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"Go and tell him, rather than staring at his ass all day," Gawain advises. He drops his food onto the table with a splash of stew that wets Galahad's tunic unexpectedly before he sits heavily beside him. It startles Galahad from his thoughts.
"I don't know how to get through to him, Gawain," he laments. It is pointless to protest - they have been brothers in arms long enough to read each other this well at least.
"Have you tried getting in his tent and arranging yourself naked on his bedroll?" Gawain suggests outlandishly, but Galahad is willing to consider even such a dramatic gesture.
"Perhaps short of that," he allows. "I can't read him, Gawain. Sometimes I am sure of his interest, and at others I think I just annoy him."
Gawain chuckles. "We all annoy him, brother. All but that bird of his and if she could talk, I wonder even then."
It was true that of all of them, Tristan seemed most content with silence. Galahad was not fooled into thinking that meant he was less intelligent as some of the other knights had once been.
They had, perhaps, done a damage to Tristan by treating him cruelly when they were younger. Though all of those knights who remained now treated him with respect, an isolation had taken hold of Tristan in his earliest days. It was a wall, like ice, that Galahad was now trying to chip away, carefully. Tristan was suspicious by nature in a self-protective way that has served him well as a scout. It does not, however, do him favors in the matter of romance. Galahad is unsure, in all honesty, if Tristan is even interested in such things.
"I'm just uncertain. Surely he must already understand my interest?"
"I wouldn't say 'surely'. Tristan may not be looking at things in the way we expect him to look." Gawain laughs, then, "I would wager on it in fact."
"So how to make him look..." Galahad laments.
"Try spelling it out for him. You may have to teach him the alphabet."
Galahad begins to argue, "Tristan is as lettered as any of us."
Gawain shakes his head, shoveling stew into his mouth. That isn't what he'd meant. Galahad considers the meaning of the words beyond the literal. He is tired of puzzles and difficulties in his path.
"Are you suggesting I-"
"Woo him like a maid," Gawain obliges, swallowing a mouthful of food. "Try flowers."
-
They are not easy to get ahold of in the north in winter. Even in spring it seems that few come to Galahad's attention, and they are all the vibrant blue woad flowers from which their adversaries take their name and draw their blue dye.
Hardly an appropriate gift for a Roman knight of Sarmatian origin. Red would be better - the color of triumph.
Galahad scavenges the hilly countryside and finds at least some vibrant pink heath, a few late calendula in a sunny spot. All else are sickly white daisies, but he finds enough to make a presentation of.
He wishes he had the idea in spring, when the hills south of the Wall had seemed painted - if only in the many shades of blue.
He binds the bundle together at the stems, and decides he has no head for the artful arrangement of flowers. It is unlikely to matter. Galahad is willing to try - as he had tried all other manner of more subtle communication.
Tristan is set to archery, an obsession he indulges in his free time with insistent determination. The work has rewarded him - he is an excellent shot. Enviable, in fact, in the moments he does not see fit to use his talent to show up his comrades.
Galahad hesitates in the tree line to watch, quiet. Tristan is capable of extreme stillness - a feat Galahad has never mastered. He draws the bow taut, fingers tucked against his cheek, and takes aim, making small and fluid adjustments. For a second, he is still, his body describing a powerful line - and it is beauty, to Galahad.
In combination with his wildness and confidence, all of Tristan's pieces seem a perfect fit. It is what has drawn Galahad's eyes, though beneath his tangled fringe of hair and fairly constant layer of dirt, Tristan is not unattractive.
Letting the arrow fly, Tristan relaxes, drawing another from the quiver slung over his shoulder before the first has hit its mark.
"Tristan," Galahad interrupts, careful to choose a moment before the string is tight. He is almost sorry to interrupt, though he will not get his opportunity otherwise.
Cool, dark eyes turn in his direction, betraying no welcome - but at least they are not disdainful. Tristan says nothing and waits, bow lowered.
Galahad suddenly feels the epitome of foolishness. He takes a deep breath, and then steps forward. The flowers in his hand do not feel a good shield for Tristan's ire.
He presents them anyway, though Tristan's hands are full between bow and arrow and he cannot immediately take them. Tristan looks at the offering, and for a moment, his features rearrange themselves into confusion. It seems to be by pure shock that he returns the arrow to his quiver and reaches to take the makeshift bouquet thrust in his direction unwaveringly.
"What-?" Tristan asks, but the flowers are in his dirty hands at least, and that is further than Galahad had thought to get.
He does not now know what to say. Subtlety had not gotten him through to Tristan. Patience and obvious persistence might. If the other did not laugh him off the field.
"A gesture of affection," Galahad tells him plainly.
"And who am I conveying it to?" Tristan asks, again mistaking his intent.
Galahad sighs. For one so keenly observant, Tristan was gifted with a certain obliviousness.
"It is for you," he says, and then before any further tangling questions, "from me."
Tristan doesn't say anything, instead looking down at the flowers as if searching for some hidden meaning in their color and texture. They are inartfully arranged, thin stemmed and already sagging from being handled.
"Why?" is all Tristan asks, after a long, contemplative silence.
Galahad thinks of Gawain's advice, and does not know if even teaching Tristan the letters will be enough. It seems as basic as it gets, to offer flowers. Galahad cannot teach the man to draw a straight line. He tries anyway.
"It is usual to offer nice things to people you like," Galahad prompts.
Tristan's brows lift - somewhere between realization and scepticism. - and he looks back down at the bouquet in his grip.
Galahad can't tell if it is criticism or consideration.
-
Galahad does not quite feel he is being avoided, but Tristan's silence is nearly absolute. Galahad persists. He can accept an answer that is negative, but he will make Tristan at least give it. They are past a point where childish avoidance is acceptable. They are too old and too long associated.
He settles next to Tristan at dinner, and makes all of the conversation, content to be in Tristan's presence.
"I believe I am actually growing accustomed to snow," Galahad laments. "Though my thoughts stray often to golden fields and waving grass."
Tristan stays quiet but his expression is not hard. Galahad wonders if the expression means that Tristan is also remembering or if it is a sorrow that he no longer recalls.
Galahad has discovered that they all remember some things with acclarity, but that it varies widely. Bors loudly and often recalls his brothers and the tussles he shared with them. Lancelot recalls the beautiful maids with shining black tresses to catch the sun, just beyond the reach of his age when he left.
Gawain remembered food, and the face of his mother. In quiet, drunken moments Dagonet admits only that he little misses what he remembers. His family had been overburdened with fertility and under-blessed with luck. Galahad has memories of the occasional empty belly, hollow and demanding, but not to the extent Dagonet seems to.
Tristan alone is utterly silent on the subject of his memories. Galahad finds that curious, but somehow does not suspect that darkness causes it. Perhaps only neutrality, with no urge to compare past and present situations. Contentedness..
"I never thought I would say it," Galahad continues, around bites of his food, "but I wonder how long until this place feels more like home than those golden fields I can only remember."
"Perhaps they never existed at all," Tristan answers, "and when you return you will find gold is a color of memory only."
It is unusually philosophical for Tristan. He throws down his half-finished roll on to his unfinished plate, getting up to leave. He leans back to claim the half-empty cup.
"Memory is not enough to gild reality," Tristan adds, and now his eyes are hard. "You live here and now, where grass and shit are brown."
-
The words do not quite haunt him - though Galahad considers them. If ever Tristan had given him a clue to his thoughts and attitudes, it was in that callous disregard for lost ideals.
They lived here and now, as Tristan said, and it was something about that which held him aloof and apart.
Well, Galahad allowed, he held himself that way. It did not have to be so. Galahad does his best to understand it - and what he runs up against is loneliness. Tristan did not seek to alleviate it, even when offered the opportunity.
He finds Tristan at archery again, with the hawk sitting close by in her tree to keep watch. They are familiar, that pair, and she looks up from preening a wing to shriek a warning that does not foul Tristan's shot. It hits the target only a hair off center.
"Did you bring flowers again?" Tristan does not look at him.
"No," Galahad admits. "You do not seem to want them."
Tristan draws his bow again, taking aim. He does not bother to address Galahad directly, to even look at his fellow knight. In the branches above his head, Conseca returns to the care of her feathers.
"Will you dog my steps forever?" Tristan asks, his tone lower.
"Not forever," Galahad admits, "but until you answer."
Tristan lets fly his arrow with a grunt. This time his aim is less perfect.
"I don't understand your dedication to solitude, Tristan," Galahad forges on. "I don't see that you enjoy it as much as you pretend. Yet, whenever someone reaches out to draw you in-"
"You are becoming an annoyance," Tristan interrupts, but his tone isn't as sharp as it might be. Rather, there is an expression on him that mirrors Conseca's when her feathers are pushed against the grain and out of array.
He is discomforted by it, Galahad supposes it is the answer he will get, and it has come his turn to accept defeat with the grace that did honor to Arthur's name.
"I'm sorry," Galahad says, "I only wanted to be sure you knew."
Tristan's smile is grim, and he does not turn it onto Galahad. It is, however, a smile, a sign that not all is damaged between them.
"I knew," he assures. "Even before the flowers."
Galahad smiles back wanly, and retreats.
-
"Did you get through to him?" Gawain drops his plate on the long table before he joins Galahad at supper, scattering food over the wooden surface.
"It turns out he knew the alphabet all along," Galahad answers, but when he smiles, he means it. It has been easy to lose his troubles with a plentitude of companionship, each of his brother in turn taking turns to cheer him.
Gawain chuckles, and thumps Galahad between the shoulders with a gentle affection.
"I never thought him much for spelling," Gawain says, amicably.. "His loss for sure, you'll find another. Watch for Lancelot, he's been making plans to have you ambushed by any camp girl he hasn't already collected as his own."
Galahad groans. "Can I sleep in your billet for the next few nights?"
Gawain considers the notion, and then smiles slyly. "Are you suggesting I take your place?"
"It would be a sacrifice, I know," Galahad answers.
Gawain pulls air through his teeth, as if facing the grimmest of tortures, before he offers his hand to seal the deal with an anticipatory smile. It spoils his play at self sacrifice.
He is aware, suddenly, of a near presence. He looks up, smiling. He hopes it is not Lancelot, to overhear the spoiling of his plans.
"Can I have a word?" Tristan asks, tone low. He stands near at hand, looking uncertain. Galahad hesitates only because he had thought the matter past.
It is vain to think this is about the same, perhaps, and Galahad rises to go with Tristan into privacy. They were still fellow knights after all, and they would continue to be - no sense in holding the past as a grudge.
They walk for a time in silence. Galahad waits with learned patience for Tristan to gather himself.
"I miss your presence," Tristan admits, finally.
"I am still present."
A pause. "I miss your attention."
"You said you found me annoying."
Tristan pauses for longer this time, and Galahad does not let his hopes unfold too far. He cannot know what Tristan will request.
"I changed my mind," Tristan says, after a long moment. "What was annoying was not understanding."
Galahad sighs out, uncertain where this should leave them. It is perhaps another question of language, of alphabet.
"You can have my kinship and brotherhood, as it is, with nothing further," Galahad allows. He wonders if it was only the absolute of definition that had made Tristan so wary. Yet, a lack of it was not something Galahad could accept. "Yet for my attention..."
Tristan makes a faintly frustrated noise, reaching to take Galahad by the shoulders.
"For my attention, the way it has been these last few weeks, you must commit yours in return," Galahad finishes firmly, trying not to waver at the sight of Tristan's intense brown gaze.
But it needed to be said, to be insisted on - Galahad, even as much as he wants this, will not begin it at a disadvantage.
"You have it," Tristan promises, and then draws Galahad in for a kiss.
-
[END.]