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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gawain/Tristan if you tilt your head and squint at the future.
Feedback: What was good, what was bad, what was just ugly, etc.
Disclaimer: Versions didn't originate with me.
Notes: For sinbrat in return for the marvelous icons. Takes place just after the knights arrive in Britain, and am assuming that the knights were collected in regional batches that were sent off in waves.
Summary: Gawain and Tristan's first meeting. A convenient tree.
***
Britain was a strange, strange land-but that still didn't mean that Gawain was expecting trees to drop other boys on him. Especially inside Hadrian's Wall. "Ow! What the-"
His shoulders thumped against the ground in time with the elbows and knees jabbing all over his front. It was a confusion of flailing limbs and bits of leather slapping all over, and if Gawain didn't do something soon it was very possible he'd be trapped all day. So he closed his eyes and blindly grabbed; his fingers caught coarse-silk tangles and a gasp. A few rough-throated words that he almost but couldn't quite put a meaning to.
Gawain slowly opened his eyes and found sharp bright ones warily watching him. The other boy was bony with only the thinnest layer of flesh over him, and his heart beat a hard, fast drumming against Gawain's other hand, trapped between them. Had to be Sarmatian, but he wasn't from any tribe Gawain knew of. "What on earth were you doing?" he asked, carefully releasing the other boy.
More mutters in that indecipherable dialect. Gawain mentally smacked himself and tried his clumsy Latin. "What were…you doing in the tree?"
"Bird's nest." That piercing gaze flicked upward, and when Gawain looked as well, he saw the small blot high in the…snapped and wrenched branches. He glanced back at the other boy and found the beginnings of pink embarrassment staining the boy's cheeks.
Well, everyone missed a step sooner or later. Besides, someday Gawain's life might depend on this boy-he certainly wasn't going to count on the legionaries to save him. So he gingerly eased out from under the other knight and helped him up, then knelt down and laced his fingers together. "Up?"
Grin. A grimy boot set itself on his hands. "Up."
***