Disclaimer: I do not own any of the character names, save my own original creations. I do not wish to be compensated for this work, nor do I wish to infringe on any copyrights held by any stakeholders of the movie King Arthur. This work is an original creation, based on the legend of King Arthur and his knights.
Scribe Notes:
Calliann: Here is the next one for you. I like how you see her. All interesting ways to take this. I have switched to the same type of POV as hers, instead of him talking to her directly in his mind, he is watching her and we are in his mind in a different way. I hope it does not disrupt the flow, and we are still able to get his essence. Let me know.
ElvenStar5: I am so very pleased at all the questions that I have raised for you. that is the whole point of this exercise. To get me thinking, to get you thinking... to nudge the pen forward for all concerned. You see the point I make of him wanting to understand the world around him. As humans, we never stop learning and he knows this.
He builds walls because he is forced to. If someone was to accept him for who he is, they could get in the "gate" on his wall. The women are all afraid of him, except this girl, who watches him. She isn't afraid. She is intrigued, that he can gather from her watching of him. This is new.
Ailis-70: She isn't a prostitute. Melosine did that one very well in Memories. I haven't decided what she will be yet, still taking advisement from my readers. (wink)
You caught the testing, and voila you spurred my thoughts for this chapter and I hope you like it. He does need to be nudged into action when it comes to interaction with people. Give him a life/death situation and he's all reaction, but give him something where he has to think about what to say, do, or how to act and he really does need that nudge now and again, otherwise he would sit and observe long past the point. He is, at heart, a people watcher. He would LOVE malls I think. To just sit on a bench and watch the people go by. If he can stand the crowds, that is (wink).
and you got my mind going for this chapter with another comment about swimming. Damn you! (grin)
Wanderer of the Roads: Thank you! Love that Dust Devils has got your mind going. I see such an improvement in your writing from when I first came across your stories. You are really starting to get a good cadence down between your discription and dialogue. Keep it up! I really liked Evening in Venice.
hunting4max: It isextremely difficult, and I wanted to tackle it to see if I could pull it off. I really hope I have with this next chapter. It takes awhile to get the direction when you cut between two minds like that. Easier in third person to twist between points of view, but when its first person, it's tough to keep the characters seperate and have different tones to provide uniqueness.
3 - Follower
Her clothes are piled on a rock. She is in the water.
I have no idea why I am here. I saw her walk this way, and when she did not come to the tavern, I simply left to come here. The ritual of her watching me, our silent conversations with our eyes, was broken this evening.
It made me restless.
I know not if she sees me, she is humming a soft, sweet tune, lieing on her back. Her hands coming out of the water at intervals to paddle herself further out. The splashing and humming against the soft sounds of the waterfall are so loud, compared to the silence of night that has descended in the clearing.
I crouch down at the edge, in the trees. I wish not to disrupt her, but my urges play the scene differently in my head. The desire to swim, dive into the cool water and tread my way to her is strong. My manhood tells me what it thinks of her naked form in the water, the moonlight casting off wet skin as she moves about. My entire body is screaming at me to move, yet I am still crouching.
My control is still winning this fight.
Like an otter, she flips over and dives under the surface, coming up for air near the waterfall. She wipes at her face, gasping in short breaths as she clears her water-soaked hair from her eyes, her shoulders bobbing out of the water as she swims like a frog towards the falling water.
She is a good swimmer.
I am seeing her for the first time, this way. She is beautiful this way.
My heart thuds madly in my chest, and I can feel the blood coursing through my veins as I watch her stand under the waterfall, all of her visible above the surface, her hands playing in the falling beads, interrupting the steady stream. I can make out her form through the curtain. Her angular and passionate face, the high breasts, the round hips ... her whole body lithe, yet soft.
It is too much.
For some reason, I look away. If I continue to look I may not be able to control my reaction anymore.
She has entranced me, and yet I look away. She has caught my interest enough to pull me away from a night of drinking, and I look away. I curse myself in my mind for being a coward. I have never looked away from a woman in my life, like this.
I have never looked away from anything.
I force my eyes back. I want to learn about her, see her, absorb her. I steel myself the same way I do when facing an enemy in battle. Stare into their eyes; force them to look into you as you spill their lifeblood on the ground. Watch the soul ebb out of them as they fall to the blade. It is the only way you can face what you are, what you do. Look away and it will consume you.
I wonder if this is what men feel like when they die, their control slowlyleaving as their life flows away from them. The loss of ability to choose as they hit the ground, gasping for air.
I am gasping for air in another way now. I must not let this consume me. I have never had a woman affect me so.
She settles herself into the water just outside the waterfall. It would be warmer there, churning, massaging her skin. I have spent many hours there, soaking in the white frothed bubbles, making tired skin new, healing bruises, wounds. I wonder how it affects her skin, compared to my weathered and beaten hide.
I stand, unable to crouch any longer. My tired legs and joints creak, sending noise out into the clear night air. I stop halfway up, waiting for her to hear them, their popping loud in my ears. My heart races abnormally.
I have never felt this way before, hiding.
Of course she won't. She is in the waterfall. I am perplexed at my lack of whits suddenly. But again, as I watch her lean her head back, exposing her neck and dipping her hair into the water, I force myself not to look away. She is running her hands over her breasts, over her nipples, down into the water. Her eyes are closed, her lips parted. I hear a soft moan echo out of her, above the hiss of the waterfall.
My manhood prods the inside of my leggings, emptying rational thought from my head. It is too much too look away, yet it is too much to keep watching.
My mind has ceased functioning, my primal needs taking over.
I straighten fully and walk into the clearing towards her clothing. She has not seen me yet. I look down to the clothing on the rock. I am pulling my tunic up over my head when my hands still, my mind coming back to me with the recognition of what I am seeing, sitting on top of her clothing.
An apple.
Always an apple.
I raise my eyes again to her, and I know now she has seen me, I could hear her movements still as I reached the edge. Across the pond, our eyes meet. She is calmly watching me, her eyes glittering in the moonlight. She has not moved. I am sensing a test, and I look down at the apple. My blood stills a bit, my control returning.
I drop my tunic back into place.
She is licking her lips nervously from the corner of my eye, wiping more hair out of her face with a hand. She is waiting to see what I will do. If I pick up the apple, have I accepted her invitation? If I leave it...
I cannot leave it.
My legs are now rooted as they were before, at the edge of the clearing, struck into the ground like tree trunks. We stare at each other over the distance, and I grasp the apple as my eyes stay with her. I see her smile slowly, a look of triumph on her face.
Every fibre of my body is screaming to go to her, caress her body as the bubbles from the waterfall are... take her... control her. My mind is holding me back. My will is steeled again, and I am able to control it.
I must control it.
I am still not far off diving into the water to force myself upon her.
I realize, suddenly, that I have done exactly as she had planned. Her eyes are dancing over me, her smile evidence that I have given her what she wanted.
I decide that this is a game. And I have begun playing.
I bite into the apple, letting the juices run down my chin into my beard. I can almost feel her satisfaction with mine, as I chew slowly, our eyes never leaving one another.
With an effort monumental enough to kill a thousand Saxons, I turn to leave the clearing, setting the apple core back onto her clothing, from the exact spot she left it there, for me.
Perhaps she will follow me this time.
Dear Reader:
As they might say "The die is cast" or "The gauntlet has been drawn". Did this work? Did Tristan taking the apple and eating it work as a challenge, a test? Did this new POV of internal monologue work better or worse from what the first chatper was?
Oh my , let me know, it's I who has the questions this night! I was really happy with this chapter and I hope it fits in with what I already have here. I'm not sure. But I know it has really got my mind whirling for the next chapter. But I have as many jumbling out of my head onto paper for DustDevils. Ah! I may not sleep tonight...
But I do hope that your sleep is sweet, and your dreams are full of your own secret desire takingthe apple and biting into it with abandon.
Cardeia