I know it took a while, but I hope you like it!
Lana heard Athena as she entered the stables. Athena hated being copped up. "Athena com on girl time for a ride." Lana slowly pulled her out of the stall and began to pack her things on to Athena. Not that she had much anyway. "Athena I'm sorry I forgot your apples, but I hope you liked my berries." Athena shook her head as if saying I forgive you. Lana sighed as she climbed her horse and decided to go out and let Athena loose. "Come on girl I'm gonna let you run around." Athena tossed her head back and forth and began prancing around in excitement. Lana leaned forward and Athena sprinted out of the stables into the open field in front of Hadrian's Wall. She let go of Athena's reins and she let Athena run around happily. Lana grabbed her bow and arrows and swung off Athena, defensively rolling on the ground, popping up and shooting an arrow into the woods. "I know you're there, so just come out." The person smirked, wiping the little blood off their cheek, and looking at the arrow nailed to the tree next to their head. "You've got great aim, but not good enough." Tristan said as he came out of the shadows. "I wasn't trying to kill you." Tristan laughed and pulled out his sword. "Duel me." Lana turned and whistled for Athena who came back sprinting at her master's command. Athena slowed to a stop behind Lana. Lana turned around and grabbed her father's old sword with an eagle engraved on the hilt and her father's ring branded on the sword shaft. "Why do you want to fight me?" She slowly began to circle Tristan and pondered the man in front of her. "I want to see how good you are, I saw what you did to the Romans, but Arthur might let you fight with us if you stay." Tristan mirrored Lana's circling. "I want to see if you know what you're doing." Lana smirked and began to think she would like Tristan. Fighting was something she didn't do often, so this "duel" would be great fun, plus, it would be exercise for her. Tristan was waiting for her to make the first move, and Lana wasn't a very patient person today so after several minutes she made the first strike. She met Tristan's blade head on. Coming very close to Tristan's face she smirked and laughed. Tristan was slightly confused by her amusement, but kept on fighting. Tristan made a move toward her side, but Lana slid under it tripping Tristan. She jumped on to his chest penning him down sword at his throat. "Done already?" Tristan smirked this time and flipped her over pinning her down and lying on top of her with his sword at her throat, and as she tried to move she felt a dagger at her side. "Now it's done." Tristan said. Lana accepted defeat. It was a quick "duel", but it was fun. Lana got up and slammed her sword into the earth beneath it as she walked to her horse. "Good job, but you need more patience, and work on your sword coordination." Tristan told her as he walked over to look at her sword. "And I guess you'll be the one to teach me?" Lana asked smiling, but when Tristan didn't answer she turned around with a little worry and said. "Tristan?" She saw Tristan holding her fathers sword with a questioning and angry look on his face. "Where did you get this?" Lana didn't really see the relevance of the question, but answered anyway. "It was my fathers, he was murdered by Saxons as he was making me escape." Tristan glared at Lana and said in anger. "That can't be true. This was my father's sword. His name was Samuel, and he was a knight like me." Lana shook her head not believing what she was hearing. With a shaky voice she asked, "Was your mothers name Caroline?" Tristan nodded and Lana almost collapsed as she said. "That was my father's first wife's name." Tristan's eyes grew wide as she continued. " He told me she died of a winter sickness. He only mentioned his son once." Tristan eyes hardened. " He said he was in the service, but last he was told that he disappeared, and hoped that he was happy with whatever he was doing." Tristan's grip on Lana's father's sword tightened. "I did disappear for awhile, but the Romans caught me, and beat me for trying to run away." Tristan looked up at the sky. " I saw someone form my village and she told me that my mother was slowly falling ill and if I had the chance to see her I might be able to save her, but I never succeeded. I was twelve when I was taken, and I just received these." He said pointing to his tattoos. " My tribe wanted me to be their next leader, and marry when I became of age, but I never got the chance." Lana looked down at the ground she began to feel dizzy and her world became dark. The last thing she remembered was Tristan looking down at her with worry.
ana awoke again; very annoyed with this habit she was forming of passing out. She was in a different room this time similar to Lancelot's room only dustier, and a little smaller.
Dag entered the room with a smile, and said, "You seem to be making this a habit."
Lana shook her head and said, "Not on purpose you know."
Dag laughed gave her some water. "Already redressed your wounds." With a stern glare he said, "What where you doing fighting Tristan? You reopened some your wounds again. I put some herbs to take care of scarring."
Lana nodded thanks, and felt bad about being scolded like a little child. She was up on adrenaline and she forgot about her wounds. She didn't feel any pain while fighting Tristan. "Tristan!" Lana felt dizzy again as she remembered why she was here. Tristan was her brother. It all added up; him and her father sounded exactly the same, and her father's first wife too. "Dag where is Tristan?"Dag's face went a little slack. "He is out. He took your sword for some reason, and he should be back tonight." Dag got up to leave, and turned around to say one last thing. "Lancelot came to visit, but you where sleeping, and you are staying her for two days. Because of your little 'duel' with Tristan, I want your wounds to heal fully!" Dag closed the door be hide him, and left Lana to her thoughts.
Mean while…
Tristan was in the woods with Lana's sword, hiding and thinking. His hawk came to him pecking him with a little worry. "It's okay girl… I just can't believe it. My father had another child, and my mother died."
His hawk screeched and flew away, knowing he needed his time alone. "I just don't understand. I never expected this." Tristan looked up at the sky and said to the stars. "Father…Why? I can accept mothers death, and my tribe abandoning me, but a sister?" Tristan looked at his father's sword, definitely knowing it was his.
Tristan remembered smiling as his father showed him moves and smiling at him with a big grin of a proud father. Tristan had buried his past, becoming a cold shell of a man, and thought he had left everything from his old life be hide, but he was wrong. Tristan needed to talk to Lana about their father, and knowing he was dead did bring some peace to him, because now he knew his father wasn't waiting for him. Tristan had so many questions to ask Lana, so he climbed out the tree and saw Lana's horse next to his.
"Come on girl time to go back to the wall." he tied Athena to his horse and rode to Hadrian's Wall.
As Tristan entered the gate, Dag was standing there waiting for him like a mother hen.
"I don't know what went on in that field Tristan, but you knew better and should've waited till she was fully healed." Dag gave Tristan a stern look, and Tristan nodded as an apology.
"Is she still in my room where I left her?" Dag nodded and walked to the bar. Tristan handed the horses over to Jols, and said. "Please take care of them tonight Jols." Jols nodded and walked away with Athena and Tristan's horse to the stables. Tristan took a long sigh as he walked to his room hoping she was awake.
"Ahem." she heard Tristan mutter, trying to get her attention. Lana wiped the few tears that had fallen away, hoping her eyes weren't red, and turned around to face her brother.
"I..." Tristan paused and sat down trying to think of what to say. "I wanted to talk to you about father." Lana nodded, understanding.
"Father met my mother right after you left. He rescued her from another vicious local tribe, he never told me which one. Your mother wasn't herself after you left he said. Being her only child she was heart broken and became a shell of the women she used to be." Tristan's eyes became soft at hearing this. "Father helped my mother heal and found himself very attracted to her, and she to him...they had one night together," Tristan became a little angry, because his father had cheated on his mother, but he also understood what his father must have been thinking.
"It didn't take long for my mother to find out, but she kept it hidden from my father, because your mother was in her darkest hour, and she didn't want to trouble father more with the thought of another child."
Tristan felt sorry for Lana's mother, and then he began to wonder what happened to her. "Soon after your mother died, it became obvious that she was pregnant. Father took her to his old home deep in the mountains where he lived as a child before his parents gave him to the local tribe. She gave birth to me there, and they came back. He reintroduced her as someone else, our tribe accepted her as father's new wife."
Lana was having trouble saying these things they brought back so many memories, some she would like to forget, but knew she never would. "My mother told father who she was." She looked at Tristan with a very stern face and said. "You can't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you. No one knows, only father did, and he took with him to his grave."
Tristan sat up straight, and was a little alarmed about this secret how bad could it be. "My mother was a Saxon. She was 'mated' with the king, and once she produced a male heir. He beat her, and left her to die." Tears began forming in Lana's eyes.
"She was taken by that evil tribe and they raped her and beat her almost to death, she thought father was an gift to her." She choked back a sob. "One evening she was picking berries and herbs. I was with her, but when she saw the Saxons coming she told me to run to father and tell her they have come. I didn't understand, but I did as I was told. Father grabbed me and some of our things, he packed one horse and we ran away."
Lana reached to wipe away some tears, but Tristan was did it for her. By now he was sitting on the edge of the bed right next her. "I didn't understand why we left my mother, and I never knew why father was upset, because he was crying as we left and I had never seen him cry. I was six when we ran away. Father took me back to his old home in the mountains. He told me no one knew where it was except mother and him. He rebuilt the hut, and began teaching me how to fight. I didn't know why he began treating me like a boy, but then he told me of you." Lana looked at Tristan with red puffy eyes "He never told me your name because it pained him to much, but he said he wanted me to be able to defend myself. I asked against what, but he never answered. He always seemed to be looking for something, and had things prepared by our horse and checked up on it every night before going to sleep. I never knew it was my own people he was expecting." Lana let out a final sigh, and she was so close to sobbing.
She had never told this to anyone. It had stayed locked up in side for eight years. "That night came. The night I want to forget. He had just walked away from the stables and I was waiting in the hut for father to tell me another story, but then we heard screams from down below the mountain, and some how father knew who it was. He made me change into my riding clothes and packet the horse…I… I…"
It was becoming hard for Lana to get the words out, but she knew Tristan needed to know the whole story. "I...I was asking father why he was running around, and what we were doing, but he didn't answer. When I saw torches of light coming through the woods, he turned and looked at me with wide eyes telling me to run. I didn't want to leave without him and I ran after him. He threw me on top of the horse with eyes full of tears telling me they'd kill me if they knew who I was. I didn't understand I still don't. He made me promise not to come back and hit our horse making him sprint away." Lana was sobbing and Tristan just held her "That was the last time I saw him. I remember our hut bursting into flames and him falling to the ground." Lana couldn't say anymore, she hoped Tristan heard her through her sobbing. His shirt was beginning to soak from all her tears, but he still held her. Lana felt like a huge weight had lifted off her shoulders. Tristan held firmly to her and he just let her cry, and let all the pieces of this huge puzzle fall into place in his mind. He understood that Saxons and Samaritans where enemies, but why would they kill a child for being half of both? He didn't know, but hoped he could find out for Lana's sake. Lana's sobbing became quite cries, and soon silence took hold of her. She had fallen asleep and Tristan tried to get up but Lana's grip didn't falter, so Tristan lifted her up and laid against the headboard of his bead with Lana snuggled up against his side clinging to his shirt for dear life. Tristan tried to stay awake to watch her, but with everything that happened today, it finally all caught up with him, and he too soon fell into a peaceful sleep. Only once had that happened before, and that was after his first day of training to be a knight.
Finished! two hours of almost nonstop work pays off Whoo Hoo! Thanks again for the reviews keep them coming they really do help me keep writing! Thanks again to dark syrinx this fanfic really wouldn't be here without her! Five is coming soon, promise!
