Spared Chapter 8: Spinning out of Control, a king arthur fanfic

Salome, Salome, onde é você?

(Salome, where are you?)

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"Eu estou aqui"

"She's been speaking like that all morning" Ryker filled in Tristan as he stopped by in the morning as he did for the recent two days. Another visit was expected at night, where he just watched her for hours.

Three days passed and her speaking in her sleep now became the first sign of her being alive.

"What is she saying? Always it's half whispered..."

Tristan paused as he took in the sound. This was the first time, he ever heard her voice. It was the first time she ever spoke since...

"She's either dreaming or remembering. She will be awakening soon." Tristan confirmed. "You come get me when she wakes up-"

"But you'll be in the council-"

"Believe me, it will be excused if it's an emergency" Tristan reassured.

"But what if it's not?" Ryker continued to stubbornly question.

"Her being awake is an emergency in and of itself. Just fetch me"

Ryker bowed his head finally agreeing. Tristan trusted Ryker would follow his direction and left with no further pressing.

"Care for breakfast?" Mama called as Tristan merged from the backroom into the kitchen.

"No, not this morning" Tristan said frustrated.

Mama had a way for stuffing faces involuntarily.

"Dinner then?"

"Maybe" Tristan mumbled as he walked out.

It became a habit for him to come twice a day. The family expected it, and sometimes anticipatedly waited for his arrival, even if he just went straight to the back room. It was usually that the twins convinced his to stay through whining.

When he did stay for breakfast and dinner, he usually was silent unless the conversation pertained to the backroom or what dwelled in it. Tristan found himself constantly thinking about her and was most concerned at how she was coming along. He was still reminded of that purpose, of that reason and giving. It was the only thing that kept her alive.

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The sweat seeped from her pours as her body shivered. After each word escaped, she grew more and more distraught by shaking or jerking. Ryker patted her forehead of sweat with a clean cool cloth. He picked away the stray hairs that stuck to her face and stroked her hair back. He too found himself with cabin fever, as he didn't leave for three days. For three days straight, he busied himself with observing her behavior. He knew what she was. He was intrigued. A woad, British rebel. He looked at her in amazement as if she were another species. Her skin was still a bit stained blue as she hadn't had a proper bath, and the runes were still slightly visible. He noticed the band around her hips and ran his finger around it, wondering what the mark could mean. It was the only one that did not fade when cleaning the wounds. He began to set aside the differences between her, and the woman of his own kind. They had a different built, as they were more lean and toned. They were slightly smaller,either it be petite or tiny as if it were just lean muscle and bone. Salome had slight curves as he noticed through the outward curve from her waist to her hip, but no full curves like the villager women had spilling forth from their dresses. He noticed their bodies carried more scars, as he counted five total, faded on her abdomen. His sixth was one right above her belly button, a small round scar as if an arrow went in. The skin was newly healed. He then wondered upon the differences morally and in society. Where did Salome stand in her village? Was she married? Did the married fight in war? Ryker already knew they viewed their woman equally strong as them and capable to do the things men could, like fight for their freedom. Salome fought for their freedom, he was curious to know how many other times their cause almost cost her life. Ryker heard their views on death, they didn't fear it, he studied her closely. She didn't look like she feared it either. He found the woad culture, through her, to be more honorable than his own. More fearless, more brave. All of her nation's characteristics were in her as she was a proud woad warrior. All he had to do was look at her and think. But when he looked at her and thought, Tristan came to mind. He spent years being amazed at the Sarmatian knights, as they shared the same village at times, he knew how they felt against the woads. So why was he saving this one? Ryker found himself intent on this question the rest of the day. He thought up conclusions, scenarios, could he be in love with her, could they be related, could he want to hold her hostage afterwards, was she a slave...? Ryker didn't believe in anything. He knew he would have to ask Tristan, but the lone knight intimidated the curiosity right out of him.

He had no problem asking Salome anything when she woke up. She looked delicate enough.

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"Salome, onde é você? Onde está nosso herói perdido? Esta inoperante? Ou é feita exame? Salome, Salome, onde é você?"

("Salome, Where are you? Where is our lost hero? Is she dead? Or is she taken? Salome, Salome, Where are you?")

he villagers grew hopeless. Many of the women chanted that prayer of question hoping that it would be answered with her return.

"She has still not returned?" asked Guinivere upon her visit from the Roman Village.

"No returnal. No body. No sign of her existence." Merlin filled in. "We have lost one of our heroines. Not by death, but by disappearance. But no more talk of the missing, as our nation is new days. She will be remembered as a reminder of how we got here. Now, tell me child. What is it that brings you here to visit?"

"Well, I have came to announce to you, that Me and Arthur Castus will be wed. "

"What good news you have bought here today. A new alliance, Between Britons and Romans. Guinivere, you do know that Arthur as king is in favor of the Romans. Our people would be thrilled to have you as their Queen. They will support the marriage. After the reception, I will plan a coronation ceremony." Merlin said, losing himself in his own thoughts of politics. Britons daughter Married to a Roman son.

Guinivere left with no further to do in her village. Upon leaving,, she heard the fading prayers, and decided to put out one for her dear friend

."Salome, onde é você? Onde está nosso herói perdido? Esta inoperante? Ou é feita exame? Salome, Salome, onde é você?"

("Salome, Where are you? Where is our lost hero? Is she dead? Or is she taken? Salome, Salome, Where are you?")

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"Eu estou aqui!" (I am here!) her voice raised as she became more restless. The constant words in her head bid her no peace or rest what so ever. She was passed on, she shouldn't of been bothered.

Salome, onde é você? Onde está nosso herói perdido? Esta inoperante? Ou é feita exame? Salome, Salome, onde é você?

The voice grew louder and louder, ringing in her ears over and over again. "Eu estou aqui!" she began to shout. Why couldn't they hear her? Why wouldn't they leave her be? She was passed, no longer of this world, why were they able to still reach her so strongly?

Salome hadn't realized she was dead, and it were their prayers that stirred her in her sleep to awake, as she became more and more frustrated with the lack of peace.

"EU ESTOU AQUI!"she screamed at the top of her lungs, awaking herself into a upright position where she realized, there was still light.

Perhaps it was the crossing into the afterlife she thought as she began to desperately rub her eyes, but then something surged her that no spirit would ever experience.

Pain.

Pain from her broken ribs. Pain from the gash in her side. Pain from her throbbing ankle and head. Pain of an emptiness inside.

"Dor?! No., No. Eu estou inoperante, isto não sou suposto para estar aqui. Im suposto para não sentir nada. Talvez esta é punição? Minha última experimentação como um mortal? Nenhum No. que… este cant seja, este cant seja" she muttered to herself, contemplating whether she was alive or dead.

Pain?! No, No. I'm dead, this isn't supposed to be here. Im supposed to feel nothing. Perhaps this is punishment? My last trial as a mortal? No no...this cant be, this cant be!)

Ryker, when she had awoken, immeadietly bolted out of the room without comforting her. He knew the rush it would be to get Tristan back here. The emergency rested in her voice, that constantly transmitted through the air to no one but herself, as she talked to herself, reasoning like a madwoman in her own language. It defiantly was an emergency.

"Nenhum No. Mortos Im. Im passaram. Eu não tenho que viver vida anymore sozinho! Im feito com o que eu tive que fazer! Eu não devo estar aqui-"she continued to reason with herself and the Gods that should of been able to hear her in the first place.

("No no. Im dead. Im passed. I don't have to live life anymore alone! Im done with what I had to do! I shouldn't be here!-" )

She shouldn't of been alive. She grew insane to even think her heart was still beating.

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"-You are all free men, and yet all of you decide to stay here?" Arthur said with great gratitude. Even thought commandeer of all six, he would miss their presence.

"Until you are married and crowned of course. No point in going back home and then returning" Gawain corrected as he took a drink from his facny gold goblet.

"Me and Vanora are staying within this bloody walls. Too many kids to carry all the way back to Sarmatia. Too much hassle" Bors complained.

"Not our faults" Gawain said laughing.

What started out to be a serious discussion of thanks and talk of goodbye became another casual conversation between brothers.

"I think ima find a wife here. Young and Pretty. Then bring her home to meet the parents" Galahad daydreamed.

"If your parents don't like her, im sure mine will" Lancelot smirked.

They were all in a comfort and relief that they were unable to find themselves in for ages. It was simple talk, that made them relax, and let the fact that they were free, sink in a bit more.

Ir was common for joles to come in with small announcements and interruptions, but this one Tristan payed attention to. At the sight of him, his grip on the table tightened as he was prepared to pull himself up from the chair. He watched closely as joles whispered in Arthur's ear his reason for intruding. Before Arthur could repeat the information given, Tristan was already up.

Arthur looked at Tristan in a peculiar manner.

"Good at eavesdropping or is it expected?" Arthur asked an eyebrow raised.

"It was half expected" Tristan admitted as he bowed his head in dismissal.

Tristan walked out with no further explanation. All the knights looked at him puzzled. Never before had he walked out of Arthur's councils. Perhaps it was the move of a free man, or a man who had something else on his mind.

"What was it?" Gawain asked.

"An Emergency Tristan was called for"

"People are Emergencies. Since when did Tristan worry about people?" Galahad commented.

Bors was once called out for when Vanora fell into labor. He had a family here, something the knights only had in Sarmatia. Gawain had nothing here, neither did Galahad, Dagonet or Lancelot. The only emergencies would be among them, their brothers, but they were with each other at the time. Never have there been a type of an emergency that called on of them out to aide for another cause, by themself in secret. Tristan, ironically In many ways, was the first.

"What is he up to?" Gawain muttered to himself as he thought upon these things.

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She felt it. She felt the rythmetic beating in th e center of her chest. She felt it inside and out as she held her hands to her chest.

She had involuntarily cheated death again. She was in no panic with the fear that death would hunt her down, she was in rage because death lost. It was a given opportunity for death to win and put her to rest, but was revoked as she won.

How? Why was she still here? They were more focused on the question of where she was and who was responsible. Tristan's face did not yet cross her mind as she couldn't remember anything.

She stopped her fret. The insanity left her head. She sat silently, breathing as a curse, but it calmed her to think logically. Fine, she was alive, she would take care of that after she found the answers to her existence.

This was the first time she noticed her surroundings and the state of panic a normal person would go through when the unrecognizing of their surroundings passed right by Salome. She sat upright, these thoughts numbly crossing her mind. She was fed up with Emotion and the calmness snapped in her. It was now up to instinct to lead her. Instinct, and then want.

Primary, to doing what she wanted, she had to leave her unknown settings, go to her village, settle down and think and search upon where she would go next. She had a rough idea from there.

As gently as she could she slid herself to the edge of the ed. She rolled her eyes annoyed at the pain within her abdomen. But when she felt the wound in her side stretched, she squinted her eyes and clenched her jaws, releasing no noise. She paused in place, and then prepared herself to balance on one foot. She was unprepared for the dizziness she would experience while getting upto quickly and lost her balance momentairily forgetting that her right foot was cureently disabled. Stepping on it, she made her first outer sign of pain. She yelped as she smacked on the groudn wehre she whimpered as the throbbing and stining did no cease. She layed in her misery as she controlled her breathing to sooth the pressure put on certain wounds. She seriously thought about getting up, but when her head rose, her boy froze. In front of her stood a pair of boots.

She found herself looking up at him for the fifth time. Again, he was responsible for spoiling her path.

"You Demon" she spoke in perfect English.

Tristan found himself a bit taken aback, not at the insult, there were more expected on the way, as well as hitting and shouting, but at her voice. The cruel words of hatred it spoke were no match for it alone. It was the tone and emphases she placed on it that put her message across, but no her voice alone. It did not come out as acid, it were just the words that carried the poison.

Tristan didn't think furthermore upon it. He placed the expectation to hear how she sounded in a simple conversation or when speaking to someone she cared for...

He always set expectations that fate worked against.

"Is that what your kind call people that spared you?" Tristan said, aware of the rage it would set within her, but still found it slithering out before he could catch his tongue. It was what he was used to, lemon soaked words, icy words, and when they were used against him, he couldn't help but retort.

In retorting as bitter or cold usually far worse than used against him, it stopped the process of what was used against him, actually influencing emotion negative or positive. His smart tongue was always ready to leash if someone's words were trying to get to him. It always protected him from getting hurt as he learned fro a young age. If he had no retort an remained silent, it meant the other's words completely had no impact on him.

Already, Salome was getting to him. Perhaps it was her choosing of words to use that hit hard and them as a boomerang right back at her, where they would get her even harder. They began themselves a cycle, a relationship formed as demon and intolerable fool.

The intolerable fool lost her nerve and concentration, the death of her if her and Tristan were fighting sword to sword. Not that she would mind. Tristan would as it was absolutely no challenge. He doesn't put those easy to kill to death , which was why he didn't just snap her neck this time like he liked to imagine. A easy kill wasn't the reason he spared her before though, it was more deeper of a reason and cause.

Salome knew from before that there would be a dagger in his boot. She snatched it without question and drove it into his foot. It was the fact that it only penetrated the tip and completely missed his foot that drove him to loose his patience.

Tristan pulled out the blade form his boot and with the dagger in his hand, he returned the favor by driving it in her hand.

Salome gasped as it landed right between her fingers and yanked her hand back. She looked up at him smirking. He was pleased with himself.

"Consider me a Demon of Mercy"

"Mercê?"she argued in her own language as she gathered herself up in a sitting position.

"Você pensa que esta é mercê?" she repeated stalling him as she slowly got up.

"Você pensa que esta é mercê?" she said once more exasperated. Her body was weak. She stood up balancing herself as best she cold while she caught the breath she had lost.

"You know no mercy" she said after her collection and threw herself at him, ready to throw him down.

Tristan knew she was weak. Salome even knew it, and her constant failing attempts were getting on his last nerve.

She let out a scream of frustration and pain as he gripped her arms and punished her to the bed, where she fell back against. To cease her flailing an kicking, he pushed himself on top of her as well, using his body weight as a sedative.

Salome kept up her fighting and screaming for a good while until her weakness gave her in.

"Just cooperate and I'll answer the question as to why I didn't run my blade across you that day. I kept you alive to hear it" Tristan confirmed.

And then Salome asked the question before her body gave out from lack of air and energy.

"Why did you spare me?" she let out lightly as one tear fell.

Her body went limp under him and he waited a moment before he got off. While waiting to see if she would spring back to life, he studied her face. She was peaceful when she slept. When she was awake it were as if she were in constant pain, despite the physical inflicted wounds. He was starting to notice through her rage and tears, that internally she was hurting too.

(Call it curiosity, but some questions came to mind. There were answers he wanted from people, there were the type that caught his interest. He would watch and listen, to see what she reveals. He understood that a person could hate life, but there always was a reason.

Tristan set himself apart from that category a long time ago. He found the way out through death as a weakness. HE could endure fate, even if he didn't have all of the twists in his favor.

And with this girl, something told him he was meant for more than an easy way out through death. Some call it cruelty for not allowing her to pass, others call it mercy, but he called it teaching.

Teaching what to do and how to handle when easy ways out are dead ends.

Tristan knew better. Life was a winding rode, but in the end, something worth would come out of it, and death wouldn't be unable to leave or begging, but passing through ease and memory.

It was a lesson Tristan learned himself a fifteen. And it wasn't from his mother directly,. It took her death fro him to teach himself a lesson that stood in front of every human's face, that chose to see it. He chose to see it, as Salome would when she was taught to see it. She was lucky enough to not witness it through another's death. She would heave more control and participating since it as her own death discussed.

He disregarded her past and dint think of the crutch it could be. She wasn't unappreciative of the life around her, she just had none. She only experienced death and it was misinterpreted to be attractive from far away as life's gifts were too unreachable.

Tristan would have to understand her first to successfully get her to see. She would have to understand his intention to successfully see. It was known but couldn't be done. Could Tristan care enough about a person to understand?)

AUTHORS NOTE:

A lot of things have been introduced that I thought to , you know, discus, not to leave you in the open. Yes, the fateful answer to why Tristan spared her Is unfolding. It will be through his dialogue that the main reason is sealed in the next few chapters when explaining to Salome.

With that out, the end of the story will not come. There's the aftermath of being spared, what will Salome do with her life, will it be anew? We also have to take Tristan into account, what will become of him, what will become of the two, and what will become of them and the family? The family will have a further role in this.

Once she is answered the maid theme is still rolling to the end, as other themes will be tie4d in as well as other plotlines. It all counts to the end.

Think of it this way, there is Tristan's answer, which is only the peakpoint, and then there's actually living his answer through the story. This will add more.

So is an end coming? Oh, of course not, we just begun!

Have some things you would like to see happen? Any suggestions? Feel free.

&& Pretty Pretty Please Review!!!!