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Galahad didn’t believe in fate, not in the way the others did. To them fate was a concept that enabled some to find peace in their circumstances, peace in the face of the death of their companions. They saw it as a fickle mistress, a thing intangible and unknowable and unlikely.

Galahad had known Fate all his life. Had seen it woven between the strands of the world. Had known Her voice and the sound of Her shears snipping the threads of women, men, and children alike.

It was fate that settled tightly about Tristan’s shoulders as they headed past the wall on this last mission for Rome. It was fate that whispered to him in the dead of night, woke him with sweat even in the cold of arriving winter and first snows and screams caught in his throat: the cry of the raven, mourning the fall of the stars.

Yet he knew fate. Fate had many threads not yet woven, waiting to see what took place to determine the pattern that would emerge. It was ever changing, ever shifting, guided as much by the tides of time and choices of man as the young and gnarled hands that spun and wove and cut.

They could not leave Arthur - his fate had joined with theirs, intertwining until the threads joined into one thick rope of deceased and those yet to die completely inable to return to the separate states in which they entered the world.

Yet Galahad would not allow the fate he had glimpsed to be the one that awaited him at the end of this choice. No Galahad the Chaste. No mourning. No cold nights with only the memory of love to warm him.

And so he fought with a savagery since unknown to him - spilling blood and splitting limbs without a twinge or wince or even acknowledgement of guilt in his soul for the thread cut short before it’s time. No attention was spared beyond two things: his own survival and the keeping of Tristan in his sight. Something was coming for him, hovering over those strong shoulders as a shadow from a raven above. Death loomed large, and Galahad would shoo it away before it had opportunity to drift any nearer.

And then he saw the raven - a man with shoulders bristling like feathers in the wind, his features dark as the most twisted depths of the most haunted woods, face carved of ancient stone - unyielding and without mercy as it served as the slab for sacrifice after unmerited bloodshed.

The demon before him parted as the curtain of the other world did, and Galahad was faced with only a man like any other.

But no - not a man at all. The man who would kill his love, the brave Tristan who stood tall and confident in the sights of the gaping maw of hell. Just as he always had.

Tristan knew this was the leader of the Saxon hoard, just as any would know it. Unlike the others who had fled, he stood his ground. No throwing obstacles towards Arthur’s sword, not for his knights - no. No, they took those swords within their own chests in order to spare Arthur a moment more away from the death that hunted him relentlessly, a never-ending hunger driving it onward with never-wearing pace.

Galahad breathed deeply, and charged in to meet his own fate.

Tristan dodged a blow, and Galahad wove himself in the pattern of battle to strike at the adversary. Steel met steel, and block followed swing followed block.

Dodge. Twist. Turn. Fall back. Push forward. Dancing in its purest form, Tristan the most reliable partner any could ever ask for. They had danced this step a thousand times, both in blood and in sweat, in death and in sowing life that would never reach the fertile ground it was meant for. His body was Tristan’s, and Tristan’s was his. They were One. A single entity conjoined at the soul - the very heart of all that they were and all they would ever be in years and lives to come.

Tristan lost his sword, and so Galahad pressed on. The adversary tossed his own aside with a brutal swing of steel, and so Tristan drew his dagger.

Blows. Throws. Dodging, twisting, reacting. Galahad darted in with his short sword to distract the adversary as Tristan readied his dagger. The massive saxon darted right with an agility not expected, and Galahad fell to the ground, his motion abruptly aborted, as his unprotected thigh severed on the muscular level. Roaring with the wilderness that had drawn them together, Tristan charged forward as a boar defending his nest. Galahad watched and struggled to his feet, struggled to hold his sword as a warrior should. When Tristan finally fell to the saxon, Galahad felt the injury in his own heart: torn asunder in canyons that would never heal. He lurched to extract revenge for that fatal blow and the saxon fell to the ground, sword pointed upwards. Then, as Galahad fell against him, pain. Bright. Red. Exultant.

Galahad collapsed upon the field of green, his side split open to spill life upon the thirsty grass. Tristan lay beside him, his blood racing to mingle with Galahad’s in one last, final merging of the essence of self.

Weakly, struggling, Galahad pulled himself to the love reaching to pull him. The saxon had left - searching for Arthur and the honor of excalibur, most likely. No one cared for the dead not yet cold, not on these plains of hellfire.

It was not the fate he had hoped for, but it was a fate he had chosen. Here, together with his love, nestled safe against his side and cradled in his arms. Galahad pressed his face into that neck even as he clung with the solid hold of a man at peace.

Tristan held him back, a hand buried at his nape and his head angled to press a last kiss to Galahad’s brow. Blessing and thanks combined with the parting kiss of the mourner to the dead before the body is burned to allow the soul safe passage even as he sought out Galahad’s hand with his other and grasped it tight.

They were one in death as they had never been in birth. Entangled in the clear light of day as they had only previously dared beneath the sheltering gaze of the moon. Galahad would not have to haunt the world a ghost, waiting until the day his soul moved on to meet with Tristan’s in the world that awaited them next. They would part that doorway together, from death to life as they had found in each other all those years ago.

It was not what Fate had chosen for them, two separate threads refusing to unravel back to their different parts, but it was what they had chosen. Galahad closed his eyes for the final time in this life, and smiled with the force of the peace settled deep within his soul.

The knights found them there, intertwined as they had always been in spirit if only occasionally in flesh, and Arthur felt his heart swell with even more sorrow at the sight.

Conceal knives, snacks, whatever you (or anyone else) might need!

Galahad wearing the Tactical Duty Kilt for Tristhad week

Tristhaweek, day 5. Today’s theme is “horses”.

See also the extra Tristhad daily sketch (yes, of course is two on a horse) HERE. More info about the week and other beautiful drawings can be found on the blog @tristhad-week

Pairing: Galahad/Tristan (King Arthur 2004) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: Pre-Canon, Tristhad Week, First Kiss, Misunderstandings, Eventual Smut Summary: Galahad wasn’t a fool. He knew perfectly well that the feelings he had harbored for Tristan for some time now would never be requited. But Tristan had never joined the knights’ jokes about this particular matter, and he had always inwardly thanked him for that… Until this moment.

@sirenja-and-the-stag​‘s beautiful gifset 

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Tristan brushed the ashes with two fingertips and looked up, still crouched by the circle of stones that had been a campfire.

“They left days ago. Knowing them, they’ll probably be back to the north side of the wall by now.”

Galahad nodded. He saw a twig on the ground by a trunk, and the earth was a little stirred. He figured one of the Woads must have been scratching the soil with the stick, probably out of boredom. He kicked the stick away and sighed as Tristan finally stood up. Galahad knew their mission had been only of research, but he still had hoped to find something more exciting than a camp abandoned several days before and a twig on the ground.

Tristhaweek, day 4. Today’s theme is “cannibalism”.

See also the extra Tristhad daily sketch HERE. More info about the week and other beautiful drawings can be found on the blog @tristhad-week

See also an extra Tristhad daily sketch (satyr AU!) HERE! (Probably this time the sketch will be loved more than the chibis XD) More info about the week and other beautiful drawings can be found on the blog @tristhad-week