Ok, guys! Here's the next chapter. Since there's been a little confusion over Tarra's age, I thought I'd clarify that she's probably in her early 20s, though I suppose she could be as young as 18. It's really however you want to imagine her. As far as chronology goes, she was raised by gypsies until age 10 or 11 when she went to Rome and worked with Barak Mahal for another almost 10 years. Then he sends her to Arabia where she meets the Sultan and lives there for 2 years after which point we meet up with the present story. I hope that all makes sense, and I'll try to clarify it a bit more in future chapters. Sorry for the confusion! Sometimes I get too lost inside my own head and forget to explain stuff fully. Just let me know if anything else confuses you!
I'll also apologize for the flashback scene in this chapter because I always feel so weird writing more intimate scenes, so I hope this turned out ok!
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I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said.
"You can never —"
"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.
-Stephen Crane
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"Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight." Tristan did not know where he had heard these words, but the simplicity of their rhyme repeated relentlessly over and over again in his head. "Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight." He knew that a red sky at day break meant that a storm was coming and wondered if a sky ever truly turned red, red like blood that seeps from a wound, not the pink, faded red that reflects off the clouds.
This morning, however, had not painted the sky in hues of reds and pinks but in shades of gray stained by the glistening gold that spilt from dawn's arrival. Tristan stood leaning over the rail on the starboard side of the ship, his back to the rising sun. He stared out into the fading ash of twilight's struggle not to dissipate from the sky, but his mind was not on the sublimity of the sea. Instead, his thoughts were absorbed in thoughts of what he had left behind, thoughts of the past, and thoughts of Jillian.
The memory of one day in particular crept into his mind like the light that creeps across the sky to ring in the morning. The day was one of early spring two weeks after the battle at Badon Hill. Due to their suffering from more substantial injuries from the fight, Tristan and Lancelot had been banished to the recovery quarters of the fort where the healers could keep close eyes on their conditions.
The first week of bedridden confinement had been tolerable for Tristan, but when Lancelot's awakened states of consciousness increased in frequency in the second week, Tristan found his situation utterly unbearable. When Lancelot wasn't seducing the nurses or healer's helpers, he was griping to them about the pain, and when there were no nurses around to complain to, he had but to turn his head to Tristan who lay in the bed next to him with no other choice but to listen.
Each morning the nurses would make their rounds through the rows of injured warriors who lay indisposed in their beds and would ask if they needed any herbs for the pain. The wounded men's responses to this question always being in the affirmative came as no great surprise to the nurses. The exception, of course, was in the case of Tristan who day after day had refused the narcotics until one morning when he begged for the strongest herbs they carried.
Lancelot spun his head around in surprise. "Are you feeling alright?" he asked with concern, "I've never heard you request the drugs before."
"I want to be unconscious," Tristan grumbled, leaning his head back against the pillow and closing his eyes.
"Because of the pain?"
"Because of your incessant voice."
Lancelot rolled his eyes, unaffected by Tristan's surliness. "Come to think of it, why do you never take anything for the pain?" he asked.
"Pain is what it feels like to heal," Tristan said simply, "I won't numb myself to my body's renewal."
"Yes, well, you just see how well you can relish your pain when you're lying in bed with three broken ribs," Lancelot moaned with self pity.
Tristan wondered what grave sin he had committed to deserve this damnation into Lancelot's company. Yet every day a cool breeze swept through those fires of hell in the form of Jillian who never left Tristan long enough to succumb to the insanity that Lancelot's idiosyncrasies wrought upon him. She attended to him with a gentle care that eased his restlessness and irritation caused by the combination of physical inactivity of his body and the ceaseless activity of Lancelot's mouth. Sometimes Jillian would come bringing news of goings-on around the fort, while other times she would simply take a seat beside Tristan's bed and stare, almost in wonderment, at him. When he would inquire after her thoughts, she would simply smile and say something or other about the surrealism of life. She always had been philosophical in a thoughtful, endearing way.
The days progressed slowly as such, but the day that was now engrained in Tristan's memory was the day he was to be released from the care of the healers. Finally, he was able to move freely about, and he insisted he felt almost back to his usual self. He would perhaps not be charging into battle quite yet, but he felt well and invigorated.
He had expected Jillian to come that day---of course, she would come. After two strenuous, never-ending weeks, they would share the joy of his recovery. But it was late in the afternoon, the sun had almost finished setting, and still she had not come. Tristan's disappointment was beginning to show on his usually unalterable countenance.
"I'm telling you, it's one of those weird woman things that no one understands," explained Bors who had stopped by to pay Lancelot and Tristan a visit, "Whenever I'm sick or injured, Vanora fusses after me day and night like I'm a delicate newborn, but the second that I'm well again it's back to the same old 'Bors do this' and 'Bors stop your griping.' Now this woman of yours---Jillian---she knows you're all fixed up nice and good, so you just got to get used to the idea that she ain't gonna be comin' around so much anymore. You don't need her any longer, and women like to be needed."
Tristan let out a sad sigh and rose from his bed. Lancelot looked up at him. "Where are you going?" he demanded.
"I'm released, am I not?" Tristan muttered impatiently, "I'm getting out of here."
Tristan walked dejectedly to his quarters, his head hanging as low as his spirits. While the open air should have revitalized him, he was too absorbed in his own thoughts to take advantage of the much needed refreshment. He believed with certainty that Bors's explanation lacked validity, but he could devise no other reasons of his own that would account for Jillian's absence on such an important day. Yet there was still much that was uncertain in their relationship, for at that time, it was still in its early stages. They had confessed their love for one another, this was true, but only time would tell what lay ahead of them.
The door to his quarters groaned as he swung it open. He sympathized with the sentiment. The room was completely dark, but its familiarity soothed him so that he did not need light to recognize that he was home. The same scent, the same weaponry strewn about, everything remained how he remembered it. Everything except---
"I must be stealthier than I thought," came a familiar voice from the shadows, "Or else your senses have been dulled from illness."
In the corner, a flash of light sparked from an incense stick illuminating the outline of a face or perhaps the illumination had sparked from the eyes' incandescent intensity for he could not tell which was brighter: the flame of incense that danced in the shadows or the pair of eyes that glistened in the obscurity. The aroma from the incense drifted through the air, dispersing a mist between them. The corner of Tristan's mouth curled up in a smile of excitement and anticipation. Jillian had not forgotten him that day after all.
Her face was but a silhouette, the nose and mouth indiscernible, but the playfulness in her round, wide eyes betrayed her identity. "Oh I assure you," Tristan answered slyly, "my senses are as acute as ever."
Though still unable to see her mouth, he knew it held a mischievous smile. "Do you always allow yourself to be caught off guard by intruders, then?" she teased.
"Never," he replied, playing along with her game, "But you can be certain they are dealt with harshly."
A flicker of salacity danced across her eyes like a star shooting across the night's sky. "If you can catch them…" she challenged with a provocative whisper as she swiftly blew out the flame of incense and disappeared instantly into the shadows. He turned at the sound of a creak in the floor board, the flapping of the curtains in a gust of wind from the window, and then he was alone. So began the chase.
Tristan's heart beat wildly as he quickly trailed after Jillian through the fort. Whenever he felt that he was gaining on her, she slipped around a corner or spurted off in a different direction. Eventually, they were outside the main wall bounding off into the woods.
The forest was where Jillian gained a true advantage for she had lived her entire life in those woodlands, giving her intimate familiarity with every rock, tree, and clearing. Tristan, however, was certainly not out of his element either with his well-developed scouting skills that allowed him to be attuned to the faintest of sounds and the slightest of movements. In this manner they raced through the forest; the predator and the prey, the hunter and the hunted. Their game of seduction was the most primitive, the most passionate, and the most pure.
Tristan paused momentarily to catch his breath, his eyes scanning the moonlit surroundings that consisted of nothing more than leafed branches swaying in the breeze. The pounding of his heart echoed through his body like a war drum. Everything felt accelerated; the blood through his veins, the thoughts through his mind, everything speeding, spinning. No matter how far she ran, he would follow her. No matter where she hid, he would find her.
His head whipped around at the snap of a twig only to discover a skinny-legged fawn frozen in fright. An unsuppressed titter of laughter echoed from the opposite direction behind him and again he was dashing---no---he was flying through the trees. Ahead of him, he could see the wind combing through Jillian's long brown hair, the same wind that brushed across his face. They were sprinting parallel to a river now, their feet pounding out the percussion to the rhythm of the water running beside them.
Suddenly, the river's song changed from running to falling, and Jillian halted at the edge of a cascading waterfall that brought her path to an end. She turned back to Tristan who was now standing directly behind her, towering over her, basking in his moment of victory. Refusing to accept defeat, however, she pursed her lips tenaciously, laughed mockingly with her eyes, turned, and dove off the edge into the waters below.
Tristan laughed aloud at her obstinacy and without hesitation, dove in after her. He felt his body penetrate the cool water and then break above the surface where Jillian waited, her hair soaked and smoothed back, her eyes shining in desire and expectancy. He swam over to her and then he had her with his eyes, with his hands, and finally with his mouth. He felt their mergence, their union. Her heart fell into his chest so that he knew not if the pulsation and rapidity were hers or his own. Their spirits intertwined and their bodies mimicked the entanglement.
The river's current carried them ashore, depositing them on the river bank, and Tristan's mind was now deposited into the present. So much had happened since that night. Would there ever be a night like that again? Six weeks later Jillian had taken him by the hand and told him he was to become a father. And how very much had happened since that day. How far they had strayed…
He should not have left her. He should not have let Jillian send him away. He should have insisted---demanded---on staying with her until she was well. Had she not done the same for him? How foolish he had acted. Every second that ship carried him further away from her, while he could do nothing but yearn for her voice, ache for her touch. The separation was unbearable; yet, their current rift was only a physical imitation of their emotional distance. Whether Tristan was a thousand miles away or at Jillian's bed side mattered not for their world no longer existed in enchanted evenings of moonlight and waterfalls, but of harsh realities of mourning and loss, and he had no idea how to make it right again. His heart felt like a stone, its weight sinking down into his stomach. Desperation.
"The view is better on the other side of the ship," mused Tarra, awakening Tristan from his dreamlike state of staring out into the sea, drowning in memories. Her voice startled him, for he had not even noticed her presence until that moment. She stood leaning her back against the rail, the glow of the rising sun on her face.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" he asked, shaking all remaining thoughts from his mind.
"I said the view is better on the other side of the ship," Tarra repeated, "The sun is beautiful." Tristan shrugged his shoulders indifferently in reply, still staring off into the fading darkness to the west. "It's almost something we take for granted," she continued thoughtfully, "the rising of the sun each morning. The Sultan Arif, you know, he used to have a recurring terror every night that the sun had fallen to its death forever, never to return, leaving the world consumed in darkness. We spent hours every night trying to convince that senile, old man that of course the sun was not gone forever, but would come back in the morning. He was very foolish, yet I always felt sorry for him. Can you imagine living without the certainty of the sun's returning each morning or the promise of a new day? I mean, if we have nothing else, we at least have that. We'll always have our hope."
Tristan looked at Tarra with a firmness and understanding. Then he turned around to lean his back against the rail and faced dawn's arrival. He had that, at least.