I hear her voice calling me. Slowly it replaces the sound of battle around me, just as the image of her by that lake where we first confessed our love replaces his wings.

A last shriek echoes around the canyon I now inhabit, releasing me from my pain and grime…almost from gravity itself. It reverberates for a long sorrowful moment until I fold my beautiful Isolde in my arms. Then there is no need for it.

I left sorrow behind forever in favor of a life with Isolde.

My hawk tamer.