SEMPER LIBER

Summary: A dying man's final request sends a young woman to a new life at Badon Hill. TristanOC.

Disclaimer & Author's Note: I like to think that Malory would have his legends of King Arthur belong to the ages, but I cannot lay claim to them nor to those responsible for the 2004 film by the same name. Thank you for reading, and enjoy!

A/N#2: The song is on anachronistic loan from Gunn McKee. As for the rest, I had no idea what to write, so I just wrote. I hope it works for you!

Chapter 14: Healing

The sunshine that followed in the days after was an affront to waking eyes. There was an emptiness inside her that didn't seem possible, given that she had not known she had been filled. She escaped Gawain's attention with some difficulty, curling herself in the loft among the shadows and the growing kittens. None other bothered to disturb her mourning.

Cariad rolled onto her back, twisting her fingers in the hay with unfettered distraction. Dust danced down from the oxeye window. One of the kittens, nearly four months old now, leapt at the wisps of hair disturbed by her hands. Another crawled onto her shoulder, its tail waving in the air in awkward ballast. It padded softly down her chest and curled on her stomach, its warm belly pressed against her own.

Wrestling absently with the kitten at play near her hand, Cariad closed her eyes and pretended she slept.

-

The power and the means were his. He could make the empty rooms a home, order softer quilts and new dresses, give her everything he had given Vanora not one year into their service. He could read her father's letter like an ultimatum. He could make her a princess, but he could not force her happiness.

This disappointment was, admittedly, nothing compared to the guilt that came over him at the misfortunes of his men. There was nothing he could have done to save Cariad from this pain, and nothing he could do now to repair the injury. She mattered, and was his responsibility on top of that, but there was no danger before her like the sharp edge of a sword or the pierce of an arrowhead.

He would make her comfortable, and keep her in his services as he had these past months. She was strong and stubborn and harder now than ever before. Now, she held a damaged shield, a woman's, no doubt, but something tragic to stand up behind nonetheless.

"She cannot stay here with us any longer," Arthur said, turning to Tristan.

Tristan leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed and chin tucked to his chest. "No," he said, staring blankly at his boots.

Arthur signed the order and tapped his stylus against his writing table. "She would have been too far from help had it happened here," he explained, though his words were not necessary, nor heard.

"No," Tristan repeated.

Arthur folded the paper and sealed it. "You may keep whichever room you choose. I would leave her in your charge now, if you will have her."

Tristan chewed absently at his fingernail. "Yes."

-

"You will leave her down here by herself?" Gawain asked incredulously.

Tristan took a sip of ale. "She does not want company."

"Like hell she doesn't."

"Shut up, both of you!" Galahad shouted, slamming his fist into the table. He abandoned his untouched meal and left, petulant anger hovering in his wake.

Gawain leaned across the table. "What is your problem, Tristan?" he hissed. "If you cannot love her now, you do not deserve her."

Tristan raised his brow, finally meeting his friend's eye. "You do not know her like I do." He drained his ale and lifted Galahad's untouched plate. "Good night."

He found her kneeling on the bed, legs curled beneath her, dressed in a thin shift that offered no protection from the cold. She turned slowly from the window when he entered. For a moment, a smile ghosted across her lips, and for the first time in three weeks, it reached her eyes.

"You will eat," Tristan said.

"Of course," she answered, rising gracefully. She took the plate from his hand and passed into the front room. The small hearth there gave off a comforting heat. She sat at the table without another word and began to eat, warming her bare feet near the grate.

"Are you cold?" Tristan asked, watching her from the doorway.

Cariad had disappeared somewhere in the flickering flame, her dark eyes lit with its heat. "What?" she asked absently.

"Are you cold?" he repeated. She did not shiver, but she was nearly as pale as her shift, and he could not imagine did not feel the chill down to her bones.

Cariad swallowed a meager bite of bread. "Yes."

Tristan ducked into the back room and grabbed a wool blanket off the bed. He draped it around her shoulders as she ate. It took all his will power not to show his anger when she flinched. He pulled away.

Her quick grip almost startled him. Cariad wrapped her freezing fingers around his wrist and held his hand against her shoulder. She turned her head and kissed the knuckle of his thumb. She sighed and let him go. Tristan took up the seat across from hers at the small table.

"Would you have been happy?" Cariad asked, meeting his eye boldly.

Tristan thought for a moment. "I think so, yes," he answered honestly. He watched, mesmerized by the delicate dance of her hands, as she finished her meal in silence. "And you?" he asked when she was done.

"I think so, yes," she answered, almost smiling. She bit her lip and refused to yield to the tears that stung at the back of her eyes.

"And what if the child was left with no father?"

Cariad's head shot up. "What do you mean?" she asked. Panic shot through her like cold fire.

Tristan leveled his gaze at her. "If I die."

She met his challenge. "You will not die." She stood and kissed each of his cheeks in turn, framing his face with delicate fingers. She brushed her lips across his forehead. She combed his hair back from his face, looking upon it as if for the first time. "Why do you say such things?"

Turning his face up, Tristan answered, "We will all die some day."

Cariad closed her eyes. "And there will be nothing for it," she said, resigned, "if you quit life now. It is nothing special to be sure of death."

"I did not care enough for life to speak of death before," Tristan said carefully.

"Oh." Cariad smiled softly. "Have I made you weak, then?"

Tristan fixed her with a hard glare. "How can you smile now? Would it please you to know you have made me soft?"

Cariad shook her head, but did not relinquish the gentle warmth that was slowly returning to her core. "No. But I do enjoy teasing you."

Frowning, Tristan removed her hands from his face. "What has gotten into you?" he asked, barely masking his concern.

Cariad face fell slightly. "I was hungry," she said. She kissed his mouth tenderly. "And I missed you."

Pulling her down onto his lap, Tristan returned her kiss with more vigor than he intended. She absolutely made him weak, and there were moments that his chest itched with hatred because of it. He barely knew himself when she was soft and yielding beneath him. Other times, when she matched his lingering, unspoken sadness with her acerbic wit, he felt he crashed against her like a stone wall, and that hardness was something he could relate to.

Either way, it was too late to let her go.

-

Spring came to Badon Hill. The nights were still damp and cold, but the longer days and melting streams did wonders for Cariad, lifting away the veil that came over her sometimes when she slept. Wrapped in the cloak Arthur had ordered made for her, she strolled across the fields south of the fortress, dragging her skirts carelessly through the mud. It felt good to have room to breathe, to feel the gentle spring wind tangling her hair. There was a sense of youthful freedom in it that she had missed since her father's death five months prior.

She walked without direction, hands curled into the edges of her cloak. Its lightweight wool was a luxury after a lifetime of heavy, second-rate cloth and hand-me-downs, not that she had ever minded. Tristan had called it a Roman cloak, though its color was closer to the hue of winter rowan. She liked it, despite his scowl.

The sky seemed to have opened up, and she turned her face to it. Around her, the gentle wind stirred the dry stalks of grass from the winter with the fresh green shoots. She tried to hear the sea, but having never heard it, she could only pretend. Her father had sung her songs of the sea, and for Cariad, the fabled black waves and the words were one and the same. She did not have the voice for singing, but she sang anyway, thinking herself alone except for the sky.

"I walked alone in foggy dew, just me and my memories. A voice out seaward beckons through, a whistle of love for me, for me, a whistle of love for me."

"You sound terrible."

"You are still a cad," she shot back, her hair blinding her as she faced the wind and the dark knight.

"Ah," Lancelot mused. "And yet, you love me."

Arthur grinned, guiding his horse alongside Lancelot's. "At least you are in agreement," he said wryly.

Cariad twisted her hair back and tucked it down the back of her cloak. Wrinkling her nose, she eyed the pair of roe tied to the harness of Arthur's stallion. "How long have you been out?" she asked.

"Since sunrise," Lancelot answered, squinting at the sun where it rose in the sky. "And you, lady?" he smirked.

"Since breakfast," Cariad quipped. "I suppose you are hungry for lunch, then?"

"We are," Arthur said. He reached down for Cariad's hand. "You can ride with me."

Cariad shook her head and took a step back. "I would prefer to walk." She smiled weakly at Arthur, narrowing her eyes against the wind. "Lancelot will have plenty of time to prepare your catch."

Lancelot scoffed. "You may have managed to train Bors and Kay…"

"That he will," Arthur interrupted with a laugh. Lancelot glared at his friend and commander. "We will see you back at the fort."

Cariad smiled politely at Arthur. She waited until her guardian had turned his horse towards the fort, then waved at Lancelot cheekily.

"Brat," he mouthed.

Grinning, Cariad lowered her hand and hid it back in the warmth of her cloak. As they rode away, she took up her father's song again. "For ten days long our love grew strong: she swore her 'love to thee.' Each night up high on mountainside she'd whistle her love for me, for me, she'd whistle her love for me." The sunlight touched her soul like a balm, persistent and warm and unobtrusive.