Nothing you notice belongs to me :)

Chapter 5

****Warning Warning Warning! This chapter's beginning is M for mature!****

Ok so there's a little risqué action in the beginning but it's between two married people so….it's legal!

"Oh, love, you know they'll be back soon. It's only been three months, it'll take them another two at least if all they did was say hello and turn around."

Guinevere flopped back onto the bed and watched her husband pace the room.

"Yes, but what if…"

Exasperated she pushed herself back up to her feet and began to unlace the bodice of her dress.

"What if what if what if? It will do you no good to worry like that."

Arthur stopped pacing and turned to the window, messing with the buttons on his tunic. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually been worried about the men. Whenever they faced a struggle for the last fifteen years he had been right there charging into battle along side them. Now all he could do was wait and hope they didn't get into trouble.

"Darling, turn around."

Arthur huffed a little sigh and turned beginning to explain to his new bride the reason he was this distraught as of late when the sight of her naked body standing before him stopped the words in his mouth.

Guinevere trailed a hand from her neck to her navel and back and looked at him questioningly.

"Are you just going to stand there or are you too upset to make love to your wife?"

A playful smirk crossed his face as he pulled his tunic roughly over his head.

"Oh no…not tonight Arthur! No chasing!"

Soon he was fully undressed as well and took off after her. They trailed through the bed chamber door into the small study and danced around the desk for a moment. After feigning to the left Guinevere made a go to the right back through the doorway, but she wasn't fast enough.

An arm yanked her back and up against a wall roughly, Arthur's hand disappearing between her legs. She moaned into his collar bone and bucked a little against him, nipping him with her teeth.

"You always like it when I catch you."

"mmmhmmm"

She nodded in assent and turned her head to capture his lips with hers, the playfulness ending.

In another part of the fort a couple, who might as well have been married, quietly conceived a child in the back of their small wooden house while the rest of their eleven children slept soundly.

In the servant's sleeping chambers a young girl clutched a small wooden horse as tears slipped down her cheeks. She'd never thought she could miss a person this much, and wondered how anyone could live with this kind of pain. Not wanting to wake her roommates she rolled onto her side and muffled her sobs into her pillow.

"I will let you know if I need your services Yanei. I'm quite content to have my freedom for the moment."

A bony wrinkled finger poked into Lancelot's chest and the aging face of the matchmaker smiled a knowing smile up at him.

"You're just afraid of true happiness, boy. Soon you'll see what wonders a beautiful woman will do for you."

He bent and clasped his hand with hers bringing it to his lips with a sly kiss and wink.

"You'll be the first to know when I come to that realization."

The woman walked away laughing and a little blushed.

"Why do you deny the matchmakers?"

Lancelot turned around to playfully glare at his little sister sitting on a rock behind him. She gave him a small smile and motioned for him to sit down, he may not want to talk seriously about this but she was going to pry it out of him one way or another.

"What is her name?"

Lancelot stopped in his tracks to stare blankly at his sister, the notion of her being a truth seer passed quickly through his mind.

"What has Tristan been telling you?"

Aanya's eye's brightened.

"So there is a girl!" She clapped her hands in front of her a few times with delight.

Lancelot sat down hesitantly and eyed his sister. He had thought the years would have pulled them apart, at least made it awkward. But as he had seen with Tristan as well, it seemed that no matter what the time or distance their family would always know them in a way few others would.

"I can't….I don't know if there is or not. It's gone about all the wrong way, though."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's supposed to be: Girl gets into vulnerable situation, I aid her in some way, she sleeps with me to thank me and probably follows me around until another man takes her interest. With Lainey….I was almost dead before I spoke more than a word to her. After the last battle, she nursed me back to health. Every time my eyes opened there she was. It was like one of Arthur's angels had been sent down to me. Then, once I had healed whenever I went to talk with her she was visibly uncomfortable. I didn't understand it, we'd have these moments where I could tell she had completely relaxed and then I'd touch her hand or she would look into my eyes and it was gone. I've never had a woman extract herself from my presence as expediently as she would."

Aanya smiled the biggest smile she could manage and threw her arms around her brother laughing a little as the absurdity of the situation.

"Oh, Lancelot! You are such an arrogant man, you can't even tell when a girl is truly in love with you!"

Lancelot looked at her questioningly.

"Love?"

"Yes, she's just afraid that all you think of her as is a nursemaid. She probably doesn't think you could feel the way she does and is scared to lead herself on. She's just like everyone else, scared of being hurt. You should take her into your arms and kiss her brains out when we get back to the wall."

She wiggled her eyebrows at him and they leaned on each other for a bit laughing.

Lancelot pulled back and kissed his sisters forehead warmly.

"You're ok with this? Telling them all at the last minute before we leave? We'll never be able to return."

Aanya looked at him soberly.

"I understand all that goes with leaving the tribe this way, but things have changed so much. I would have left before if Sonia and Raif could have survived it. I would not want to live without you or them for even a day."

She smiled and touched his face and he pulled her palm to his mouth and kissed it tenderly, knowing that he would now have to anger her.

"There is something we need to talk about, Aanya."

"What's wrong?"

Lancelot sighed and sat down facing her, both of her hands in his.

"Tristan has asked me for your hand."

Violently she pulled her hands away and began to stand; looking at him as if he has just told her he killed her dog.

"I will not marry."

"Aanya, don't shut me out. Stop it and talk to me." He pulled her back down forcefully and held her forearms.

"We've talked about this already. I told you of my marriage and my bond with his siblings. I will not take away a man's chance for happiness because of some sense of duty. The tribes would not allow it anyways."

"You think Tristan or I care what the tribes think? We'll be gone in a few weeks anyways."

"Yes, but, I don't want to be looked at as someone to take care of because of obligation. What if he met someone he loved? What then?"

Lancelot looked her in the eye.

"What if he loved you?"

Aanya shook her head and looked down at his hands on her arms.

"I can't…I loved Jeriah more than I would think possible for the eight months we were married. Then the baby…I don't know if I could love a man that way again; especially one who looks so much like him, one who shares his blood. I just don't know."

A tear fell down her cheek and Lancelot raised a hand to brush it away.

"Know this; Tristan is not one to do something only because of duty. It plays a part, as it does in all our lives, but if he didn't think he could love you or be a true husband to you he wouldn't have asked me. I told him I would speak with you and give him an answer in a few days. Think about it."

Aanya shook her head and looked at him with a small smirk on her face.

"You are giving him a glowing recommendation."

Lancelot's stare wiped the smirk off her face.

"I owe him my life many times over. He was a brutal warrior but he is a good man, gentle with his sister and he watches you. You won't know he's there but when I'm out hunting or away from camp he's there looking out for you, Raif said he almost attacked one of the elder women for speaking rudely to you."

Aanya blushed and gave a small giggle.

"I will consider this, I love you brother."

Lancelot and Aanya stood and he hugged her hard and kissed her cheeks. He looked after her hoping he was doing the right thing. The protection of him being her brother might be sufficient once they reached the wall, but being a wife of a knight? That would at least ensure that the people would look out for her.

Sighing he signaled to the men preparing for the hunt that he would be along soon and looked around for Tristan. He was in the middle of raising a new tent and as if he had heard his name being called he looked towards where Lancelot stood. His gaze then drifted to find Aanya in the crowd and once again he looked at Lancelot and nodded.

For tonight someone would be watching out for her.

That night after everyone had gone to their tents and the glowing embers were the only remnants of the fire Aanya left her tent to walk into the dense forest to the west of the camp. She only got a few feet in before she heard his presence. After a while she stopped and sat down on an overturned tree patting the place next to her.

"Sit and talk with me."

Out of the inky shadows Tristan's form emerged and he walked slowly through the brush to sit by her side. He felt a small ache in his heart and the desire to reach out and touch her, to make her his right here and now was almost unbearable.

They sat in silence for a long moment listening to each other breathe then she turned to him. Her dark hair fell in curls down her back and pieces fell all around her face, she pushed some of it behind her ear self consciously.

"What do you want from me?"

Tristan stared at her in the dark, terrified to say the one thing that came to his mind immediately. Instead he took a deep breath and gave her the speech Raif had helped him compose a few days before.

"My brother fell in love with you over stories told by your father. I cannot say if I love you now, but I can say that what I have heard over the years from Lancelot and what Raif and Sonia have told me has made me care for you a great deal. I realize that we don't know each other, I have despair in me but I also have love. I want the chance to know you, to feel what the rest of my family does for you."

Aanya sighed and turned towards the forest to speak. This man got straight to the point, at least it wouldn't be a long drawn our conversation every time she needed to speak with him.

"I don't know if I can love you. I can say that I feel a connection to you, in what way I'm not sure. I will tell my brother when he gets back from the hunt that I accept your hand."

Tristan lifted a hand and turned Aanya to face him. The tips of his fingers grazed her cheek bones softly and Aanya felt something stirring inside of her. She reached her hand up to touch his and faster than she could think his mouth was on hers. Hungrily, he poured himself into her and she wove her hands into his hair pulling him as close as she could. After a moment they disentangled and sat there staring into each others eyes. Suddenly he stood and strode back into the forest, disappearing in the shadows.

After a long moment Aanya took a deep breath, stood, and walked back to camp.

Gawain felt the cold metal blade sink a little into his throat and wondered when Galahad would get there. It all happened so quickly; one moment Galahad signaled that he was going to double back, the next a man and a woman had gotten him off his horse and onto his knees with a blade at his neck.

The girls short light brown hair was tied back in a chubby tail, small flyway's falling around her thin pixyish face. Her green eye's bore into his as she searched his limbs for his tribal markings. Finally she reached his left ankle and gaped at the swirling design on his calf.

"Bastarnae? You sending scouts already? There are only so many of us left!"

"Stop Zia. Look at his necklace."

The girl in front of him turned to glare into the woods.

"Kaled, stay back."

"He has the ring."

Suddenly the knife on his neck slackened and he was pulled to his feet and turned to face a large man whose short blond hair and beard looked as if he had been rolling around in the forest.

Gawain suspected he had been doing just that, with this Zia, before they heard him coming. As the man's hand began to reach for the necklace Gawain grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. Pulling the knife out of his other hand he held it to his neck.

"Doesn't feel so good hu?"

Zia gave a sharp cry and edged forward a bit, both her hands outstretched. The man, Kaled, pulled her back and held his hands up in truce.

"Please, if you knew what we went through in the last year you would understand why we act first and talk later."

Suddenly Galahad emerged from the woods, bow drawn.

"Yes, lets all sit down and have a bit of a talk. Why don't I start? Gawain, if you'd let the young man go."

Gawain grunted and pushed the man away sharply, handing the blade to Kaled and nodded to Galahad.

"Do you know where we can find a man named Dagonet's family? We are his brothers in arms…we've been away quite awhile."

Zia's eyes widened and she grasped the blond mans hand. The blond man stood and Zia and Kaled moved to flank him. Kaled handed him the dagger and he placed it in a sheath on his calf. He nodded to Gawain and Galahad and turned around, lifting his shirt as he did so. In between his shoulder blades were the three circles that represented the Antes, and in the center of the circles were three stars.

"You are the chieftain?"

Gawain pulled the necklace from around his neck and slid the ring off. As the man turned around he handed him the ring and they nodded to each other.

"If you will follow us back to our camp, I will tell you what has happened these fifteen years you have been gone."

Galahad and Gawain gave each other a look, nodded and began walking.

"Our numbers had already dwindled quite a bit. My brother was taken to Rome, Dagonet and Bors to Briton, a couple other boys were taken as well. We will never know if any of them live.

Dagonet's father, my uncle, passed on three years ago. Like I said our numbers had become so small, I was the only male of age with the right blood line. Two years later, after famine and Roman sickness took out about half of our camp, the Carpians attacked."

Galahad cursed and spit on the ground as they continued walking, they were much deeper into the forest than either of them had ever been before.

"They killed almost everyone. We were the only one's to survive. Zia my wife and our daughter Damira, Zia's brother Kaled, my cousin and Dagonet's sister Thana, and me Harith: last of the Antes chieftains.

We try not to stay too close to the tribal lands; we go deeper into the forest every month. There are just so many of them, it's been a year of running and fighting. There were more of us at first, ten more. Now it's just the five of us, trying to survive."

Gawain could smell a fire burning nearby so he understood what he wanted when Harith stopped and turned to him.

"We are here to bring Dagonet's living relatives back to Briton. The Romans have deserted it, and although it is still a bit dangerous there is a chance that we can live a proper life. Raise children without the constant threat of them being taken once they are strong enough to carry a steel sword, fight against a true evil and not our neighbors, and maybe even die with honor in battle."

Harith nodded and turned to keep walking but Kaled and Zia stared at him with such suspicion he began to wonder if this might be a trick of some sort. After a few paces, he found it certainly was not.

There in the middle of the forest next to the smallest fire he had ever seen sat a young girl with straight light brown hair in a braid that laid just below her collar bone, in her lap was a small child with a dirty gray dress on and light blond hair that was matted and curled all down her back.

Her blue eyes bore into him, she didn't exactly look like Dag but he could feel him in her. A tear fell down her cheek and then another. She stood and handed the small girl to Zia and walked over to them. She hugged Harith and Kaled and walked straight up to Gawain and Galahad, looking from one to the other.

"How did my brother die?"

Galahad was the first to move, to take her hand and sit her down by the fire and tell her of their fifteen years of service. After a moment Gawain mentally shook himself and sat next to him, adding and clarifying when necessary. They talked until the sun came up. When Harith, Kaled and Zia woke Gawain, Galahad and Thana slept until almost mid day.

Then, it was time to move.

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