Disclaimer: I do not own anything that you recognize. Short ad sweet.
A/N: I'm so sorry it took me so long to update. I have been in full blown READER mode for quite a while now and the only reason I got this chapter done was because I had to force myself to write instead of read. So here is the newest chapter and I hope you all enjoy it. I am so happy that so many of you have followed, favorited, and reviewed on this story and I hope you continue to follow the story because it gives me a reason to keep writing. So please read and let me know what y'all think.
Chapter 5
Tristan had spent the last week scouting miles upon miles of land looking for any danger that could be coming their way. He hadn't found very much. He had found a slight increase in hoofprints and evidence of Woads in the area but nothing that would have him racing back to report to Arthur.
He was still at least a days ride from the Wall and was taking it slow, keeping his eyes open for anything out of the ordinary. He was looking forwards to being back at the Wall. Tristan enjoyed the life of the outdoors but he also enjoyed life at the Wall. Not that he would admit it to anyone.
Over the past few days Tristan had been slowly but surely getting a feeling of unease build into a tight ball in the pit of his stomach. He knew it didn't have anything to do with him since he had encountered no danger even though he had been, in a sense, looking for it. So something must have happened back at the Wall.
Surely Arthur would tell him if it was something drastic and if he wouldn't he would get either one of the other Knights or Serina to tell him.
Tristan was no stranger to sleeping on the ground, but during the two weeks that he had been on duty to protect Serina he had become accustomed to sleeping in a bed with Serina's warm body next to him.
He would never admit this either, but he slept much more peacefully when he slept with her next to him. He never said it but he had a suspicion that Serina already knew that he slept better with her near.
He decided that he would go about his day and then have a proper reunion with Serina later that night in the privacy of her home. He had to admit to himself that he still got a small amount of thrill out of creeping into her house before she arrived and then pouncing on her as if she was a small prey to his predator.
Over the years it had progressed into a slightly twisted game between the two of them. He hadn't thought of what the consequences would be of doing it that first time. He had to admit to himself though, on the few rare occasions that he thought about it, it made him feel slightly ashamed.
The first time had happened after they had been together for a few years. They had just returned from a mission earlier that day and nothing Tristan did since he had gotten back seemed to stop the thirst for blood and battle.
He had only gotten a few glimpses of Serina since he had gotten back and he was still feeling very much predatorial. His beautiful beloved was a creature of habit and he planned to put that knowledge to use. Serina had been working at the tavern for hours now and would soon be on her way home.
Serina always walked the same route back to her uncles house so Tristan hid himself in the deep shadows of an alley that he knew she would walk by and waited. The longer he waited the more he could felt his predatorial blood pumping. He knew somewhere in his slightly twisted mind that doing this was wrong but he was too focused to really listen to that small voice.
He had been waiting for just over an hour and he felt every bit of the predator he really was when his sensitive ears picked up light footsteps. After a few moments Tristan could make out the slender profile of his young lover walking down the road towards him. He made a quick note to see how many people were still milling about, and to his fortune, there were next to none. He waited until she had fully passed the opening into the alley before he jumped out and dragged her back into the darkness of the alleyway with him. He had placed a firm hand over her mouth to muffle any of her screams and one strong arm around her waist to hold her firmly against him.
She had been still for a whole of three seconds before she started fighting back like an angry, wet, wild cat. She clawed at his arm trying to get him to either loosen his grip or inflict enough pain to release her completely, she bucked against him trying to get away, when he picked her up off the ground to stop her bucking, she began to buck even harder and started kicking back at him, all the while screaming against his hand still over her mouth.
It was only after his hand had been coated in a warm moisture did he really realize what he was doing to her. It had all been a game to him but he had never really thought about how Serina would react to it. Only then did he realize how much he must have really scared her. It had been a game to him, yes, but to her it was all very real.
He gently placed her feet back on the ground and slightly loosened his grip around her waist but not fully releasing her. He gently pulled her head back so he could get her to listen to him. After a minute or so of telling her that it was okay and that he didn't mean to scare her so much did she finally start to calm down.
It had taken him a full hour to fully calm her down and get her to speak to him, which she didn't do. Tristan smirked at how he spent the next two days trying to get her to speak to him. After he had made the mistake of telling her that she was overreacting, she had soundly slapped him across his face. He had backed off after that and waited for her to get over her anger and come to him.
It had taken a week for her to finally come up to him and tell him that he was a full blown jerk but that she still loved him. He had made a point to tell her to expect him after that.
And so the game began.
The sun had just set when Tristan rode through the gates of Hadrian's Wall. He rode Sasa to the entrance of the stables and noticed a slight tension in the air. The feeling didn't do any good for the ball of anxiety that was still coiled in the pit of his stomach.
Tristan was told that he could find Arthur in the Table room. He walked the many twists and turns it took to get there and pushed the doors open to see not only Arthur there, but the other Knights as well. The tension in the room was even worse then that of the stables.
Arthur had been sitting in his chair until he seen Tristan and stood to address him. "Tristan. When did you return?" the half Roman asked. "Just now. I took it slow on the ride back to keep an eye out for anything. Nothing new to report. I ran into no trouble while out and seen no unnormal evidence in any Woad activity." Tristan replied.
He noticed that after he gave his report that Arthur, as well as the rest of the Knights, still looked very trouble. "Has something happened while I have been away?" Tristan asked. He noticed that his leader had stiffened at the question only to drop down into his seat in defeat.
"As much as it pains me, yes, something did happen while you were away." Arthur said with hi head in his hand which was propped on the arm of his chair.
After a minute of silence, Lancelot finally spoke.
"Serina is missing." he said. Tristan felt the ball in his stomach grow very quickly. "She has been missing for four days now. She went out to the forest to collect herbs and never returned." Lancelot continued. The ball of anxiety exploded inside of him but he forced himself to stay calm.
The news he had just received was worse than anything he could have imagining happening at the Wall. "Did she take no one with her as she normally does?" Tristan growled. "No. I spoke to Naley and she said that Serina asked permission to take Jonas with her but they were very busy that day. She must have decided to go on her own." Dagonet answered. Tristan growled but it never left his chest.
'Stupid woman! She was told to always have someone with her in that damned forest!' Tristan screamed to himself. Tristan turned back to Arthur. "What has been done about this so far?" he asked his leader. Surely they had been looking for her. "We searched as much of the forest as we dared. We found where she had been but neither her nor Kalo were there. We found the small bag of herbs she was collecting and a small knife some feet away. We tried to follow the tracked of her horse, but it had rained quite heavily before we managed to get out there. We didn't get very far." Arthur said sounding truly distressed.
Tristan looked around the room at all of the Knights and finally brought his eyes back to Arthur. If there was ever a time to put his predatorial and tracking skills to use, it was now.
To find the woman that he loved. Even if they were the only two that knew it.
They had been searching for three months and had come up with nothing. It seemed to have rained every other damned day and made the tracks from Kalo impossible to track. One thing Tristan did know for sure was that Serina and Kalo had been taken and it was the Woad that always seemed to be hiding in the shadows.
He should have taken care of it years ago! But after his warning Serina always took that boy of Naley's into the forest with her so he had thought she was safe. With a heavy heart, Arthur finally called off the search for Serina.
Her disappearance seemed to take some sort of affect on everyone around him. Vanora and all of the children seemed to take it hard. Dagonet missed having her constantly question him about different medical herbs. Bors seemed to miss her telling him to stop drinking so much and help his lover take care of their little bastards running around everywhere, although why he would miss that particular trait of hers no one knew. Galahad and Gawain missed having her around to cause harmless mischief with. Lancelot missed flirting with her at every chance that he got.
Tristan just plain missed her. There was no single thing or trait that he missed about her. He just missed HER. He missed the way the sun would glisten off of her raven black hair, the way her sky blue eyes would sparkle when he became happy or excited, the way her skin glowed after he had fully had his way with her, wicked or otherwise. He missed the rare nights of her sleeping next to him, missed having her scent in his clothes after he had been in her house for too long, missed the way her skin would hold not only her scent but his as well after staying with her all night.
The more he thought about how much he missed her the angrier he would become. By the time she had been missing for six months people avoided him more than they had before Serina had disappeared. Tristan had never really been an easy person to get along with or get to know but it was even worse now.
Sometimes he reminded himself of a wild caged animal. But when he and the other Knights were in battle he uncaged the wild beast and became utterly blood thirsty. He knew a Woad had taken Serina and Kalo but he didn't know where he had taken them and every time he seen a Woad, he made sure to take some of his anger out on them.
By the time she had been gone for nine months, Tristan started to withdraw his anger and become the person he had before he had let Serina get under his skin. He would go to the tavern at night and sit in his darkened corner but he no longer had the look of a caged animal. He still had an aura of danger about him but it was less stronger than it had been.
She had been gone for a full year before Tristan finally made himself accept that Serina was dead. She had to be. It severely pained him to think of his woman dead but he knew it was time to finally let her go and be at peace. The only reason he had held out any hope for her still being alive was because he had had such a hard time believing that anyone would try to harm or kill something so beautiful.
It was time to let her go and let them both be at peace now.
It was just after sundown when two riders on horseback approached the gates to
Hadrian's Wall. The gates had been closed, which forced the two riders to stop. "Who goes there?" one of the guards called down to them. The two riders wore cloaks with their hoods up which hid their faces from what little light the few torches gave off. They both looked up but only one of them spoke.
"We wish entrance into Hadrian's Wall. We wish to speak to Arthur Castus. We have news of Woad attacks on a village two weeks ride from here." the voice called up. To the guards surprise, it was feminine. The guard just looked down at them saying nothing. "Please, we must speak to Arthur Castus and his Knights." said the other rider, who also sounded feminine. The guard then turned and ordered the gates to be opened and news of the riders to be sent to Arthur and the Knights.
The two mysterious rider where shown to the village stables where they dismounted from their horses and followed a guard to what was assumed to be the fortress of the Wall. The riders never removed their cloaks or hoods but were unmistakably female judging by their size alone.
The unknown females were shown to a large room with an equally large round table and seven rough looking men were scattered about the table. The women had heard stories of Arthur and his Sarmatian Knights and took a moment to study each of them.
One was a large man with a shaved head and a scar that also graced it but he had somewhat kind eyes. The man next to him was a monster of a man. Extremely tall and looked as if he could do quite a bit of damage if given the chance but he had a kind looking face. One had a full head of very curly hair and he had a full scruffy beard and also looked very kind but also looked much younger than any of the other Knights so far. The man next to him was very attractive with a long mane of golden hair, a short slightly dark beard, and had gentle eyes. The man they looked at next was breath taking. The man before had been attractive but this man looked as if he was a fallen angel of the Christian religion. He had a head fully of dark curly hair, he had a short but neat dark beard, and what looked like black but mysterious eyes. He was a close to beautiful as a man could get. The next man was equally captivating but in a completely different sense as the man before him. He had long dark hair that almost reached his shoulders with a few thick braids thrown in, a short but somewhat scruffy beard, he had what looked like some sort of tattoo on each of his cheekbones, and eyes that looked like they held many dark secrets.
The two women finally looked over to who they could only assume was Arthur Castus of Rome. He stood fairly tall, he had dark, thick, wavy hair, a strong clean shaven face, and beautiful dark green eyes.
Arthur starred at the two mysteriously cloaked visitors but could tell nothing of them other than that they were female, as the guard had told them. "Ladies, my name is Arthur Castus." he greeted them. He seen them give a slight bow in return. "These are my Knight." Arthur said gesturing to the men around the table. "Bors." he said pointing to the large man. "Dagonet." he said pointing to the monster of a man. "Galahad." he said pointing to the youngest Knight. "Gawain." he said pointing to the attractive Knight. "Lancelot." he said pointing to the beautiful fallen angel. "And Tristan." he said pointing to the man with the tattoos.
"Gentlemen. Thank you for allowing us a meeting with so late. But we would not have come if it was not important." said the woman standing in front. "We were told you have knowledge of a Woad attack on a village." Lancelot said to the women who looked at him when he spoke. "Yes. A small market village just fourteen days ride from here. They came in the middle of the day while everyone was about and attacked the village. They killed or captured many people, raided and burned our homes and villages. My companion and I only managed to escape because we were not in the village at the time of the attack but out in the edges of a small near by forest collecting medical herbs for our business and we heard the screams. After we knew it was safe we went into the village, grabbed food and our horses and rode here." the woman said again.
"Have their ever been any attacks on the village before?" Gawain asked looking at the women. "Small attacks, mostly shortly after any Roman soldiers or such have been in the village but nothing like this before. They seemed to be looking for someone or something but we are not sure." said the other woman still standing slightly behind the first.
Just then a door which seemed to be a servants entrance slammed open to show an older man with short dark hair and a mix of dark and grey stubble on his face. "Arthur, I've just been to the town stables. How did Kalo get here?" the man asked stalking into the room only to seen the two cloaked strangers standing in the room. The women didn't know why but the name Kalo seemed to cause a somewhat violent reaction out of all of the Knight.
All eyes suddenly turned to the two mysterious riders. "Jols, are you certain it is Kalo?" Arthur asked the new man.
"Yes. I wouldn't forget a horse like that." the man named Jols replied. Arthur looked back at the women. "Which of you belongs to the large dark war horse?" Arthur asked them. "He is mine. How would you know my horse, we have never been to Hadrian's Wall before." the woman in front asked.
Arthur looked at both women with somewhat hard eyes now. "Remove your hoods this moment." Arthur said in a hard tone. The woman in back responded first. Small, pale hands reached up and removed her hood.
She had golden hair, although how long was a mystery as most of it was still inside of her cloak, dark green eyes with a slight bit of brown mixed in, pale skin, a large mass of freckles adoring her nose and a few on her cheeks,and full pale pink lips. "My name is Joslin." she introduced herself.
The woman in front took a minute to respond. Small golden tan hands reached up and removed the hood.
There was a collective gasp from every man in the room.
Standing before them was a woman with a mass of raven black hair, golden tan skin with a light sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks, sky blue eyes, and full pink lips.
"Serina." Lancelot said in awe.
The woman looked at him in confusion. "I am sorry, I do not know that name." she said to him.
"My name is Chessa." she said addressing everyone in the room.