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 your update, and I really hope you like it! More clues... more excitement! I am so glad you like it.
Alis-70: Boo! Snuck this one in for ya to read when you get up tomorrow. More hints on what/who she is. Yes, willpower is a strong trait he has, and she is testing it. She knows. He is also intelligent, she knows this as well, and that he has accepted her "challenge" says interesting things about how his mind works, and how she perceives drawing him out. This chapter will give you an indication that she caught him in a moment of being a man, not an animal, and now...
I hope you like it. I eagerly await your ideas, and your input.
Melosine: Hmm... your idea that he may be suspicious is a good one.
But I also see something else more playful in this. She is drawing him out. Making him do things he normally would not do. Men, when faced with such things, can react out of character. (Example: Tristan and the baby crow?) I see her wanting him to come to her, yes, but knowing eventually it may be her, since he has the patience of a mountain. She knows how intelligent he is, and by his eating the apple, she knows he understands her challenge. I have always seen a humourous undertone in Tristan, his dry comments and stone face speak to me of a humour that rides high above that of Bors' crudeness or Gawain's jesterish temperment. Dry like toast, but humour nonetheless. He takes the apple on her clothing for what it is... a gesture meant to push him, and he wants to push right back, because of how she makes him feel when she watches him. What it makes him want.
Flirting at its heart.
So forthem to take up the challenge as it happens here, in this chapter, seems right for me. I hope you like it, and I really look forward to your comments.
hunting4max: Its so hard! thats why the updates are sporadic. The next chapter will hit me quite suddenly when I am in the right frame of mind. I have to centre myself with that character, be it Tristan or her, and think about reactions, think about mindset... and try to write so that it sounds right. Often I see one or the other sneak in and I really have to work the angles to make it read right. I am glad you think it works! This is a challenge for me to write this way and I am doing my best to meet it.
Sokorra Lewis: Follows, but in a different way. And the ante is upped. I hope you enjoy the enxt act in this "mini-movie". Very cool that you think of it that way.
The Freakin' Hot One: Here you go! The next chapter! Not going to find out what happens all at once, but I hope you enjoy the development.
4 - Challenge and Gift
It has been three days since he followed me to the pond. Three nights since he saw me under the waterfall, and now the fourth morning is upon me as I don my clothing to begin the day.
How I wanted him to join me when I saw him standing at the edge of the water. I had been lost in fantasy of him, held in the swirling eddy, and suddenly he was there, undressing. Had he seen me? I held myself still, waiting for him to look over, see my clothing, hear the splashing of my body in the water.
But he stopped suddenly, and as our eyes met, he had bent down towards the rock, slowly.
He took the apple.
I followed the juices dripping down his chin, onto his tunic. I relished how his hand cupped the fruit as his teeth bit into its flesh hungrily. He came alive as he chewed. I could not look away. His eyes held me riveted.
I had left it there, for him.
I had not realized then how excited that one act could make me. I imagined my skin was the apple, and hoped he could not see my heated face from where he was, beside my clothing. I could feel my blood boiling in the cool water. It was all I could do not to swim to him.
But I wanted to watch his response, and stayed in the swirling waters.
Somehow he had known the apple was for him.
The game he started in leaving the core on my clothing gave my thoughts wings. The challenge had been set, without one word spoken.
For three nights now I have left an apple at the door to his quarters, instead of feeding his horse before I go to mine.
And every morning, an apple core waits for me when I step outside, placed neatly on the edge of my doorstep. Not in so long have I laughed in greeting the day, a new excitement of what it might bring, in a simple browned apple core.
He is playing such an interesting game. I can't help but want to play along with him.
I know he is watching were I go, what I do. I can feel his eyes on me when I am walking, when I am working. Always when I turn around, he isn't there. But I know he is watching. I go about my day, waiting to see him in the comings and goings, but the only time I feel him fully both with sight and senses is at night, in the tavern.
He is a scout. This does not surprise me in the least.
I should just walk to him, speak to him, but somehow, I hold back. This game we play is teaching me more about him than one night of conversation over cups ever could. The intensity of my desire increases with each day.
It is making me want to understand him more, learn the key to unlock his soul, and yet I do not go to him. I want him to come to me, but I know that he has a patience unequaled to mine.
We are both tugging on either side of a string, to see who will break it first. I wonder at when the threads will snap, and send me tumbling to him.
Last night, he was not in the tavern.
After watching his companions drink and sport, their loud voices carrying over the entire area, I silently left. I had no interest. Their table held nothing without his calm presence to anchor my eyes and my thoughts.
As always, I stopped and left his apple on his doorstep. Earlier than normal, and I stayed a moment, staring at his door. The want to see the other side rooting my feet in place until I heard footsteps in the alleyway behind me.
This morning, under his apple core, there is something else.
I pick up the remains of the fruit, a brief thrill coursing through me, knowing his lips have touched it, and for the briefest of moments, I touch the core to mine, to feel the impression his teeth leave in the air-browned flesh, to be closer to him.
This is ritual now.
My eyes dart to the slip of cloth that was rested underneath it. It is soft in my fingers as I grasp it, its folds smooth. I touch it to my cheek. Deerskin. Not cloth. Tanned and well worn.
I notice it is bound by a long, thin strip of leather. I tilt my head, then look up around me. Is he watching? I can feel the hair on the back of my neck rising. I dart my eyes around the area outside my door. My skin has prickled with bumps.
There is no one there, yet I can feel him.
My fingers untie the small knot in the leather, ever wary that he may indeed have some spot from which he is silently sitting, watching me unfold his gift, the leather strip dangling from my shaking hand, the apple core back on the doorstep, momentarily forgotten. It is folded many times, and I can feel a centre bump growing more solid with each unfolding. The last side is peeled away and I can feel my heart stop, my stomach flip of its own accord.
An elf bolt, perfect in every way.
Again I look up, darting eyes quickly. Such a gift is not to be taken lightly. A rare find, carried for luck, cannot be dismissed. I trace its edge with my finger, the intricate detail of the point, the flash of the flint as the morning sun hits it from between the buildings.
It is beautiful, and precious.
My eye catches the ends of the leather strip, hanging from my fingers, and I suddenly understand. I knot the middle of the rope around the edges of his gift, and fasten it around my neck, my hand smoothing it to my chest as it settles just above my breast bone.
I hope that from wherever he is watching me, he can see me smile. I glance down at the deerskin, and feel the softness in my hands, running my fingers over it. I look for words, letters, some marking to tell me it is his.
I don't expect any. Military men, unless ranked, cannot read, nor write.
I smile as I think on that. Long have I sat by beds, with bound lambskin open in my lap, reading stories of far away lands as they drift to sleep. Soldier, knight, cavalry, general... Man, or boy. All are lulled, their pains taken away, to dream of the story I speak by soft voice and flickering candle.
I wonder, briefly, if he would enjoy those stories. My eyes close, the soft material against my cheek again. I imagine his head in my lap, my hands running through his hair, over his face, quietly reading him stories, his eyes closed and soft, at peace the way I know he wants.
The peace I long to give him, to show him that I see more than animal. I see man.
My eyes flutter open and again I peer down to the deerskin in my hands. I fold it further, and stop, my eyes catching what I was searching for at last.
A symbol.
It is not Latin, nor is it Roman. I know not what it is. It is simple, almost crude. I trace it with my finger, just as I did the elf bolt when in my hand.
Two softly curving marks, like claws.
I close my hands around the deerskin and press it to my chest, my heart beating so hard I can hear it outside my body, my eyes now searching frantically around me for any sign that he is there. I step out over my threshold and peer down the alleyway.
There is no one.
I take a deep breath and calm my nerves, jumping at what is stained onto the deerskin. Deep blue, edges sharp, painted by hand.
Two softly curving marks, like claws.
Like tattoos, on skin.
Dear Reader:
The idea that she leaves apples for him somewhere and he gives her back cores was too funny not to try it. I think it works. But now, we see something else come into it. Something so precious to the finder as an elf-bolt, being given to another, is, from some stories I have read, a gift of highest regard. A gift that provides the wearer with protection and luck.
Why did he give it to her? Why did he leave it with the apple core instead of finding her? Or did hewatch her as she wound the leather and hung it around her neck? Any more clues on who she is? Why do you think there is a replica of his tattoo on the deerskin?I hope I have made these questions come to your mind, and many more!
I got this idea while mucking stalls today, no idea how, but as soon as I was done I raced to the house and wrote it. I hope you like the next part of this romance, and even though the udpates are sparse, know that your comments do give me measure to think on this story every day. It is a very difficult story for me to write, and sometimes takes me time to get the right feel to continue.
If wishes were elf-bolts, we would all have such a prized gift from our loved ones adorning our bodies. Be it jewelry, attoo, or love bite.
Cardeia