To Love To Lose

A Valuable Lesson

The sound of the blades clashing together in the courtyard was, at this moment in time, the only thing from keeping Tristan from pulling his hair out. Alice's face was running through his head and he could not help but feel so damned sorry for the child when he had spoken to her the way he did. He couldn't stand to think of the look on her face, one of a lost animal, as it tore apart his insides like a cruel, poisoned knife.

He wished not to have hurt her but again, as always, he had to push her away.

CLASH

He had to be heartless and cruel

CLANG

He had to make sure that no one pushed past the barrier he had created

"TRISTAN!"

No one could see the real him, no one would understand! How could they?

"STOP!"

He was a monster.

"STOP IT TRISTAN YOU'RE HURTING ME!"

Tristan paused and dropped his sword behind him. There was a young man, Gabriel, lying by his feet a bloody shoulder and a stream of furious tears running down his 17 year old face. Tristan looked horrified for a moment and helped the young man to his feet, careful to use the well shoulder.

"I'm sorry Gabriel, my mind was elsewhere" Gabriel clenched his jaw and gave Tristan a curt nod with a defiant look in his eyes. He wanted to know that Tristan had not hurt him that bad, it was just the shock of seeing the blood. "Someone get him icleaned up!" Tristan shouted out to no one in particular. He frowned when he heard the sound of a woman's' voice and smelled the familiar scent of lavender tickle his senses. He spun round and saw Alice helping up Gabriel, dressed in sparring uniform.

"Rest dear boy, let me help you." Gabriel lent his whole weight on Alice and Tristan nearly leapt forward to stop her from falling over, but he stopped himself: she held strong. A 180 pound man lent all his weight on her and she did not struggle once. Tristan was pretty sure that, had she wanted to, she would have hoisted him over her shoulder. He observed the curve of her her body as she walked away, the tight leather pants clinging to her legs, accentuating her muscular legs and the billowing white shirt held in place by leather straps running in a criss cross motion up her arms showing of the tone of her arms as she supported the young boy.

Tristan turned away, unable to contain the lust that raged through his body and lent against a stone wall, catching his thoughts. Why couldn't he just be content. Look what he'd done. He'd hurt someone who had never done any harm to him, in fact he doubted Gabriel would hurt anyone, the poor man was scared of his shadow.

Tristan kicked himself for trying to makes excuses, he knew the beast within him was raging out of control. He needed to find a way to fix it. He needed to stop it from taking over him, if it did he didn't know who he'd hurt. It could be a soldier, it could be a friend, it could be Alice and Tristan knew if he even scratched her, he would rip himself in two right in the heart.

"You could have tried a different technique you know! Going at him like a maniac probably wasn't the greatest approach!" Tristan flinched and turned to face whoever was defiant enough to tell him how to do his job. He nearly jumped back against the wall when he saw Alice's petite frame staring up at him, her eyebrow raised.

"What?" Alice rolled her eyes at Tristan's inability to grasp at her meaning

"Hacking into him is not the way to improve his flawed stance, weak hold on the sword and obvious inability to track the balance of his opposition. You need to take him through drills and train him using targets, speed drills and balance techniques. You're a commander, how have you not taken note of this!" Tristan frowned and shook his head, he was unable to take in anything she was saying at this moment in time. She was talking too quickly and he was tired and aching.