Beginning of a Dream

Chronology: Tristan is 26. Raja is 16.

"Tristan," Raja said his name firmly, getting his full attention.

He looked at his pregnant wife, indulging her with his attention. His hands were on the sides of her round tummy, where his small son or daughter lay in a cocoon of warmth. Seven months with child. Birth would be soon...unless, she miscarried before then. Tristan thought – is that what Ardeth said? The deceased Egyptian had also told him there was only a small chance of conception. Well, that small chance had taken form.

Raja put her hands on either side of tense face, forcing him to focus his gaze on hers. "I know you are worried, but you have to relax. You will have a full head of gray hair before our child is born if you keep this up." She smiled gently at him.

"I don't like leaving you while you're close to birth, Raja," he said.

"Oh, Trissy," she grinned, tilting her head to the side. "You've been like this every time you've had to leave. Besides, Vanora and Thea are here for me."

Yeah, and thank the gods for them, he thought. Tristan had never been much for unsolicited advice, but once Raja had conceived, he was silently grateful for Thea's outspokenness. He didn't even have to ask for any information, she just gave, and he had a feeling that she was partly going easy on him. It was as if she could read minds – knowing it was not easy for him to ask for help.

"And," she said, tugging softly on his longest braid, "you know Horus could find you easily with a notice."

Tristan sighed. Nothing could completely alleviate his anxiety. Right on time, the other knights filed into the stables to equip themselves; smirking at the perpetual musings of worry that Tristan was no doubt conversing with Raja about. The scout was already ready, as he was always the first one to be.

Odin sauntered over to Raja, dipping his head down her small mound of child, as if he were checking on the growth as well.

"See," Tristan spoke, "even Odin is afflicted."

"No," she disagreed. "He's being affectionate. We needn't anymore distress, you've used it all up."

He snorted.

"Ah," Bors' gruff voice sounded, "Vanora and Thea are taking damned good care of Raja, Tristan."

Lancelot came over, tipping his head down at the unborn. "And don't you dare come out unless we're here." He had rather grown a soft spot for the child who had yet to come into the world. He'd never been much for children, especially babies, but this one was special to him. Not only was it Raja's, but it carried the blood of his family.

When the men were all ready to go – Tristan in physical contact until he had to saddle up – Vanora and Raja were there to wave them farewell. Horus cawed, perched on Raja's arm. Penelo was in the air, flying overhead as the horses' hooves pounded through the mud.

--

Tristan's apt attention was focused on his scouting and tracking, his mind temporarily off Raja's pregnancy. But once they camped, during the intervals of his break in keeping watch, sure enough his mind went back to her. As the other knights bantered around the campfire, he was sharpening his sword and daggers, thinking.

When he knew Raja was first with child, his heart leapt to his throat. They had spoken of aborting, they knew the chances of miscarrying, and the high chance of mortality if she were to give birth. She knew the chances, too, but nothing was ever decided. When she received a notice that her Uncle Ardeth had perished when his ship was attacked, her world shattered. After that, Tristan couldn't bear to bring up the discussion of the state of her pregnancy. Many times he had started to, but she had just lost her uncle, could he ask her to deliberately cease the growth of their child? The child that they had made together in acts of physical love? So the months had gone on, Raja beginning to show.

Her morning sickness was light, and mostly she was just extremely tired and achy. As she grew larger, gods she became more beautiful by the day. Tristan wanted her to do everything Thea and Vanora ordered her to do, and rather, to his surprise, she complied. She never tried to get out of bed in rebellion. She knew of her fragile health and his height of worry, and also went along with every command to ease him.

Tristan did everything Thea suggested, even the "just-in-case" things. He always made sure there were snacks available, as Raja became hungry very often in the beginning. He massaged her legs and ankles, made sure her feet were propped up comfortably. She tried to tell him that he needn't fuss, but he shot her a look and she quieted. Besides, he found he rather liked attending to her so diligently. And as simply the woman she was, when he arrived back to the fort after outings, she would tend to him as she always did. Because she was pregnant, he tried to tell her that she didn't have to, but then she shot him a look, and he quieted. He made sure he always accompanied her on her leisurely walks. And when he couldn't, he was damned near floored when Lancelot picked it up, becoming just as concentrated on Raja as he was. Since Raja was younger, they had always had a kind of an unspoken "solidarity" behaviorism when it came to looking after her.

During the increasing months, it was winter, the season which was always the hardest on her. Because of the vigilance of her state, she remained inside a lot, the braziers always flaring. Most of her light exercising was done in the stables, walking next to Odin. However, Raja did become feverous, low ones, but fevers nonetheless. Her emotions fluctuated; sometimes she was very quiet, reading, or writing in her journal, staring out the window. But when her increased want for sex kicked in, Tristan was wary, not wanting to hurt the baby. He remembered that particular situation.

"Is it because I'm fat?" she asked him.

His eyebrows popped up. It wasn't that at all. In fact, she was smaller than most pregnant women he had seen. She needed to gain weight. Not to mention, he had an increased desire for her, too. She looked a goddess – as she always did to him – carrying their child. "No, Raja. I don't want to hurt the baby." He really didn't want to take any chances.

"You won't, Tristan. Couples make love all the time when the woman is pregnant. From behind, or on the side, the woman on top. And I know you want to as well. I feel your hardness poking me constantly." She said this with a wily smirk. "I asked Thea and Vanora, and Vanora said that she and Bors often made love when she was pregnant."

Although he could have done without the knowledge of Bors coupling with a woman, he was still hesitant...even as they spoke and he stared at her, he felt himself hardening. Oh he gave in...and it was...wonderful. He relished making love to her like that. One hand flat on her stomach, one arm around the silky flesh of her voluptuous breasts. He would reach out to her in the night, and in the morning. They lay on their sides; he would spread her legs with his knee, sweet lapping waves of tender thrusts as he held her close. He loved bathing with her, the warm water encasing them, she between his legs, her back resting against him, as he used his fingers to pleasure her. Raja would pleasure him with her mouth. Such intimacy.

At night, or during the day while she took her rests, he would run his hand over her belly, sometimes putting his head gently on it. He would always kiss the mound lovingly. And the first time he had felt his child kick. It was truly alive and thriving inside of his Raja. A big smile spread on his face, his cheeks tightening the smile was so wide. The word: Father. Father. Father. It echoed in his mind, it was daunting, frightening, and exhilarating.

Tristan didn't even care when the men ribbed him for his complete change in attitude. He was still savage and cold in battle – the lethality would never leave him - but his utter rapture with the impending birth gave him another glow of light.

"...thinking about fatherhood..." Bors said.

Tristan's attention shifted to the talk around him. The men were all staring at him. "I doubt you all would be taking it lightly," he censured.

"Damn right," Bors agreed.

"You were out of your mind," Gawain said to Bors.

"Ah, you wait till you have some of your own," Bors retorted gruffly.

"I'll make sure mine aren't bastards," Gawain joked.

Bors waved him off. "You want a boy or girl, Tris?"

A slight smirk lifted one side of his mouth. "Doesn't matter."

"If it's a girl you'd scare all the men off when she's grown, and if it's a boy he'll be playing with daggers before he's even a year old," Galahad said.

"And he'll be better with the dagger than you," Tristan quipped.

The men laughed heartily.

Lancelot said airily: "Just try to not have as many as Bors. There's only one of me, and I can't play the favorite uncle to more than one."

Tristan knew Lancelot was joking, but he hid the narrowing of his eyes under his unkempt bangs. Raja's body couldn't take another pregnancy...could hardly take this one.

Lancelot seemed to notice his gaff and tacked on with prideful vanity: "Besides, beauty runs in the family, and good looks can cause trouble."

To this, Tristan chuckled with the rest of them.

"What does Raja want?" Dagonet asked.

"Boy," Tristan replied.

"Don't most women want girls?" Galahad said.

"It is Raja we're talking about, Galahad," Arthur joined in.

They talked for a while more, remembering incidents of Bors's fatherhood, poking fun at one another. Tristan left them to take watch of the area. The humor had taken away his ill bodings for a bit. Now, he only wanted to get back to Raja.

--

Raja coughed a bit too sharply, looked at the white cloth she had held to her mouth – no blood. Good.

Vanora came into the room with a mug of hot tea and handed it to the bed ridden woman. "Thank you, Vanora," she said, accepting the mug. Two days after Tristan had left; the late winter air had seeped into Raja's lungs despite all the precautions she had taken. She had been so careful all through the thick winter, making sure she kept herself warm and did not venture out into the blistering cold. It was the end of March now, the snow was melted, but it drizzled or rained constantly.

"How are you feeling?" Vanora asked, sitting on the side of the bed next to Raja.

"Better," she replied, taking a sip of tea. "I would prefer it if Tristan didn't know about this. I really do not want to worry him more."

She nodded. "I understand."

Raja cleared her throat. "Would it be too much of a hassle to put me in another room when I give birth?"

"Not at all. Why?"

She paused. "Just in case...I die." There. She said it. "I do not want Tristan to enter this room and remember that I died in here."

Vanora's brow creased in sympathy. "We're going to take good care of you, Raja. You will not die."

The Egyptian woman gave a small smile. No one had spoken of the possibility, but Raja knew it was running through all of their minds. Every time she coughed. Every time she became light headed, too tired, slept too much or too little. Raja had remained positive, especially with Tristan. He was consumed with it, always underneath the surface of his care. She could not show her doubts as well. Pangs of guilt and sadness hit her each time the thought of dying came to her. She was not afraid of dying, but rather what she would be leaving behind. How would Tristan cope? Her death would break him surely as his death would break her. And the baby? What if the baby lived and she did not? Raja knew the thoughts in his mind. She knew he felt bad about them. He would look at the living child and think: You are here. And Raja is not. I would trade your life for hers.

I made it this far, she thought, I will not die, and I will not lose this baby. I will not leave Trissy behind.

Raja rested for the next few days, and was still a bit wan when the men returned. She was sitting in front of the fire reading when Tristan came in. She smiled at him.

"You are pale," were his first words. "What happened? Are you sick?" He walked right over and felt her forehead.

"Nothing, Tristan," she chided gently, taking his hand away and kissing his cold knuckles. "A bit of cold in the lungs."

His jaw clenched.

"I would rather you give me a hug and kiss, Trissy," she said.

Tristan's body eased just a bit. She stood up and kissed him lovingly, their arms wrapped around one another. Later that night, as they slept, or, as Raja slept, Tristan laid awake, hand on her stomach or gently caressing her face.

"Don't you dare leave me," he whispered. Don't leave me.

--

Three weeks before she was to give birth, she bled. Just a little, but blood nonetheless. If it weren't for Thea's vast knowledge of birth, Tristan would not have believed her when she told him that a bit of spotting happened to some women. When Raja had false contractions, Thea told him that that happened as well.

Raja had told Tristan she was going to move to another room for the birth. Everything was set up in there, so as they waited, Tristan and she occupied that room. He knew why. It was that "just-in-case." Just in case she died, she did not want to die in the room, in the bed, that they had held each other, made love, kissed and caressed on. The same bed they had first made love on. She took short walks now, and was mostly abed during the time. When Lancelot came to sit with her for a spell, she uttered the words that she had been putting off for as long as she could.

"Will you do something for me, Lottie?" she asked, taking his hand.

He could tell by the tone of her voice that she was not going to ask him for anything trite. "Of course."

"If I die," – Lancelot winced at her bluntness – "will you watch out for Tristan?"

Lancelot, always the one to accept death as it was, the pessimistic one, a bit of a fatalist could not quite grasp the possibility of her not being here.

"Please, Lancelot. He...Tristan will really need someone. The two of you..." Raja noticed Lancelot's daze. "Lottie, look at me, please."

He turned his dark brown eyes on her, holding back tears that were getting close. She squeezed his hand tighter.

"I know the two of you always had this silent agreement when it came to watching over me, much closer than either of you would like to admit."

"You're not dying, Raja," Lancelot said hoarsely, a bit sharper than he had intended.

"I know. But I also know that there is a chance."

"Yeah, well, you damned well better live, because things won't work right without you here." He tried for a light tone, a jest, but he meant every word.

"I will do my best," she told him.

"I'll hold you to that, cousin."

--

Tristan paced in the hall. Lancelot and Bors stood stiffly, the other men were waiting elsewhere for any news. Inside the bedroom, they could hear Raja's keening sounds of stress as she tried to bring the baby into the world. Every now and again a sharp cry would sound from her mouth; it was a lash to Tristan's body. For the most part, she was trying to suppress her screams.

Thea, Vanora and another woman – whom Tristan was reluctant to let anywhere near Raja as he did not know her – were inside.

Tristan winced when another yell came from the room.

"Why don't they ever come out and tell anyone anything," Tristan growled to himself. "Three fucking hours." The man's usual repose became non-existent the second Raja's water broke.

Lancelot swallowed heavily. He'd have liked to pace and curse with Tristan, but holding himself against the wall as calmly as he could was proving to be work enough.

"When you look at your babe, you'll forget all about this," Bors said.

Tristan's pacing didn't miss a beat as he let out a gust of wry bemusement. His heart pounded, he was sweating under his coat. Another quarter of an hour went by before he heard Raja cry out for him. He snapped to, not giving a second's thought to the fact that the women had told him to stay outside. The door opened abruptly, and he was kneeling by Raja, her hand clamped in his. Tristan cut any opposition from the women with a stern, you'll-have-to-kill-me-and-haul-my-corpse-out-of-here-to-get-me-to-leave look.

He took the proffered cool wash cloth from the unnamed woman and dabbed the perspiration from Raja's face.

"Sorry," she said, "I didn't want to be alone." She bit her lip when she pushed again as instructed.

"I'm always here, Raja," he soothed. Don't you dare leave me.

It all happened in slow motion. Thea's voice was warbled as she told Raja to push one more time.

"I need you here," he said in her ear.

Her body became lax as she felt their child slip fully from her body. "I'm...always here, Trissy." But her face was pale, her eyes unfocused.

From somewhere, a baby cried. Raja kept her eyes open, breathing, holding to her mortality.

"It's a boy!" one of them announced.

Tristan accepted a blanket-clad baby, its large brown eyes looking right at him as if it knew exactly whose arms were holding him. His face was scrunched, red as he cried. And with his child in his arms, he looked at Raja, and she was smiling at him – at them.

In the hall, Lancelot stopped the unnamed woman as she bustled down the hall. "What's wrong?" he asked, noticing her ruffled expression.

"Towels," she said.

"More?"

"She just had a baby," she said, looking at him as he should have known that towels were paramount during a birth.

Lancelot wiped his own sheen of sweat from his forehead and stood in the doorway. Despite the few people it seemed utterly crowded.

"It's a boy. Go see the baby and then off with you," Thea told him, not unkindly.

Raja was holding the baby now.

"I knew this baby wouldn't be ugly," Lancelot said. "Most are, of course."

"A name?" Bors asked.

"Something not a number," Lancelot commented.

"Ardeth," Tristan said.

--

Raja was granted a warm bath, clean clothes. Tristan carried her back to their room where their baby lay in his cradle.

"You come get me anytime if you need anything," Thea said before leaving the new parents.

Raja was spent. Carefully, Tristan put Ardeth into her arms, the fact that he was a father was...ineffable. He sat rapt as Raja breastfed for the first time. Alternating his stare between Raja's face and his son. It was a new feeling for her, too. She would have liked to place the baby in his crib, but she knew she needed to rest, and would probably be convalescing for the next few days.

As it was, it was another nine days before she even had enough strength to take a few steps by herself. So soon after becoming a mother, she already felt like a neglectful one because she could not get up when Ardeth cried. But happiness could not stop itself from overwhelming her when she saw Tristan holding their son. So gentle, and loving. His face glowed.

When Tristan went out for a few hours, Lancelot sat in a chair next to her bed as she held Ardeth.

"Do you want to hold him?" she asked.

By the look on his face she might as well have asked him if he wanted to stick his hand in a vat of horse shit. He was completely flustered. But with some coaxing he awkwardly, but carefully, accepted the bundle that was his second-cousin by blood. An extension of family.

"Tristan refused to have him circumcised," Raja said.

His eyes popped. "And thank the gods for that!"

--

At sunset, Raja was napping, so Tristan took his son to sit with him in front of the fire.

"You and I haven't had a chance to have a talk," Tristan said. "By now you know that I'm your father, and the beautiful woman in that bed over there is your mother. I've never been a father before, so if I make a mistake...don't hate me."

Ardeth gurgled.

"I can promise you I'll try to be the best father I can. I won't lie to you, though, if it weren't for your mother, you wouldn't want me for a father. I'm no good without her. Maybe you might understand that if you ever fall in love. Don't think your old man is a softy because I said that, because it takes a man to admit something like that. And any man that can't is a damned coward."

The baby let out a gurgle, his lips spreading in something akin to a lopsided smile. Tristan continued to speak quietly to him.

In the bed, Raja opened her eyes and smiled.

--

It was the middle of the night when Ardeth began to wail. Raja started to get up but Tristan told her to stay put. He lifted the small figure out of the cradle which was placed at the foot of the bed.

"Shh, shh," Tristan whispered. "What do you want so late in night, hmm?" He kissed Ardeth on the forehead. "Hungry, I bet."

Raja was sitting up in the bed. Tristan gave Ardeth to her, and when she pulled down the strap of her chemise, the baby immediately clamped on to feed.

"Never this one," Raja said, referring to her left breast.

Tristan sidled closer so his arm was around Raja and his other hand could hold onto his son's small one. The baby's fingers instinctively closed around Tristan's finger, and the father grinned from ear to ear.

"He's going to be strong like you," she said.

"This is a grip strong enough to hold the hilt of a sword," Tristan said.

Raja laughed. "Only a month old and you talk of him holding a sword."

He chuckled. "Should we concentrate on something that will happen sooner?"

"Like what?"

"Like hunting." He smiled conspiratorially.

"No. Not my son. No hunting."

"Raja, every man hunts."

"Well," she scoffed. "You can set up ready-made targets for practice."

"Hmm-mmm," he replied, kissing her on her head.

When Ardeth was full, Tristan burped him, the baby lulled into sleep. When he got back into bed, Raja grimaced at the fullness of her other breast. She wiped the drip of milk from her breast and was about to wipe it off, but Tristan held her wrist and licked it off of her finger.

"Have you tasted this?" he asked her.

"Yes."

"It's sweet."

"I need to get rid of the rest of this," she said, ready to get out of bed.

Tristan pulled her back. "Let me."

Raja slowly relaxed against the bed as Tristan tenderly began to suckle her full breast. His hand gently kneaded the flesh as the liquid saturated his mouth. It sent quivers down her body. She ran the tips of her fingers up and down the back of his neck lazily as the pressure released.

Tristan stopped and licked his lips. He looked up at her.

She smiled at him. "Don't stop if you want more," she spoke quietly. "Take as much as you want. It feels good."

So he did. To him, it tasted wonderful. She tasted wonderful. He drank the sustenance she gave him, the nurture. He drank the fluid that was like life to him. She gave him everything, and more.

When he was finished, she pulled her strap back up, and captured his lips. She wanted to give him the pleasure he had just given her. During the later months of her pregnancy they had not made love.

"Too soon," he said breathlessly against her mouth.

"I want to give to you, Tristan," she said.

"Raja," he told her, consumed with love for her, "if you gave me any more, I'd have the world."

When they kissed again, and his hand slid up the velvet skin of her thigh, and into her core, she thought: I could have missed this.

Her flutter of her climax gripped Tristan as he felt her shudders run through her. "I love you, Raja."

He watched her fall asleep. His Raja in his arms, his son in his cradle.

5/27/07