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Galahad had no idea how long this storm had lasted anymore. He squinted through the slits of his eyelids, trying for what seemed to be the thousandth time to make sense of where he was. The whiteness seared in his eyes, though it was getting darker now, and was starting to take on an ominous blue quality, foreshadowing, he knew, the night, and the all consuming cold which would mean the end.
They had been out here for hours on end.
The snowflakes stuck in his eyelashes. The skin of his face felt raw, yet at the same time just completely numb. In front of him, he could make out the form of Tristran, negotiating the snow, making slow but steady progress. It seemed at that moment thoroughly unfair to Galahad that he would be caught out here, amongst all the knights with this particular one.
He stared at the footprints in the snow in front of him. Shallow they were, careful like when Arthur put his sigil on one of the letters he sometimes wrote to his fosterfather. Galahad looked back and felt his heart sink at the sight of the mess he himself left. Tristran had a technique, it seemed, which made it possible for him to not sink in very far, thus conserving energy. Galahad himself just couldn't get the hang of it. He knew he did not have that kind of talent. Or, he found himself thinking miserably, talent for anything much at all.
He tried to think of home, and realized, cringing, that he could not really remember what it was like. He seemed to remember that there had been snow there as well, and lots of it, but as he recalled it, it had been another kind of snow, a powder-like, dry and cold snow.
Not this kind, which seemed to be all wetness and weight, and packed itself like icy dough on one's boots and seeped in every nook and cranny, dripping drops of ice which made one's whole body ache, and then just go numb and heavy and completely useless.
He tried, again, to think of the snow back home. How had they negotiated it back there?
Why can't you remember, you useless pice of shit?
But he couldn't. All he could remember was a distant sound of his mother screaming, and then weeks and weeks of misery and rain and traveling, and barracks, and being five years younger than everyone else, and being beat up by drunk legionnaires because he was just some kid being in the way... And he was so tired now, and what was the point anyway?
And then, suddenly, he found himself imbedded up to the middle of his thigh in the clammy wet whiteness. He struggled, half-heartedly, to get up but then he stopped. He wanted to rest now. He was tired.
Tristran went on about three steps. Then he stopped, and turned his face towards Galahad.
"You coming?"
Galahad shook his head. "Yeah, just a moment. You go ahead, I just need to rest awhile."
"You can't rest."
Tristran's awl-like gaze seemed to study him. It always did that. Galahad wished he would stop. It was bad enough to be a useless waste of space without having an audience. Especially one who don't really seem to have the faintest concept of what it is like to just feel completely wretched, or to fail in anything at all, he thought petulantly, even as he winced at himself for thinking it. Few really knew anything much about whether Tristran ever felt wretched or not.
If he'd just tell us – but he never does, arrogant bastard that he is!
And somehow that final thought seemed to make up Galahad's mind. He was going to stay here, now, and Tristran was sure as hell just going to piss off and leave him alone.
"You can't rest," the same Tristran repeated, just as Galahad reached his decision. "You will be sleepy, and then you will fall asleep, and you know what happens then." The statement was delivered dispassionately, matter-of-factly.
Like you really care. Mind your own business. No one asked your opinion. You haughty twat.
Galahad found he was only able to think in small starts now. He stared gloomily, stubbornly, at the snow. It was getting darker with each minute now, and it had taken on an almost purplish hue. It looked horribly soft and inviting.
He had a strange warmth now, in his limbs. He squinted at the snow again. Was it just him, or was there a strange light there? A glinting as of polished bronze. Like the small, simple cup that he always drank of, back home, when he was a child. When he was still allowed to be a boy.
He saw, in his minds eye, with strange clarity, his mother holding the cup towards him. There was something hot in it, he knew, something nice and soothing and then he would sleep... was is just him, or was she standing there, right in front of him in the snow, shining, and the cup... the cup...
He sensed, out of the corner of his eye, Tristran shifting his weight. He looked briefly from his mother to the scarecrow-like form of his fellow. Tristran's eyes were looking at the same point. Like he could clearly see Galahad's mother, but that was, of course, impossible. She is not here for you. Piss off.
"Galahad. Get up." And he turned, as if that was the end of it.
"I can't right now. Right? I can't! Leave me alone."
...And the scout turned once more, abruptly, and went back, horribly fast, until Galahad found his tall form looming over him, demanding answers he was too tired to give, to things he did not care about anymore.
"What do you mean...?" the words were barely a whisper, raspy, eerily dangerous.
"I can't," he said. "Just leave me. Get home!"
"What do you mean you can't?"
Galahad looked into the snow. She was gone.
She is gone!
He would have been enraged, were it not that he still felt so tired. And annoyed. Even now, Tristran annoyed him. Why couldn't he just let him be?!
"What..." Tristran repeated the words a third time, slowly, deliberately, as if to make sure he had really heard correctly. "...do you mean you can't?"
Galahad looked stubbornly into the soft, inviting snow. He wanted her to come back. He wanted to taste whatever she had made for him in that cup. Every inch of him ached. He felt dizzy, he just wanted to sleep, right here, and he didn't care if he lived or died. He could hear the faint cry of his mother, somewhere in the wind. She would probably be dead by the time I would get home anyway...
Then the man in front of him exploded into motion. His arm lashed out and hard, long fingers grabbed hold of Galahads collar, almost lifting him off the ground.
The face of the scout was horrifying. His eyes were ablaze.
"What do you mean you can't?!" And he shoved the younger man forwards violently, and Galahad found himself stumbling on numb legs.
"Get up, and walk ten steps, get up...!"
...and Galahad was scrambling... "...and walk TEN STEPS..."
And the beast dragged him on, mercilessly, throwing him in the snow in front of him, closing in on him like he would on a dying woad, an anger in his angular face such as Galahad had never seen in it before. He fell, and backpedaled through the snow, hands desperately searching for hold behind.
He found himself briefly wondering if the Christian clerics were right, and demons existed, or angels of death, and if this was one of them and he was already lying buried in the snow somewhere.
The shadow came after him.
"Ten more!"
Galahad turned around, trying to get up. He was shaking. He felt briefly annoyed, again. He wanted to sleep, he was tired. He found himself slowing down once more.
Then the kick hit him. It landed, well-aimed, on his right thigh, and was frightfully painful, especially since it seemed to get the blood flow going again.
His leg woke up, and it felt like glowing needles were inserted in every inch of it.
"Don't even think for a second I will be dragging your pathetic and useless bones back to Camlann," the demon behind him hissed.
"Ten more!"
Galahad crawled.
"Walk."
Galahad walked.
It wasn't until later that he remembered the strange look in his comrade's eyes. And by then it was too late. Galahad couldn't possibly ask him about it... not now.
But it was as if Tristran had known, exactly, what had been in that cup.